Cornelia Horn - Böcker

Inquiring into childhood is one of the most appropriate ways to address the perennial and essential question of what it is that makes human beings – each of us – human. In Childhood in History: Perceptions of Children in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, Aasgaard, Horn, and Cojocaru bring together the groundbreaking work of nineteen leading scholars in order to advance interdisciplinary historical research into ideas about children and childhood in the premodern history of European civilization. The volume gathers rich insights from fields as varied as pedagogy and medicine, and literature and history. Drawing on a range of sources in genres that extend from philosophical, theological, and educational treatises to law, art, and poetry, from hagiography and autobiography to school lessons and sagas, these studies aim to bring together these diverse fields and source materials, and to allow the development of new conversations. This book will have fulfilled its unifying and explicit goal if it provides an impetus to further research in social and intellectual history, and if it prompts both researchers and the interested wider public to ask new questions about the experiences of children, and to listen to their voices.

Inquiring into childhood is one of the most appropriate ways to address the perennial and essential question of what it is that makes human beings – each of us – human. In Childhood in History: Perceptions of Children in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, Aasgaard, Horn, and Cojocaru bring together the groundbreaking work of nineteen leading scholars in order to advance interdisciplinary historical research into ideas about children and childhood in the premodern history of European civilization. The volume gathers rich insights from fields as varied as pedagogy and medicine, and literature and history. Drawing on a range of sources in genres that extend from philosophical, theological, and educational treatises to law, art, and poetry, from hagiography and autobiography to school lessons and sagas, these studies aim to bring together these diverse fields and source materials, and to allow the development of new conversations. This book will have fulfilled its unifying and explicit goal if it provides an impetus to further research in social and intellectual history, and if it prompts both researchers and the interested wider public to ask new questions about the experiences of children, and to listen to their voices.

Die Autoren der Beiträge in diesem Band zeigen aus unterschiedlichsten Perspektiven und im Rückgriff auf diverse Quellen wie die christlichen Apokryphen und Papyri sowie auf Dokumente der Sozial- und Medizingeschichte, inwieweit die Darstellung von Kindheit Erkenntnisse über die Entwicklung des Christentums und der Gesellschaft in der Spätantike bringt. In den hier gesammelten Aufsätzen geht es um Kinder und Familienbeziehungen in Christentum und Spätantike, die Ideologie der Familie, ägyptisches Mönchtum, Askese, Mönchtum und Eigentum, Erbrecht, Kinder in Religion und Heilkunde, Generationenverhältnisse, Familienleben, Frauen und Frühchristentum, Armut, Missbrauch von Kindern, Witwen in Frühchristentum und Spätantike, Ideal und Wirklichkeit im Leben in der Spätantike, bis hin zur den Darstellungen der Kindheit Jesu.