Childhood story

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The story of childhood (in the French original L'enfant et la vie familiale sous l'ancien régime ) is considered the main work of the historian Philippe Ariès . Beginning in the Middle Ages, the book deals with the development of childhood images and perceptions within Western European society. The story of childhood is considered to be the founding work of modern socio-historical childhood research in Europe and the USA . The book was published in France in 1960, the German translation was first published in 1975.

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In the story of childhood , Ariès advocates the thesis that modern conceptions of childhood and the resulting differentiations between children, adolescents and adults are by no means given a priori . Rather, it seems as if this distinction and the accompanying “emotional culture” towards children and childhood did not develop until the 16th and 17th centuries. The book traces this historical genesis in three parts. In the first part, Philippe Ariès dedicates himself to the discovery of childhood, in the second part he traces the analogous development of the school system and then, in the third part, deals with the effects of these changes on family life.

First part - The attitude towards childhood

The first part deals with the development of a specifically child-like world in the 16th and 17th centuries and the exclusion of children from the world of adults. Divided into five chapters, various historical sources are analyzed and interpreted that illustrate this process.

I. The ages

In the first chapter, Die Ages , Ariès describes the semantic shifting of the word child and the conceptual differentiation of different childhood phases. Up to the 17th century, designations such as baby or toddler could be applied to different age groups and have only been used since the Enlightenment to describe those stages of life that we associate with them today. Even at this time, however, the character of this differentiation seems to have a social rather than a biological basis: terms such as son, boy or boy are at the same time synonyms or nicknames for servants and thus refer to an "idea of ​​dependency" that is linked to the concept of childhood. Furthermore, Ariès demonstrates the development of a new precision of observation and the associated new world of feelings towards the child. In Mme de Sevigné's notes , he increasingly found the use of diminutives, which testify to a new tenderness towards the child.

It was not until the end of the 18th century that the stage of childhood was expanded again: the period of adolescence received a new level of attention in that epoch; but it will take until the 20th century until that stage of development is “baptized” the youth and linked with the characteristics of naturalness, spontaneity and joie de vivre. Since then, adolescence has "taken up a larger space [...] in that it pushes down the line between childhood and matures later"

Ariès interprets the emergence of these new categories of perception as the response of society to the changing demographic conditions. They are "an expression of how society reacts to the lifespan"

II. The discovery of childhood

In the second chapter, Ariès traces the discovery of childhood through the visual arts, which he interprets as symptomatic of the new awareness of the child. His argumentation is based on analyzes of images from the 11th to the 17th century, which he uses to demonstrate how the theme of childhood changes iconographically and is reinterpreted in painting. While in the Middle Ages the child is still portrayed as a small adult and is primarily considered in a religious context, the appearance of grave portraits of deceased children in the 16th century already indicates the development of this new emotional culture. Ariès attributes the previous neglect or emotional indifference to childhood as a "rapidly passing transition period" to the high child mortality rate of the epoch. But the image of the child is still integrated into a Christian understanding of mourning and death. In the 17th century, however, it was already fashionable to have portraits of one's own children made, and the way children are portrayed in family portraits has also changed: it has become the compositional center around which their relatives gather. Painting also began to pay more attention to the specifically child's physicality. During this time the convention developed to portray the child naked. In addition, the child is reinterpreted iconologically: since the early modern times it has been a symbol of innocence and has become a metaphor for the purity of the soul.

III. The child's clothes / IV. Small contribution to the history of the games

The third and fourth chapters deal with the child's clothing and play. Here, too, a change can be traced back to the 16th century. Ariès interprets the changing clothing habits as a further indication of the new attitude towards the child and states for the Middle Ages:

“With regard to its appearance, the child was no different from the adult. A more contradictory attitude towards childhood cannot be imagined. The clothes show how little childhood was treated as such in everyday life. As soon as the child outgrew the diaper, ie the length of material that was wrapped tightly around his body, he was dressed like the other men and women of his class. "

From the 16th century onwards, however, the dress has become a specific children's clothing, which is only replaced by trousers for boys from the age of 8. This quality also points to the prevailing idea of the child's asexuality and gender neutrality.

Ariès makes an important observation when he states that these changes point not only to a stronger separation of children's and adult worlds, but also to a habitual differentiation between the classes and classes. While festive day scenarios on paintings from the 16th century still depict the indiscriminate participation of young and old, poor and rich in the various rituals, games and dances, a century later the adult nobility seems to be trying to get rid of both children and common people To delimit the people (this also applies to the educated middle class in the 18th century). Similar developments take place in a wide variety of amusement activities, such as parlor games, movement games, playing with dolls, dressing up, and telling fairy tales, which from the 17th century onwards are practiced almost exclusively by children. Other areas, such as gambling, are assigned to the adult world.

