Description

Childhood and youth are doubtless very formative periods of human life. The budding blossom – often fed by high spirits and unconcern – makes people forget that the flower will lose its bright petals once: Physical decline, growing old, plays a very important role within biographies of individuals and within social structures of societies – during the Middle Ages, too. Nevertheless, these “dark phases” of life appear in historical sources, arts, and literature only as side issues.

Therefore, today findings about the early and late years of one’s life can be gained only by combination of archaeological, historical, philological methods and those of art history and history of law. From such a procedure, there arise very astonishing insights into demographic trends, practice of upbringing and education, and into contemporary ideas of childhood and old age. And it also becomes clear that in those days the relations between different generations were not without conflicts.

2009, 160 pages, hardcover, illustrations, 17 x 24 cm;
ISBN: 978-3-938533-28-4