Childhood in Medieval Poland (1050-1300): Constructions and Realities in a European Context

✍ Scribed by Matthew Koval

• Publisher: Brill
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 230
• Series: East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450, 73
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book shows that childhood was an essential element in the arguments and purposes of authors in medieval Poland from 1050-1300 CE. This role of childhood in medieval mindsets has salient parallels throughout Europe and this is also explored in this volume.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgements
Figures and Tables
Chapter 1 Introduction
1 Historiographical Context
2 Description of Contents
Chapter 2 Child and Hero: The Use of Childhood in the Narrative of Gallus Anonymus
1 Who Was Gallus? New Approaches to the Deeds of the Princes of the Poles
2 Childhood as a Time of Development and Prophecy
3 Age Terminology and Dynastic Status: When Is a Man a Man?
4 Vulnerability and Care: From Parents and the Community
5 Motherly Care and Female Children
6 Comparisons: Cosmas of Prague
7 Conclusions
Chapter 3 Vincent Kadłubek and Thinking with Children
1 Vincent’s Overlap with Gallus
2 Parental Love of Children … and the Virtue of Violating It
3 Filial and Familial Piety
4 Childishness, a Negative Stereotype Applied to Rulers
5 Prophecy and Children
6 Child(hood) as a Rhetorical Device
7 Conclusions
Chapter 4 The Henryków Book: The Weight of Future Children and the Threat of Youth
1 The Text and Its Purpose
2 Youth as Part of Dynasty and Potential Threat
3 How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down: What Is a Responsible Age?
4 “Kids These Days”: Disappointment in the Next Generation
5 Memory and Youth, a New Kind of Remembrance in Poland
6 The Care for Children
7 Conclusions
Chapter 5 Children and Childhood in Hagiography
1 Are Good Children Serious Children?
2 Education Issues: Nature vs. Nurture, God as Teacher, Male vs. Female
3 Precious or Burdensome? Children Three Years and Younger
4 Children, Childhood, and Descendants in the Canonization Story of St. Stanisław
5 The Miracles
6 Latin Words Relating to Children in the Miracula: Exceptions and Rules
7 Conclusions
Chapter 6 The Child in the Community of the Dead
1 Incidence of Child Burials
2 The Problem of Grave Goods in Child Burials
3 Multiple Burials
4 Spatial Features of Child Burials
5 In Search of Pattern: Micro vs. Macro Comparisons
6 Age, Sex, and Grave Goods
7 Final Thoughts
Chapter 7 Conclusions and Comparisons
1 The Child as Symbol of the Future, Prophecy
2 Born Great or Achieving Greatness?
3 Age and Social Categories
4 Special Care for Children
5 Children and Emotion
6 Good Kid, Bad Kid
7 Thinking with Children
8 Children in a Wider Context
Appendix
Bibliography
Index of Modern Authors
Index of Subjects