Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2024-06-02T22:58:53.231Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

‘The sucking child’: Adult attitudes to child care in the first year of life in seventeenth-century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Smith, Henry, A preparatiue to mariage (London, 1591), 85.Google Scholar

2 Gouge, William, Of domesticall duties (London, 1622), 498–9.Google Scholar

3 Ariés, Philippe, Centuries of childhood (Harmondsworth, 1962)Google Scholar; de Mause, Lloyd, ed., The history of childhood (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; Despert, J. L., The emotionally disturbed child: An inquiry into family patterns (New York, 1970).Google Scholar

4 Plumb, J. H., ‘The new world of children in eighteenth-century England’, Past & Present 67 (1975), 6495Google Scholar; Shorter, Edward, The making of the modern family (London, 1976).Google Scholar

5 Stone, Lawrence, The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500–1800 (London, 1977), 99 and passim. Randolph Trumbach has concluded from a study of English aristocratic families in the eighteenth century that the development of maternal affection was so significant that it helps explain the fall in the child mortality rateGoogle Scholar. Trumbach, Randolph, The rise of the egalitarian family: Aristocratic kinship and domestic relations in eighteenth-century England (New York, 1978)Google Scholar. Badintur, Elizabeth has also argued that the child mortality rate dropped in the late eighteenth century because mothers learned to love their children: Elizabeth Badintur, The myth of motherhood: An historical view of the maternal instinct (London, 1981).Google Scholar

6 Wilson, Adrian, ‘The infancy of the history of childhood: An appraisal of Philippe Ariés’, History and Theory 9 (1980), 132153Google Scholar; Attreed, Lorraine C., ‘From Pearl maiden to tower princes: towards a new history of medieval childhood’, Journal of Medieval History 9 (1983), 4358CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mount, Ferdinand, The subversive family: An alternative history of love and marriage (London, 1982).Google Scholar

7 Fuller, Peter, ‘Uncovering childhood’ in Hoyles, Martin, ed., Changing childhood (London, 1979), 71108.Google Scholar

8 Houlbrooke, Ralph A., The English family 1450–1700 (London, 1984), 254.Google Scholar

9 Pollock, Linda A., Forgotten children: Parent–child relations from 1500–1900 (Cambridge, 1984), viii.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., 271.

11 Ibid., viii.

12 Ibid., 69.

13 Laslett, Peter, ‘The wrong way through the telescope: a note on literary evidence in sociology and historical sociology’, British Journal of Sociology 27 (1976), 319–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Slack, Paul, ‘Mirrors of health and treasures of poor men: the uses of the vernacular medical literature of Tudor England’, in Webster, Charles, ed., Health, medicine and mortality in the sixteenth century (Cambridge, 1979), 237–74.Google Scholar

15 Mechling, J.E., ‘Advice to historians on advice to mothers’, Journal of Social History 9 (1975), 4463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Wellcome Institute (London), MS 751.

17 The collections of manuscripts by the Parliamentary diarist, Sir Simonds D'Ewes, for example, are well known for their political content, but dismissed in the Dictionary of national biography as ‘embracing even such trifles as his school exercises, a large number of letters to his sisters and family, and a great deal else that is really worthless’. From these apparently ‘worthless’ letters of his sisters much useful information about babies can be derived. Doubtless the same applies to many other of the well known (and less known), manuscript collections. See collections of D'Ewes family letters, B[ritish] L[ibrary], Harleian MS 382–388.