V. From shamelessness to innocence

In the last chapter, From Shamelessness to Innocence , Ariès traces another change in mentality that primarily relates to the relationship between childhood and sexuality. The detailed notes of Jean Héroard , Louis XIII's family doctor, are used here . , on the young king's upbringing as the main source. It is shown that the tabooing of sexuality towards children did not begin until the end of the 17th century. In contrast, the young Louis XIII. completely cleared up by the age of four. Héroard's reports testify to a surprisingly open approach to the subject of sexuality and show that the boy participates in sexual jokes and innuendos of the servants. The moral upbringing, which teaches children to keep physical distance and to accept certain topics as improper, does not begin until they are seven years old. This way of dealing with people makes it clear that childhood was interpreted as an asexual phase of life. This notion is replaced in the 18th century by the imagination of a childlike innocence that needs to be protected. Educators and moralists are increasingly warning against “indecent” behavior in the presence of the child. There is a widespread "striving for propriety " to be recognized, which is expressed in the selection of decent literature and child-friendly entertainment.

Part Two - School Life

I. Young and old students in the Middle Ages

As an introduction, with a reference to the development of schools in antiquity , Ariès describes in the first chapter how a Christian school system came into being in the Middle Ages after the collapse of that ancient culture. The occasion was the requirements for the priestly office. This included knowledge of the liturgical texts, knowledge of the calendar and artistic and musical skills. Classes initially took place in the church itself, based on oral tradition. Later rooms were rented in the communities in which the lessons were taking place. Ariès describes how teaching expanded to include the so-called Artes in the Carolingian era. These included the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, dialectics) and the quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music), as well as lessons in theology and canon law . The medieval school was reserved exclusively for clergy and monks, but towards the end of that era it opened up more and more to wider sections of the population. The lack of elementary and university education in the natural sciences and humanities distinguishes the model of the medieval school from that of antiquity. This fact indicates a lack of levels of instruction in general. Ariès describes that in the Middle Ages there was no separation either in terms of age groups or in terms of learning content adapted to them. Classes were in no particular order and were attended by students of all ages. The subject matter was therefore the same for everyone, the only difference was the number of repetitions of the topics (lack of documents, oral tradition). The starting age of the students was also very variable in the Middle Ages. Ariès speaks of seven to sometimes even seventeen year olds. Here it becomes clear that the image of a child worthy of protection, who is also given a special role alongside the adult, as is the case today, did not yet exist. One took no offense that young and old were learning together. In addition, this mixture was normal in everyday life.

II. A new institution: the college

Based on the medieval traditions, there was gradually a segregation of the age groups. This development goes hand in hand with that of the school. At first there was a separation of the younger age groups, later this process also spread to the older students. In contrast to the medieval school, in which there was extensive freedom for teachers and students, the intention, shaped by the Christian tradition, established itself to keep students away from worldly temptations so as not to endanger the desired moral education. However, the separation of the age groups is initially limited to the student body, whereas no distinctions are made in everyday life and in professions. So colleges were founded in the 15th century. They arise from asylums for poor students and develop into institutions for scholarship holders, which are financed by an abbot or prelate. This still small number of students is later expanded by external students who also study at the college, but are housed with a local resident. The teaching staff of this new type of school was mainly provided by older scholarship holders who were also housed in the college. The college no longer only made it possible for educated clergy to go to school, it also established itself in the rest of the population to send children to the college for at least a few years.

III. The beginnings of the school classes

Today's school classes have a corresponding average age and a specific level of knowledge. They are therefore a determining factor in the differentiation of age groups between childhood and adolescence. However, this division is not yet known in the medieval tradition. As already mentioned, many age groups learned the same material simultaneously. This made such a gradation and planning of knowledge acquisition impossible and therefore represented such a great innovation in the 16th century. Initially practiced in a very undifferentiated way in the form of several groups that learned in one room, but were separated according to their level of knowledge, developed gradually after a cycle of about six, later eight years, which the students went through more or less stringently. Some students only completed a few of these stages, others entered a higher class or skipped a class. Another feature of our modern school class is spatial specialization. As already mentioned, the lessons initially took place in a room for several classes. In the 17th century it became common practice to assign a room to each class. Ariès justifies this development with the increasing number of pupils and not with an awakening awareness of a didactic necessity. "The classes at Saint-Jérome had more than two hundred pupils, and the classes at the large colleges such as Louis-le-Grand moved in these dimensions up to the 18th century."

