ABSTRACT
Over three decades have passed since Philippe Aries posited that medieval people did not recognize childhood as a distinct phase in the human lifecycle. Although Aries saw the medieval attitude toward children as benign, or at worst indifferent, scholars responding to the questions he raised sometimes painted an even gloomier picture, seeing the European Middle Ages as an era dominated by neglect and even outright abuse of the youngest members of society. Perhaps the most extreme statement of this belief came in 1970 from Lloyd DeMause, who described pre-modern childhood as "a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken."