18 Greven, Philip, The protestant temperament: Patterns of child-rearing, religious experience, and the self in early America (New York, 1977).Google Scholar

19 Featley, Daniel, The dippers dipt (London, 1645), 42.Google Scholar For the pessimistic view, see also Macfarlane, Alan, ed., The diary of Ralph Josselin, 1616–1683 (London, 1976), 12Google Scholar. A child's poem sums up this pessimistic view: By Naure in my first estate A wretched Babe was I, In open field, deserving hate, In blood and filth did lie. V[ernon], J[ohn], The compleat scholler … Caleb Vernon, 2nd edn (London, 1666), 81.Google Scholar

20 Charron, Peter, Of wisdome, trans. Samuel Lennard (London, 1606), 458.Google Scholar

21 Featley, , Dippers dipt, 40–1, 53. Note that I have followed contemporary usage throughout in using ‘he’ as the pronoun for the baby.Google Scholar

22 Gouge, , Domesticall duties, 523Google Scholar;Lawrence, Henry, Of baptisme (Rotterdam, 1646), 133. Anabaptists and Baptists did not believe in infant baptism.Google Scholar

23 C[leaver], R[obert], A godly forme of household government (London, 1630), np.Google Scholar; Gouge, , Domesticall duties, 519.Google Scholar

24 Earle, John, Micro-cosmographie, or, a peece of the world discovered (London, 1628), 2Google Scholar; see also Tryon, Thomas, A new method of educating children (London, 1695), 3.Google Scholar

25 Gotherson, DorotheaTo all that are unregenerated: a call (London, 1661), 112Google Scholar. Little children were ‘so humble, and voide of evill, that they may be taken for examples of the children of God’; Smith, , Preparatiue to mariage, 88 (Luke xviii.17)Google Scholar. For further examples of ideas of childhood as innocence see Richard Coppin, Truth's testimony (London, [03 Mar.] 1655), 10Google Scholar; Vaughan, Henry, The retreat in Grierson, H. J. C., ed., Metaphysical poems of the seventeenth century (Oxford, 1921), 145Google ScholarHappy those early dayes! when I Shin'd in my Angell-infancy! All childhood to the age of seven was free from sin, argued the French author, Primaudaye, because the child lacked judgement; Primaudaye, Peter de la, The French Academie, 4th edn (London, 1602), 531–2Google Scholar. Anne, , Countess of Pembroke, had read The French Academy at thirteen, and in later life favoured Charron On wisdome; Myra Reynolds, The learned lady in England 1650–1760 (Gloucester, Mass., 1920), 32, 33.Google Scholar

26 Bulstrode Whitelocke, Annals, B.L., Additional MS 53726, fo. 4 v.Google Scholar

27 Rueff, Jacob, The expert midwife (London, 1637), 153.Google Scholar

28 See my article, Attitudes to menstruation in seventeenth-century England’, Past and Present 91 (1981), 4773.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Turner, J. H., ed., The autobiography of Oliver Heywood, 1630–1702; His autobiography, diaries, anecdote and events books, 4 vols (Brighouse 18821885), ii, 259.Google Scholar

30 Quoted in Sara Mendelson, ‘Stuart women's diaries and occasional memoirs’, in Prior, Mary, ed., Women in English society, 1500–1800 (London, 1985), 196.Google Scholar

31 Kent Archives Office, Journal of Elizabeth Turner, F 27, 1671, and Sept. 1676.

32 Gouge, , Domesticall duties, 505–6.Google Scholar

33 Alice Thornton's son had ‘a marke of blood upon his heart’ because of a fright;Jackson, C., ed., The autobiography of Mrs Alice Thornton (Surtees Society, 1875), 140Google Scholar; Burton, Robert, The anatomy of melancholy (Oxford, 1621), 80–5Google Scholar; Lemnius, Levinus, The secret miracles of nature (London, 1658), 1116.Google Scholar

34 Rueff, , Expert midwife, 155.Google Scholar

35 Henry, Matthew, A short account of the life and death of Mrs Eleanor Radford … who dyed at Chester Aug: 13. 1697 B.L. (Dept. of Printed Books), Ref. 1418 a 44, n.d. fo. 1.Google Scholar

36 Culpepper, Nicholas, A directory for midwives (London, 1651), 159. Even if the deformity was not the particular fault of the parents, it was a general judgement of God for the sins of the nationGoogle Scholar;S[amuel], H[artlib], Londons charity inlarged, stilling the poor orphans cry (London, 1650), 14Google Scholar; Rueff, , Expert midwife, 151.Google Scholar

