Nicholas Orme

This slim anthology brings together a selection of poems told by, to, or about children (mostly in England) during the later Middle Ages. Nicholas Orme is one of the experts on the history of childhood in medieval western Europe, and so he is able to cast a wide net, bringing together snippets of stories, lullabies, riddles, and chasing games—the kinds of things which must have formed such a large part of oral culture but which often doesn’t survive in the written record. I did wish for show more a little more contextualisation and for a little less simplification, and for footnotes instead of endnotes, but Orme’s translations or modernisations are generally clear and accessible. Sections of this could likely be used in the undergraduate classroom, with some appropriate scaffolding. show less

This book provides a comprehensive look at the historical nature of the Cathedrals in England, going period by period (usually by century) looking at how the English cathedral system evolved.

There is a great deal of detail as to the secular cathedrals (the author defines secular vs monastic - ie the monastery based cathedrals as opposed to non-monastery based) and how they evolved through various monarchs. How the cathedrals changed in relation to each monarch is discussed in a decent show more amount of detail, including when each cathedral was created, and the logic for why each parish/canon/bishopry was setup.

While much detail is provided, the author does skim over the monastic abbeys which were dissolved, so you miss some detail about those areas (ie, Glastonbury and others), but overall, this is an excellent primer on the cathedrals up through the modern era. It even has a bit about the literature and art of the cathedrals and how they evolved. show less

Lady Wombat says:

Orme writes that most people to whom he talks assume that medieval children were just little adults, that there was no sense of childhood in the past. This stems from Ariès. Subsequent researchers have proven Ariès wrong: “They have gathered copious evidence to show that adults regarded childhood as a distinct phase or phases of life, that parents treated children like children as well as like adults, that they did so with care and sympathy, and that children had show more cultural activities and possessions of their own” (5).

“Medieval people believed that human life progressed trough a series of stages, each with its own characteristics: ‘the ages of man.’ This belief was inherited from classical writers: not in a single form but in several versions, current alongside each other. Writers divided life into three, four, five, six, seven, or twelve periods” (6).

Orme goes on to present an overview of the lives of medieval children (from the 7th century to mid-16th, but most of his sources are from 1100-1550). In 9 chapters, he presents evidence about birth, family life, death, rhymes, play, church, learning to read, reading for pleasure, and coming of age. The book is well-written and accessible, not just for academics. It is also filled with minute detail, as well as copious illustrations that illustrate many of the claims Orme makes about childhood in the period.

Unfortunately, as Orme notes, there is little writing dating from the medieval period that references children. He argues that “we can hardly blame them for a lack of interest in childhood merely because they did not write about it. Fewer people could write, and their reasons for writing had less to do with children. When it was relevant to refer to them in coroners’ records or accounts of miracles, adults did so with the same care and consistency that they gave to themselves” (9). This is certainly true, but with so little written evidence, many of the claims Orme makes must be qualified by "seems as if," or "we can suppose," for lack of a body of evidence. Other claims seem to rest on a modern construction of childhood (for example, when he writes of a commonplace book “Several of the pieces he collected seem more appropriate for them [his children:], or for reading with them, than for him or his wife alone” [278:]). I wondered if medieval historians have a different view about what constitutes enough evidence to make an argument plausible than historians who work in later periods, with more extensive written records?

Still, an erudite, informative, an engaging study of what is currently knowable about children in the Middle Ages in England. show less

In this book Nicholas Orme sets out to correct the common misperception that schools during the Medieval period were almost exclusively for clergy and that they were primitive institutions, where little thought or effort went into how they operated. As the subtitle states, this book focuses on England and covers the period from 43 to 1558.

There are two main aspects to this book (not in consecutive chapters). Part is a narrative where Orme discusses English schools in a general sense – show more where they were located, how they were created, how they found schoolmasters, whether they were endowed, if they taught students as training for the clergy or whether they took in students for a fee. While the period to 1100 is, not surprisingly, somewhat cursory due to a lack of sources, from that point on it becomes much fuller.