This process shows the effort to tailor the subject matter and the learning environment more and more to the student. We have become aware of the special position of children and young people, says Ariès. However, one should not misunderstand these characteristics. Occasionally, age groups coincide with grade levels, but until the 17th and 18th centuries there was by no means the homogeneity in terms of age in the classes as we know it today.

IV. The age groups

In the next chapter, Ariès takes a closer look at the age of the students and how it was related to grade levels. This relationship is of course not exempt from the profound developments that attitudes towards childhood went through as a whole. It can be stated that there were school careers that were completed unusually quickly. Much faster than the average in the respective time at school. What is astonishing here is that those who got through school at an above-average speed, mostly also followed brilliant paths after leaving school. So Ariès notes just by the fact that these men wrote memoirs , which Ariès used, that they were above the average at the time. Because he was often unable to write or read. According to Ariès, these cases of precociousness can be traced back to medieval customs, which were based on the fact that all age groups learned together and therefore a particularly young student hardly caused a stir.

Gradually there was a disapproval of early school enrollment, which had the consequence that the student body became more homogeneous overall, considering the age groups. The development of the college therefore marks a turning point with regard to childhood. The pupils started school when they were nine or ten years old. Childhood was “extended”, as it were, since many students in the Middle Ages and up to the 16th and early 17th centuries started school much earlier. In the 19th century, the view gradually developed that this early phase of childhood should be separated from the phase of youth. University education prevailed among the youths of the bourgeoisie, separating them from the common people. Subsequently, the connection from age group to class level as we know it today gradually developed.

V. The progress of the discipline

In this chapter, Ariès indicates how admission rituals and discipline developed from the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages there was no school hierarchy as we know it today. Nevertheless, the school was "not egalitarian or democratic" at the time, as there were definitely differences between old and new students. However, the concept of authority was alien. Living together can be described as comradely and collegial. Drinking bouts and meals together should consolidate this bond.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, however, this system was increasingly deprecated. Until 18./19. In the 19th century, the system of order, hierarchy and classification we know today gradually established itself. This goes hand in hand with the history of corporal punishment, which was established in the 16th century and subsided in the course of the 18th century. The abolition of punishment can be justified by the fact that it was no longer assumed that the child would take an opposing position to the adult, but rather that preparation for the time as an adult must be made. But these liberal efforts encountered a strong countercurrent in the form of military rigor, which, according to the zeitgeist of the time, "was in itself educationally valuable". What is new about this is that it is the first point in time when the school system is not shaped by a church or monastic institution, but by the military. So there is, so to speak, a “militarization” of the school. Characteristics such as masculinity, toughness and perseverance are appreciated and sought after. The officer's class is a good example of this. The soldier is also respected in society. So there is a special focus on the youth, which was unknown until then.

VI. From day school to boarding school

At the beginning of the observation there was no boarding school. The pupils mostly lived in the city with citizens and were therefore largely withdrawn from their father's or school authority. Their everyday life was little different from that of adult bachelors. A hierarchical discipline was established at the college, at least for the few who lived there. This was then extended to a boarding school separate from the college, which developed at the end of the 18th century. The main idea at the time seemed to be to separate school children from the other age groups of society. The next important point is the increasing importance of the family, which has the consequence that the ratio of the student body shifts in favor of the external. The families take on the supervisory function, so to speak, as well as the moral education of the children, which were previously the tasks of schools.

VII. The Petites Écoles

In the 17th century there was a specialization with regard to the age groups from five to seven year olds to ten and eleven year olds. The particularly young students were thus given a special status compared to the other age groups and therefore taught separately. What is astonishing, however, is that another phenomenon is establishing itself at the same time. Namely the separation of the school forms for common people as well as aristocracy and bourgeoisie.

“I believe that a connection can be established between these two phenomena. They are both expressions of a general tendency towards isolation, aimed at separating what was once fused - a tendency not alien to the Cartesian revolution of “clarity of ideas” and which culminates in the egalitarian modern societies where a rigorous one geographical subdivision has taken the place of the promiscuous constitution of the old hierarchies. "

VIII. The hardship of school life

Based on medieval customs, Ariès describes the harshness of everyday life at that time. It was not uncommon for brawls and armed fighting. This was also reflected in the practice of accepting new students. Beatings and violent clashes were the order of the day, it seems. But also student protests went hand in hand with extreme severity and armament. The drinking binge in the colleges and sexual debauchery can hardly be compared with today's customs. "A hundred pupils have syphilis before they get to Aristotle" and Ariès adds: "and Aristotle was read early". Precisely for this reason there were such strict statutes as an absolute ban on women at the colleges, even if only as attendants. And this is also a reason for the isolation of the sexes in the colleges and in the later school system. Women are becoming more and more mocked intruders into a male school world. Subsequent to pressure from the educators, the concept of the well-educated child prevailed (17th century). We later find this image of the good child in the form of the petty bourgeois or gentleman. This social type was completely unknown before the 19th century. These customs, which were initially restricted to children in schools, spread more and more to the elite of the 19th century and later became the model for modern man.