37 S[tarsmere], J[ohn], Childrens diseases (London 1664), 4.Google Scholar

38 Cuffe, Henry, The differences of the ages of mans life (London, 1607), 122. Cf. de Mause, History of childhood, 16, who claims that he has found no description showing the same degree of empathy with the child as does Richard Steele before the eighteenth century.Google Scholar

39 Rueff, , Expert midwife, 97Google Scholar; McMath, James, The expert mid-wife (Edinburgh, 1694), 319, 322–3.Google Scholar

40 Purchas, Samuel, Microcosmus, or the historie of man (London, 1619) 157Google Scholar; Shuttleworth, J.M., ed., The autobiography of Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (London, 1976), 13Google Scholar; Smith, , Preparatiue to mariage, 85Google Scholar; B.L., Sloane MS 1940, fo. 6v.; Brachea, Henry, Orthopaedia, trans. Andry, M., 2 vols (London, 1743), ii, 99Google Scholar; B[ulwer], J[ohn], Anthropometamorphosis (London, 1653), 158–9, 502.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., 366Google Scholar; Gouge, , Domesticall duties, 519 (Colossians ii. 1112).Google Scholar

42 The Church, which required women to give thanks after child-birth, urged them to think upon ‘the Blessing the Family hath received, and especially when an Heir is born’; Comber, Thomas, A companion to the temple and closet (London, 1684), 214Google Scholar. Lady Hatton, who gave birth to a daughter in 1678, told her husband that she would gladly have laid down her life to procure him a son; Northampton R.O., Finch Hatton MS 1468. For further evidence on the preference for boys among the gentry, see Slater, Miriam, Family life in the seventeenth century: The Verneys of Claydon House (London, 1984), 82–3.Google Scholar

43 See, for example, B.L., Additional MS 6340, fo. 2 for the christening of Charles I.

44 Gouge, , Domesticall duties, 522–3.Google Scholar

45 Portland loan 29/72,2, Brilliana Harley to Sir Robert Harley, 12 May 1626; Harleian MS 382, Jone Elyot to her father, Paul D';Ewes, 1 Jan. 1630.

46 Rowse, A.L., The case books of Simon Forman: Sex and society in Shakespeare's age (London, 1974), 104;Google Scholar; The private diary of John Dee (Camden Society, 1842), xix, 26.Google Scholar

47 B.L., Sloane MS 1940, fo. 3v.Lemnius, , Secret miracles, 105.Google Scholar

48 Whitelocke, , Annals, , additional MS 53726, fo. 63 v. Whitelocke's biographer, Ruth Spalding, The improbable puritan: A life of Bulstrode Whitelocke 1605–1675 (London, 1975), 43, 240–1, writes of this incident as ‘a joke which turned out too true’, but prophecies known to a child can be self-fulfilling, as Lucy Hutchinson was aware.Google Scholar

49 Primrose, James, Popular Errours: Or, the errours of the people in physick, trans. Wittie, Robert (London, 1651), 160.Google Scholar

50 Quoted in Cunnington, P. and Buck, A., Children's costume in England, from the fourteenth to the end of the nineteenth century (London, 1965), 67Google Scholar. See also Thiselton Dyer, T.F., Domestic folk-lore (London, 1881), 113.Google Scholar

51 Astrologers divided life into seven phases, of which ‘The First Age is called Infancy’; B[asse], W[illiam] & EP, , A helpe to discourse (London, 1621), 255.Google Scholar

52 Swinburne, Henry, A briefe treatise of testaments and last willes (London, 1590), 35Google Scholar;Hale, Sir Matthew, Historia placitorum coronae, 2 vols (London, 1736), i, 1625.Google Scholar; For a general definition of infancy as under twenty-one, male and female, see William, Shepherd, An epitome of all the common and statute laws of the nation now in force (London, 1656), 473.Google Scholar

