Socialising the Child in Late Medieval England

An investigation into a variety of texts providing guidance for teachers, parents, and children themselves.The question and procedures of integrating children into wider society during the medieval and early modern period are debated across a wide range of contemporary texts, in both print and manuscript form. This study takes as its focus the ways in which vernacular literature (including English courtesy poems, incunabula and sixteenth-century printed household books, grammar school statutes, and pedagogic books) provided a guide to socialising children. Theauthor examines how the transmission and reception of this literature, showing how patterns of thought changed during the period for parents, teachers, and young people alike; and places children and family reading networks into the context of debates on the history of childhood, and the history of the book. MERRIDEE L, BAILEY Is a social and cultural historian of late medieval and early modern England. She is an Associate Member of the Facultyof History, University of Oxford.

A thoroughly researched and clearly written book, and.an important contribution to the history of childhood., A very useable overview and well-thought-out interpretation of a large corpus of texts very important to the history of English literature and elite culture., This is an excellent continuation of the recent interest in the history of the child. ... A well-researched and solidly argued study., Bailey's mastery of the didactic and proscriptive texts she has studied is exhaustive and commendable, made even more impressive by the sheer number of manuscripts and incunabula she consulted., [The author's] comprehensive research provides a foundation for future scholars to work in a rich field that rewards close analysis.

Merridee L. Bailey is a social and cultural historian of late medieval and early modern England. She is an Associate Member of the Faculty of History, University of Oxford.