ABSTRACT
Childhood and the experience of being a child in 1500 and afterwards were built on a legacy from ancient Greece and Rome and then from the influence of Christianity through the Middle Ages. Infanticide, child abandonment, sale of children and wet-nursing have been seen as the hallmark of child-rearing in the classical world. They undoubtedly existed, as did Roman emphasis on the power of fathers. This negative interpretation is now modified by evidence amongst the wealthy of close and affectionate relations between parents and children, though alongside them there was an acceptance that childhood was not an important or enviable stage in life. Christianity raised the status of the child. Infanticide became a crime. Scholars of the Middle Ages have shown that there was a clear recognition of the stages of growth, and much evidence of love of children and of grief if they died. Mothers were assigned the major role for children up to the age of seven. There was also, for the minority of boys who went to school, age-grading and harsh discipline.