53 Swinburne, Henry, A treatise of spousals, or matrimonial contracts (London, 1686), 19. By 1712, according to an anonymous author, fourteen was the age of discretion, twenty-one the end of infancy according to common law, and twenty-five by civil lawGoogle Scholar; The infants lawyer: or, the law (ancient and modern) relating to infants, 2nd edn (London, 1712), 45.Google Scholar

54 Harris, Walter, An exact enquiry into, and cure of the acute diseases of infants (London, 1693), 67.Google Scholar

55 Charron, , Of wisdome, 456, 461Google Scholar; Rueff, , Expert midwife, 58Google Scholar; Pechey, John, The complete midwfe's practice enlarged, 5th edn (London, 1698), 102.Google Scholar

56 Thornton, , Autobiography, 151, 86.Google Scholar

57 Newcome, Henry, The compleat mother (London, 1695), 31Google Scholar; Gouge, , Domesticall duties, 505, 506–7.Google Scholar

58 Wolley, Hannah, The compleat servant-maid, 3rd edn (London, 1683), 49Google Scholar; Thornton, , Autobiography, 151Google Scholar family letters, Harleian MS 382, fo. 182, Elizabeth Poley to Lady Anne D'Ewes, n.d., Cuffe, , Ages of mans life, 123Google ScholarPearce, E. H., Annals of Christ's Hospital (London, 1901), 37Google ScholarFeatley, , Dippers dipt, 40, 43, 48.Google Scholar

59 Starsmere, , Children's diseases, 41.Google Scholar

60 de Ia Boë Sylvius, Franciscus, Of childrens diseases: Given in the familiar style of weaker capacities (London, 1682), 138.Google Scholar

61 Bodleian Library, Copy-book of Sir John Reresby … 1661–1679, Rawl. MS D204, fo. 78.

62 Wuertz, Felix, The surgeons guid: … with a guid for women in the nursing of their newborn children (London, 1658), 341Google ScholarJones, John, The arte and science of preseruing bodie and soule in healthe (London, 1579), 13.Google Scholar

63 Sharp, Jane, The midivives book (London, 1671), 411.Google Scholar

64 Newcome, , Compleat mother, 6, 109–10Google Scholar B.L., Harleian MS 6987, fo. 119.

65 Fifty-sixty per cent of infant deaths occurred in the first few months of life Schofield, Roger and Wrigley, E. A., ‘Infant and child mortality in the late Tudor and early Stuart period’, in Webster, , ed., Health, medicine and mortality, 6196Google ScholarRoger, Schofield, ‘Comment on infant mortality’, Local Population Studies 9 (1972), 49Google ScholarStone, , Family, 70.Google Scholar

66 Audrey Fildes has drawn to my attention the views of two physicians who had favourable views of hand-feeding. Nevertheless, even around the end of the nineteenth century, surveys showed that the chances of surviving to one year of age, ‘were substantially higher for breast-fed than for artificially fed infants’ Knodel, J., ‘Breast-feeding and population growth: Evolution of primate chromosomes’, Science 198 (1977), 1112.CrossRefGoogle ScholarFor a study of the effects of breast-feeding upon fertility, see McLaren, Dorothy, ‘Marital fertility and lactation 1570–1720’, in Prior, Women in English society, 2253.Google Scholar

67 Guillemeau, Jacques, Child-birth, or the happie deliverie of women (London, 1612), 1Google ScholarThe workes of that famous chirurgeon A. Parey, trans. Johnson, T. (London, 1634), 607, 609.Google Scholar

68 H[eywood], O[liver], Advice to an only child: or, excellent councils to all young persons (London, 1693), 125.Google Scholar

69 Harris, , Diseases of infants, 17.Google Scholar

70 Luther, Martin, Works vol. 54Google ScholarTable talk (Philadelphia, 1967), 321Google ScholarParé, , Works, 608.Google Scholar

71 Cholmley, , quoted in Lawrence Stone, The crisis of the aristocracy 1558–1641 (Oxford, 1965), 592Google ScholarThe memoirs of Sir Hugh Cholmley (London, 1787), 34.Google Scholar

