Parents, Children, and the Church in the Earlier Middle Ages(Presidential Address)
Janet L. Nelson
The titles of Ecclesiastical History Society conferences have sometimes presented the Church as part a pair that carries more than hint contradiction: and War; Wealth. Well now: Childhood? Historians I can’t help recalling Heloise’s rhetorical question: ‘What harmony can there be between pupils nursemaids, desks cradles?’ Last year we reminded ourselves blood martyrs is life Church: this and, fortunately placed Heloise, I’m confident we’ll show multifarious ways in which flesh-and-blood children been life. ‘The Church’ shorthand: not only do to speak many churches, but varieties ecclesiastical attitude, conflicts interest, juxtapositions negotiations clerical lay (for parents, too, are members Church), all above, change. Equally subject change variety other element year’s pair. Although stages child’s development biological, physiological, perhaps psychological givens, genetically programmed, childhood itself construct, culturally determined. As historians, it’s our job historicize it: identify phases modes variations its construction, adaptation, lived experience.
Studies in Church History