Third part - the family

In the final third part of the story of childhood , the situation of family life is examined. In the chapters Family Pictures and From the Medieval to the Modern Family , Ariès shows to what extent the development of a modern conception of childhood goes hand in hand with that of today's family and how they are a condition and precondition for one another. In this section, too, Ariès uses the visual arts as an informative source. It is shown that the discovery of childhood goes hand in hand with the appearance of the family motif in painting. Accordingly, family representations were also limited to the religious context up to the 16th century; the secular family was only discovered by painters in the 17th century. Images of everyday family situations are increasingly appearing in which the child is increasingly moving into the center of the picture. Ariès traces these changes in iconography back to the general social change and the new attention that he has given to the family as an instance. Before this development, it is stated, the family represented a social, but not an emotional reality. On the one hand, this is attributed to the fact that the child left the home from the age of 7 to learn a trade in a company. On the other hand, it can be derived from the premodern socialization system . The dualism of private and public is largely unknown to the people of the Middle Ages , there is a high degree of sociality : The biological family lives in close proximity to its servants and is constantly surrounded by people who are not family members, with whom they have similarly close relationships to chat. From the 16th century onwards, however, there was also a change in family history. As more children attend school, the time spent together with relatives is longer. As early as the 17th century, the relationship between sociality and family seemed balanced. The commandments of propriety, which regulate interpersonal interaction and create closeness and familiarity, still apply. In the 18th century, however, these manners were replaced by the concept of courtesy , which is still valid in its form today: Instead of a stronger bond, distance should now be maintained, and the intimacy of private life should be respected. This change in manners is to be interpreted as a symptom of the modern separation of profession, privacy and public . This can be particularly seen in the changes in living habits: In times of high sociality, the house is the central meeting place; it does not primarily serve the family as living space, but at the same time as a professional location where unannounced visits are the norm. Up until the 17th century, the house consisted of all-purpose rooms that were used equally and flexibly by all residents. In the 18th century, the rooms were assigned specific functions: the house was divided into living room, bedroom, dining room and children's room and separate areas for the gentlemen and their employees. The small family is increasingly shutting itself off from visitors, the job is exercised outside and inside the family, too, the family is increasingly distancing itself from its service staff.

Method and sources

Aries uses a wide variety of sources: for the reasoning in the first and third parts, he primarily uses images, memoirs and letters as sources. The reports of the Héroard about the growing up of Louis XIII. and the records of Madame de Sevignées are two of his main sources. In the second part, Ariès also uses various statistical sources.

Reviews

  • “The great thing about Ariès' book is the wealth of historical material and often new observations. The fact that the book is exciting to read for anyone interested and does not break down into a list of facts is due to the fact that Ariès writes neither a history of ideas, nor an institutional or moral history, but a history of meanings, feelings, and attitudes that are expressed in figurative form Representations and texts and express in the details of the life of children and adults " (Frankfurter Rundschau)
  • “Ariès' book was a resounding success and has become the primum mobile in family history research. Thorough, vivid, and resourceful, it is a pioneering work that deserves all of the fame and attention it has received. It is one of those groundbreaking books that no traditional historian could have written. Without it, our culture would be poorer. ” (The New York Review of Books)

structure

Outline of the story of childhood
Preface to the German edition by Hartmut von Hentig
introduction
First part - The attitude towards childhood I. The ages
II. The discovery of childhood
III. The child's clothes
IV. Small contribution to the history of the games
V. From shamelessness to innocence
Concluding remark The two attitudes towards childhood
Part Two - School Life I. Young and old students in the Middle Ages
II. A new institution: the college
III. The beginnings of the school classes
IV. The age groups
V. The progress of the discipline
VI. From day school to boarding school
VII. The "Petites Écoles"
VIII. The hardship of school life
Conclusion The school and the length of childhood
Third part - the family I. Family pictures
II. From the medieval to the modern family
Concluding remarks on family and sociality

expenditure

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 83, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  2. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 88, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  3. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 90, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  4. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 93, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  5. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 112, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  6. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 282, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  7. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 346, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  8. ^ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 356, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  9. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 380, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  10. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 438/439, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  11. ↑ Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood p. 448, dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1
  12. ^ A b Ph. Ariès: History of Childhood , dtv, 16th edition, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-30138-1