72 Cowie, A. T., ‘The hormonal control of milk secretion’, in Kon, S. T. & Cowie, A. T., eds., Milk: The mammary gland and its secretion (New York, 1961), 164.Google Scholar

73 A. M., , A rich closet of physical secrets (London, 1652), 27Google ScholarLupton, Thomas, A thousand notable things (London, 1660), 46Google ScholarHartman, G., The true preserver and restorer of health (London, 1682), 403Google Scholar Wellcome Institute, MS 1320 The accomplish’d lady's delight, in preserving, physick, beautifying, cookery, and gardening 10th edn (London, 1719), 49Google ScholarDewhurst, Kenneth, John Locke (1632–1704): physician and philosopher: a medical biography, with an edition of the medical notes in his journals (London, 1963), 25–9. Among the prescribed first nutrients were fresh oil of almonds and sugar, treacle and honey. Honey prevented convulsive fits, sugar prevented wind and phlegm. Some said that if the new-born baby took half a scruple of pure coral before anything else, he would have no falling sickness.Google Scholar

74 The following paragraph is based on Eucharius Roesslin, The byrth of mankynde, otherwise named the womans book (London, 1545), fo. 115Google ScholarParé, , Works, 606–7Google ScholarMauriceau, François, The accomplisht midwife (London, 1673), 115, 365–6Google ScholarMcMath, , Expert midwife, 324Google ScholarPechey, , Diseases of infants, 4.Google Scholar

75 Guillemeau, , Child-birth, nursing of children 19Google ScholarMauriceau, , Accomplisht midwife, 366Google ScholarMcMath, , Expert mid-wife, 324–7.Google Scholar

76 Pechey, , Diseases of infants, 155.Google Scholar

77 Wuertz, , Surgeons guid, 341Google ScholarMcMath, , Expert mid-wife, 329.Google Scholar

78 H[eywood], O[liver], Advice to an only child (London, 1693), 122Google ScholarTryon, Thomas, A new method of educating children (London, 1695), 65–6.Google Scholar

79 Smith, , Preparatiue to mariage, 83–5Google Scholar. The mothers looking-glass: or, the concurrent judgment of the learned … whether the mother be obliged to give the child its first nourishment, by giving suck herself (London, 1702). Cf.Google ScholarSchnucker, R. V., ‘The English puritans and pregnancy, delivery and breast feeding’, History of Childhood Quarterly 1 (1974), 637–58.Google ScholarPubMed

80 Countess of Lincolnes nurserie, 2, 11Google Scholar; Smith, , Preparatiue to mariage, 83–5Google ScholarMcMath, , Expert mid-wife, 388Google ScholarNewcome, , Compleat mother, 16, 8697.Google Scholar

81 La Primaudaye, , French Academie, 521Google ScholarGouge, , Domesticall duties, 508–13Google ScholarCharron, , Of wisdome, 460Google ScholarNewcome, , Compleat mother, 99, 101.Google Scholar

82 The complete works of Isaac Ambrose (London, 1674), 231Google ScholarCountess of Lincolnes nurserie, 18Google ScholarCulpepper, Nicholas, The compleat midwfes practice (London, 1656), 116–17Google ScholarNewcome, , Compleat mother, 64–7Google ScholarMary Verney paid a higher weekly wage because her nurse had no Christening fee: Verney, F. P. & Verney, M. M., ed., Memoirs of the Verney family during the civil war, 2 vols (London, 1892), ii, 294. The structure of payments to the wet nurse did not encourage her to care for each baby till he was weaned, for in addition to her weekly or monthly payments, she received a bonus at the christening of a child when friends bestowed gifts upon her.Google Scholar

83 Paré, , Works, 947Google ScholarGuillemeau, , Child-birth, 1Google ScholarNewcome, , Compleat mother, 6971.Google Scholar

