ABSTRACT
Children traditionally find themselves on the fringes of historical discourse. Not only was childhood itself a largely unrecognized stage of life until the early modern era, historians generally prefer to examine topics with greater archival meat. As would be expected, source material for any study of childhood can be limited when children are confined to the periphery. Sifting through archival sources for any bit of information can be laborious, time-consuming, and a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack. As a result, children largely remain silent players in the annals of history.
