Those new parents, from the birth of their children, have almost tightened every nerve in their brains, fearing that their children will have any mistakes or lose at the first starting line of life.

We are like this, and so are foreigners.

For example, when I was in graduate school, I met my mother-to-be's roommate, an Englishman with a York accent. She once bluntly expressed her concern about "breastfeeding" to me:

Roommate's anxiety is not unreasonable, because for ordinary people, raising young children is indeed a very important issue on the road of life.

However, this seems to be another matter for European aristocrats.

Just last year, Princess Kate of England gave birth to her third child, and then the media began to report all over the place, including the words of the Daily Mirror:

It seems that how nobles raise their children is still worth discussing in the eyes of Europeans today.

Then, in medieval Western Europe thousands of years ago, what were the attitudes and practices of ordinary people and nobles towards parenting?

"Born lucky"

Due to the backward medical level in the Middle Ages, the survival rate of newborns is very low, and those who can survive infancy can be described as "lucky".

According to the historian Melissa Snell, the neonatal mortality rate in different periods of the Middle Ages was between 30% and 50%, and even higher during the plague.

Disease and hunger claimed so many children's lives in the Middle Ages that some scholars thought that ordinary parents in the Middle Ages would never make emotional investments in their children.

On the one hand, heavy agricultural production makes it impossible for mothers to breastfeed their children and keep supervision over them, which leads to the latter often getting sick or dying due to lack of resistance.

On the other hand, the opinions of the court and the church also let parents relax their care for their children. Some legal records prove that although there were many child deaths caused by neglect of management in the Middle Ages, community courts would not prosecute such acts, which gave some bad parents an opportunity to evade sanctions.

The charity and forgiveness advocated by the church also give some parents psychological comfort and excuses to excuse their mistakes from the moral level.

Of course, some "infanticide" behaviors, especially in the Middle Ages, also increased the mortality rate of children to a greater or lesser extent.

As early as the Roman Empire and some barbarian tribes, infanticide has been recognized by the public-the newborn must be placed in front of the father, and if he takes over the child, the child will be accepted as a family member; But if the family is on the verge of starvation or the child is deformed, and for any other reason, the father is unwilling to accept the child, then they will be abandoned or killed directly.

Although this practice gradually decreased with the religionization of Europe in the 4th century, many poor families chose this helpless move.

However, compared with the poor ordinary people, children from noble families can really be called "born lucky"

According to Dr. Carolyn Harris, a medieval scholar, aristocrats have formed a set of quite perfect methodology on the issue of raising children.

Usually, the aristocrats in the Middle Ages entrusted their newborns to the nurses (wet nurses) in rural estates, which was considered as a necessary way to protect children's health at that time.

Although this practice may separate children from their parents for several months, the survival rate of aristocratic children is indeed high.

Moreover, as far as the feelings of royal parents towards their children are concerned, they also have completely different attitudes from ordinary families.

Some of them show great interest in the daily care of children.

For example, King Edward I of England of England visited Bayuli Monastery when he was a teenager, and unfortunately he was seriously ill. During this period, his mother, Eleanor Of Provence, the queen of Henry III, ignored the church's opposition and visited Edward I of England many times, showing a deep mother-child friendship.

Matilda, Queen of Flanders of William the Conqueror, also clearly expressed her love for her eldest son Robert. Even when the latter turned against her father, the queen stubbornly supported her son.

"Raise without teaching, teach without raising"

Ordinary families in the Middle Ages simply couldn't afford the high educational expenses, or ordinary people couldn't get proper education except in monasteries.

Some children learn to walk by themselves, so they have to help with housework-the younger ones have to go to the Woods to catch birds and pick up eggs; Older people must follow adults to cut crops.

On the other hand, aristocratic parents are more concerned about their children's health and education, but often entrust their daily care to others. The example mentioned above is just an example. Western European aristocrats generally don't take care of their own children. )

Usually aristocratic boys leave their families at the age of seven and are sent to other lords or monasteries to learn combat skills and knowledge. The girls stayed in the fief to learn how to deal with the daily affairs of the castle.

For example, Eleanor of Aquitaine, aquitaine, once sent her young children to Fontfroude Monastery for education, and she never had any deep contact with them.

However, when the children grew up, Eleanor had considerable political power. She once raised a ransom to free her son Richard I from prison, and later provided vital support for her youngest son John I to ascend to the throne.

Besides, King Richard stayed away from his mother when he was a teenager and lived in the home of his future father-in-law Earl Warwick? Learn military and court struggle skills.

In addition, the children of the royal family in the Middle Ages were trained in different roles according to their gender and birth order.

For example, in the eleventh century, the education of sons was mainly focused on military training, so the literacy rate of royal women was sometimes higher.

For example, King Henry I once wrote only an "X" as his name in the marriage contract, while his queen Anna of Kiev wrote a beautiful "Anna Regina" in the name and title.

But in the16th century, the education of elite men and women has become more and more similar.

"parenting habits"

2. Weber Kellerman, Ingeborg (1997): Kinderhaite. A culture. 1.Aufl。 Frankfurt am Main: insel Weil (insel-Tashenbach, 1972)

3. Melitta Weiss-Amer: Medieval Women's Food Guide during Pregnancy: Origin, Text and Tradition *

4. Chance, Francis, Chance, Joseph, Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages (Harper & Hang, 1987).

5. Bound Ties: Peasant Families in Medieval England (Oxford University Press, 1986).