84 Malloch, A., Finch and Baines: A seventeenth century friendship (Cambridge, 1917), 66.Google Scholar

85 Davies, G., ed., Autobiography of Thomas Raymond and memoirs of the family of Guise of Elmore, Gloucestershire, Camden Society, 3rd series, xxviii (1917), 28Google Scholar; Parker, Henry, The true portraiture of the kings of England, in Scott, W., ed., A collection of scarce and valuable tracts, 2nd edn (London, 1811), vi, 101.Google Scholar

86 Newcome, Compleat mother, 72–5, Burnet, Gilbert, Some letters containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, &c. (Amsterdam, 1686), 248.Google Scholar

87 Muffett, Thomas, Healths improvement (London, 1655), 119Google Scholar; Guillemeau, Child-birth, preface i, i, 3.Google Scholar

88 Ibid., preface I, i, 3 v; Pechey, , Of womens diseases, 182–3;Google Scholar; R.I., , The most pleasant history of Tom A. Lincoln (London, 1655), sig. K.v.Google Scholar

89 B.L., Sloane MS 1954, fo. 97Google Scholar; McMath, , Expert mid-wife, 392Google Scholar; Mauriceau, , Accomplisht midwife, 433.Google Scholar

90 McLaren, Dorothy, ‘Marital fertility and lactation 1570–1720’ in Prior, , ed., Women in English society, 2253.Google Scholar

91 Gouge, , Domesticall duties, 518.Google Scholar

92 Clark, Samuel, The lives of sundry eminent persons (London, 1683), 155–8Google Scholar; Newdigate, Anne, draft petitions, 1609, in Newdigate-Newdegate, Lady, ed., Gossip from a muniment room (London, 1897), 85, 88.Google Scholar

93 Kent Archives Office, Journal of Elizabeth Turner.

94 Thornton, , Autobiography, 92, 148.Google Scholar

95 Leigh, Dorothy, The mothers blessing (London, 1618), 10.Google Scholar

96 Halliwell, S. O., ed., The autobiography and correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, 2 vols (London, 1845), ii, 45.Google Scholar

97 The autobiography of Symon Patrick, Bishop of Ely (Oxford, 1839), 88.Google Scholar

98 Guildhall (London), ‘Nehemiah Wallington his Booke, 30 Dec. 1630–1648’, 432.

99 B.L., Henry papers, Additional MS 42849, fo. 19, Matthew Henry to his mother Katharine, 1697; Thornton, , Autobiography, 91Google Scholar; D'Ewes, , Autobiography, ii, 16.Google Scholar

100 The physician Percival Willughby records that one father was so determined his child would not suck ‘any pocky nurse in, or about London’ that he would not allow his child to suck at all for six days, by which time it had forgotten how. Blenkinsop, H., ed., Percival Willughby, Observations in midwfery (Warwick, 1863), 136–7Google Scholar. The nurse's conditions of living affected the child. Some parents sent food but one woman was told she nearly died as a baby. When her parents visited, they found that the food they had sent was stinking. Walker, Anthony, The holy life of Mrs Elizabeth Walker (London, 1690), 12. John Dee's children in the 1590s were all put out to nurse, and Dee paid for candles and soap; Dee, Diary, 11–12, 19–20, 39,41. Mary Verney provided a cradle, as the nurse had none, and then her baby moved to the country because the nurse wanted to go home; Verney, Memoirs, ii, 269, 293.Google Scholar

101 B.L., Harleian MS 382, fo. 182, 10 May 1639.

102 Marshall, J. D., ed., The autobiography of William Stout of Lancaster 1664–1752 (Manchester, 1967) 80.Google Scholar

103 B.L., Additional MS 53726, fos. 3, 62v.

104 B.L., Harley papers, Portland loan 29/76.

105 East Sussex Record Office, Dunn 51/53, Anna Temple to her daughter 30 June 1638. 1 owe this reference to the kindness of Ann Hughes.

