The Church and Childhood Papers Read at the 1993 Summer Meeting and the 1994 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society - Studies in Church History

This work - a collection of over 30 original essays - examines the role of children in the Church: Holy Innocents, boy bishops, child saints, child martyrs, child prophets, choirboys and choirgirls, orphans, charity-school children, Sunday-school children, children in abject poverty and relative affluence, children in pictures and in literature. The contributors raise questions such as: when did childhood begin and end?; How deep were the bonds of affection binding Christian parents and children at different periods?; Was there, indeed, such a thing as childhood, or were children merely little adults?; How should Christian children be educated?; And what should they read? The way children worshipped and their participation in the liturgy are recurrent themes.;Discussion of their musical contributions extends from the 14th-century choristers of Norwich, to the Lichfield choristers of the Reformation period and on to the 20th-century choirgirls of Salisbury Cathedral. The book includes the publication of an original motet, "Out of the mouths...", encapsulating a motif which occurs frequently in the essays.