Consider how silly this well received argument was. Interesting footnote: For years art historians explained this embarrassing fact by suggesting that the artists lacked the skill to paint children. The musculature, dress, expressions, and mannerisms are all adult. Aries points out that most young people were apprenticed, became workers in the fields (later, after the industrial revolution, in the factories) and generally entered fully into the adult society at a very early age.Īs evidence he cites art work. This is an argument which Aries overlooked). (Recall that in Roman Catholic theology 7 is the age of reason, the age when one could begin to commit serious sin. In the Medieval world a young person of 7 was already an adult.

Their cultures lacked the concept of childhood. Rather, while there were an abundance of young humans between the ages of 7 and 15, they were not seen as children. Not even a Frenchman would try a claim as bold as that. But, on his argument, childhood did not really penetrate the great masses of the lower and lower-middle classes until very late 19th and early 20th centuries.Īries does not claim there were no young people. It did not exist at all in the Medieval period, grew into existence in the upper classes in the 16th and 17th centuries, solidified itself somewhat more fully in the 18th century upper classes, and finally mushroomed on the scene of the 20th century in both the upper and lower classes. On Aries' view, childhood is a very new concept. Hundreds of books have been written since 1963 in the area of the history of childhood, and are deeply indebted to Aries for his methods of inferential history. His book found new ways of understanding the past, and his methods unlock the story of common families and the youth of these families. Thus, exit the common folk as a subject for history.Īries turned all that upside down.

History is made up of interpretations of written records. Rather, historians have not had data about the common folk. This upper class bias of historians has not, in the main, been motivated by ideological concerns. Notably absent from much historical study has been the story of the common person of past ages. History has mainly been the study of kings, nobles, wars, the rise and fall of governments and empires. Translated into English as CENTURIES OF CHILDHOOD, Philippe Aries' book has revolutionized the study of young people.

In 1963 a landmark book was published in France. Centuries of Childhood CENTURIES OF CHILDHOOD By Philippe Aries.

Człowiek i śmierć by Philippe Ariès