106 B.L., Harleian MS 382, fo. 39, Jane Elyott to Lady Ann D’Ewes.

107 Starsmere, , Children's diseases, 79.Google Scholar

108 For example, Jane Josselin; MacFarlane, Alan, The family life of Ralph Josselin; a seventeenth-century clergyman: An essay in historical anthropology (Cambridge, 1970), 202–3Google Scholar. The case of Mrs Thornton is of interest. An ambiguous passage reads that she was in health ‘ after I had given suck to Robin, all along while I was with childe, and till about a fortnight before my delivery’: Autobiography, 144–5.Google Scholar

109 Bagley, J. J., ed., The great diurnal of Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby, Lancashire, vol. 1, 1702–1711 (Record Society of Lancashire & Cheshire, 1968), 62.Google Scholar

110 For a discussion of lactation see McLaren, Dorothy, ‘Fertility, infant mortality, and breast feeding in the seventeenth century’ and ‘Nature's contraceptive: Wet-nursing and prolonged lactation: the case of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, 1578–1601’, Medical History 22 & 23 (1978, 1979), 378–96, 426–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

111 Sharp, , Midwives Book, 374–5Google Scholar; Mauricau, , Accomplisht midwife, 367Google Scholar; McMath, , Expert mid-wife, 326Google Scholar; A. M., Rich closet, 21Google Scholar; Tryon, Thomas, The good house-wife made a doctor (London, 1692), 26.Google Scholar

112 Annotations upon all the books of the Old and New Testament (London, 1645), Genesis xxi. 8.Google Scholar

113 Culpepper, , Directory for midwives, 2 1315Google Scholar; Severn, C., ed., Diary of the Rev. John Ward (London, 1839), 254Google Scholar; William, William, An essay upon nursing and the management of children (London, 1748), 20.Google Scholar

114 Sharp, , Midwives book, 375Google Scholar; Pechey, Diseases of infants, 9–10. Pechey advised 1½ or 2 years as ideal;Ibid., 10.

115 Guillemeau, , Child-birth, 27Google Scholar; Pechey, , Diseases of infants, 10–11.Google Scholar

116 B.L., Portland loan 29/67, 4, Elizabeth Harley to Abigail Harley, 23 July 1689.

117 B.L., Portland loan 29/72, 14 Mar. 1625/6Google Scholar; Nicholson, M. H., ed., Conway letters; the correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More and their friends, 1642–84 (New Haven, 1930), 160.Google Scholar

118 Macfarlane, , ed., Diary of Ralph Josselin, 33. Another weaning was described in 1694 as ‘a good work well past’: B.L., Additional MS 42849, fo. 15.Google Scholar

119 D'Ewes, , Autobiography, ii. 107–8, B.L., Harleian MS 382, ff. 39, 45, 55.Google Scholar

120 Blundell, , Great diurnal, 88Google Scholar; Dee, , Diary, 41, 43, 53, 55.Google Scholar

121 Vernon, , Life, 62Google Scholar; H. P., , A looking-glass for children (London, 1672), 11Google Scholar; Hett, F. P., ed., The memoirs of Sir Robert Sibbald (1641–1722) (London, 1932), 51.Google Scholar

122 The life of the reverend Mr Geo. Trosse, Late Minister of the Gospel … by himself (London, 1714), 19.Google Scholar

123 The childrens petition, 10 Nov. 1669.

124 Tixall letters; or the correspondence of the Asion family, 2 vols (London, 1815), i, 77.Google Scholar

125 Whatever the age at weaning, there is a slight increase in the risk of death, especially for children in the age group twelve to eighteen monthsGoogle Scholar; Cantrelle, P., ‘Mortality: levels, patterns and trends’, in Caldwell, J. C., ed., Population, growth and socioeconomic change in West Africa (New York, 1975), 108.Google Scholar

126 Richard, Wall, ‘Inferring differential neglect of females from mortality data’, Annales de demographie historique (1981), 119–40.Google Scholar; Reynolds, Glynis, ‘Infant mortality and sex ratios at baptism as shown by reconstruction of Willingham, a parish at the edge of the Fens in Cambridgeshire’, Local Population Studies 22 (1979), 31–6.Google Scholar

