ABSTRACT
Research on the history of childhood over the last fifty years has shown that concepts of childhood were not merely philosophical but were rooted in everyday life. The medieval Church developed procedures for overseeing children, notably at birth and at puberty, and so did the legal system. This chapter presents a study that concerns three major areas of the perception of childhood: in the Church, the law, and education, from about 600 to 1500 CE. Education was the most fertile in producing assistance for children in terms of textbooks and teaching, but because only a minority of children went to school, it touched fewer of the population than did the Church or the law. Finally, the chapter explores whether this period was characterised by continuity or by change and whether there were significant turning points in the understanding of childhood in medieval England during the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.