The last narrative portion, from 1509-1558 - from when Henry VIII took the throne to the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign - is covered in even greater detail. These two chapters cover the impact of the Reformation on English schools, a time of relative turbulence. Orme details the impact of Henry’s dissolution of the monasteries and discusses how initially this was a negative but eventually led to greater interest by the government in schools, a greater standardization of teaching materials and a move toward learning in English rather than Latin. He walks through the various actions impacting schools which the government took, how these impacted the schools, and what the reaction was to them.

The other portion of the work is devoted to subject matter. One area which Orme covers in great detail is what was taught. He goes into considerable depth discussing the various levels of learning – reading, to sing in the choir, or grammar - what was taught at these levels and what texts were used to teach from.

Another area he covers is the schools themselves. How large were they, how many students would they serve, were they attached to a Church or Monastery and did they allow lay pupils are all discussed in depth. He also walks through the role of the schoolmaster and details how it evolved from a priest or monk who also had religious duties to paid lay clerics who devoted all their time to teaching – the beginnings of the profession of schoolmaster.

He also devotes an entire chapter to Religious Orders and Education. Quite frankly, this chapter felt out of place. As I read through it – and there’s plenty of good information – I wondered why it was included. There was a section from pages 283-287 titled, “Education for Outsiders” but other than that the entire chapter dealt with education by clerics strictly for those who intended to become clerics. This didn’t fit my idea of a school any more than accounts of a private tutor teaching the son of a noble would.

I have a mixed opinion of this book, hence my rating. Orme provides a tremendous amount of information about schools in England. He utilizes sources extensively and the work is well, if not properly (see my rant below) footnoted. It is well illustrated with 92 pictures, maps and diagrams. At the end of the work he provides a list of all independent or semi-independent schools open to the public as well as private schools in minsters and collegiate churches or run by parish clergy or laity which can be documented for the period covered in this book. He provides a very good bibliography. If you want to go somewhere for information on Medieval schools in England, this book has it – and Orme does a very nice job of supporting his goal of correcting the misconceptions related to Medieval Schools.

However English Medieval Schools are presented in a virtual vacuum. Orme presents almost no information on other aspects of education in England, which I find particularly troubling when it comes to the development of Universities. And he devotes nothing – zip, zero, zilch, nada – to any discussion of continental influences on English schools, or how English schools may have influenced the continent (beyond briefly mentioning the teaching of French). This provides a very misleading picture of the Medieval period, particularly when you consider that for a great deal of the period discussed much of France was under the same rule as England. Another area Orme ignores – completely – is the impact of schools on everyday life. An increase in literacy is well attested to over this period and can at least be somewhat attributed to schools, however Orme ignores it.

The net effect is that Orme has provided a book with a great deal of information – sound, quality information – about Medieval schools in England. However he fails to place this in any sort of context or demonstrate that it had any sort of impact on the Medieval, or post-Medieval world. I would caution someone considering this book to keep this in mind and consider picking up some works that also cover the development of literacy and its impacts, the impact of continental Europe on England and a discussion of overall education so schools can be placed in some sort of context. This work has a lot of value but to take advantage of it, you’ll need to consult others.

I have a peeve I’ll discuss here which is, I believe, addressed more to the publisher than the author. I have come to reluctantly accept endnotes rather than footnotes. I tuck a bookmark where the notes are and it isn't overly tedious to flip back to them. However, the use of abbreviated endnotes, as was done in this book, makes them next to useless. Now instead of simply flipping back to the notes I must then turn to either the bibliography or the list of abbreviations to figure out what’s being referred to – all while trying to keep my place in the narrative and remember what the heck I was just reading. Abbreviated footnotes are fine – if they are placed at the bottom of the page. Endnotes are acceptable, if they are full notes. Abbreviated endnotes are virtually useless and a University publisher such as Yale University Press should know better. I hope that an author or publisher will see this and think about avoiding these in the future. show less