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Wimbly512 t1_jb6vc9q wrote

Fascinating article. The pictures alone are worth a review.

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Jeffcor13 t1_jb77a1p wrote

I’m fascinated and heartbroken reading this article. So many babies die at a young age today, and it was so much worse throughout history. Even well intentioned parents who loved their kids so much were told really bizarre things by religious leaders or political groups, that ended up harming or killing their children.

So much suffering and death. The species survives but the individuals share a tale of woe and suffering. I’ve got a 6 month old now and I just can’t imagine what would happen to me if something happened to her.

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mdizzle106 t1_jb7eec1 wrote

Replying to Jeffcor13 (#2,175,372)

I remember reading about a man in middle ages England who had lost all 12 of his children in a fire. It was a letter written from a magistrate or something imploring law enforcement at the time to have mercy on him because he wasn't in his right state of mind.

It was touching to me because it flew in the face of everything we know about life at the time. Rather than stern punishments (send him to the rack!) people were understanding of tragedy and merciful.

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tjeick t1_jb7kocr wrote

Super awesome article. I’ve always been curious about this subject since I had my own kids.

I’m even more curious how the sensibilities of various periods meshed with the terrible twos etc.

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Kholzie t1_jb7la3n wrote

People often think of medieval people being wrong about everything. Indeed there is a lot of flawed logic here, but there are pieces here and there that still hold true today and it makes you think about how much of parenting is innate.

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Knittin_hats t1_jb836ks wrote

Replying to tjeick (#2,175,782)

According to the article, you put them in a little wooden cart so they don't fall out the window. Try to keep them from falling into boiling water, and then after they turn 3, you put them in charge of babysitting the new baby.

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AliMcGraw t1_jb8gmvp wrote

Replying to tjeick (#2,175,782)

There's a book called "Parenting for Primates" or something like that where a scientist compares how humans care for their babies vs how various monkeys and apes do, it's pretty fascinating.

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Many_Tomatillo5060 t1_jb993ll wrote

This is too cool! Thank you for sharing. I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole now!

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Neb_Djed t1_jb9apyp wrote

Mansplaining - is the concept of presentism no longer avoided in historical research? Because that's all my peer reviewers ever catch me on is when I use such a term

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uncle-icepick t1_jb9m8ce wrote

Replying to mdizzle106 (#2,175,593)

>It was touching to me because it flew in the face of everything we know about life at the time. Rather than stern punishments (send him to the rack!) people were understanding of tragedy and merciful.

In Jeffrey Singman's "The Middle Ages: Everyday Life in Medieval Europe," he makes an interesting point about this - that mercy was fairly common in local rulings (in certain times in certain places) precisely because the punishments were so harsh, which elicited sympathy for the accused. Especially in the case of mitigating circumstances, as you mentioned.

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HonorableAssassins t1_jba1ow0 wrote

Replying to Kholzie (#2,175,810)

Most of what we think they werr wrong about is total myth anyways.

Medicine, sure, but even then they succeeded in doing surgery to remove cataracts and other crazy shit to restore sight to the blind. They had less science but they werent stupid, they were still people.

The worst myth of all, im not sure if is the one where they 'only drank beer' because they found out a small amount of alcohol could quickly purify water without causing intoxication, or 'were all illiterate' because they didnt read latin in england or France. 'They never bathed' when bathhouses existed pretty mich everywhere and were considered a fun night out is also pretty close.

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Seannit t1_jbb07m5 wrote

One of the first words was “mansplaining” so I stopped reading.

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