127 B.L., Harleian MS 382, fo. 45.

128 Primrose, , Popular Errours, 181–2Google Scholar; Cadogan, Essay upon nursing, 7. A recent study by Valerie Fildes suggests that the age of weaning recommended by medical writers was apparently representative of actual practice: Fildes, Valerie, ‘The age of weaning in Britain 1500–1800’, Journal Biosocial Sciences 14 (1982), 223240.Google Scholar

129 Wuertz, , Surgeons guid, 354.Google Scholar

130 Pechey, , Diseases of infants, 6.Google Scholar

131 Jones, John, Medical, philosophical, and vulgar errors of various kinds, considered and refuted (London, 1797), 73.Google Scholar

132 Ibid., 6; McMath, , Expert mid-wife, 322.Google Scholar

133 Portrait of Diane de Poitiers, c. 1571; Lee, M. H., ed., Diary and letters of Philip Henry, A.D. 1631–1696 (London, 1882), 85, 90.Google Scholar; Verney, , Memoirs ii, 294.Google Scholar

134 Bulwer, , Anthropometamorphosis, 328–36Google Scholar; Dewhurst, , Locke, 161Google Scholar; Cadogan, , Essay upon nursing, 911Google Scholar; Le Clerc, George Louis, Buffon, Count, Natural history, trans. Barr, 10 vols (London, 1792), iii, 346–7.Google Scholar

135 Wuertz, , Surgeons guid, 364–5.Google Scholar

136 Sharp, , Midwives book, 374Google Scholar; Mauriceau, , Accomplisht midwife, 370–1Google Scholar; McMath, , Expert mid-wife, 328, 352.Google Scholar

137 Culpepper, , Directory for midwives, 209Google Scholar; Digby, Sir Keneim, A late discourse made in solemne assembly, 3rd edn (London, 1660), 126.Google Scholar

138 Wuertz, , Surgeons guid, 341Google Scholar; Mauriceau, , Accomplisht midwife, 371Google Scholar; McMath, , Expert mid-wife, 329Google Scholar; Pare, , Works, 611Google Scholar; Pechey, , Diseases of infants, 5Google Scholar; Accomplish'd lady’s delight, 47.

139 Mandeville, Bernard de, A treatise of hypochondriack and hysterick passion (London, 1711), 180Google Scholar; [Makin, Bathsua], An essay to revive the antient education of gentlewomen (London, 1673), 26Google Scholar; Paré, , Works, 607Google Scholar; Tryon, , New method of education, 37.Google Scholar

140 B.L., Henry Papers, Additional MS 42849, folios 21, 12.Google Scholar

141 McMath, , Expert mid-wife, 327Google Scholar; Henry, , Diary, 199Google Scholar; Thornton, , Autobiography, 84Google Scholar; Heywood, , Autobiography, i, 34–5Google Scholar B.L., Harleian MS 382, fo. 7, 28 Aug. 1630.

142 McMath, , Expert mid-wife, 328Google Scholar; Sharp, , Midwives Book, 373–4.Google Scholar

143 Culpepper, , Director for midwives, 308Google Scholar; Harris, , Diseases of infants, 78Google Scholar; Pechey, , Diseases of infants, 73Google Scholar; Guillemeau, , Child-birth, 67Google Scholar; Sylvius, , Childrens diseases, 35Google Scholar; Wellcome Institute, MS 1320.

144 The following paragraph is based on Sharp, , Midwives book, 404Google Scholar; Sylvius, , Childrens diseases, 129, 97–8Google Scholar; Harris, , Diseases of infants, 9 13Google Scholar; Starsmere, , Childrens diseases, 129–35Google Scholar; McMath, , Expert mid-wife, 359Google Scholar; Guillemeau, , Child-birth, 59.Google Scholar

145 Royal College of Physicians, MS 504.

146 B.L., Sloane MS 3859 Pechey, , Childrens diseases, 155Google Scholar; Heneage Finch, at about a year, had his gums lanced for three or four ‘great teeth’ in 1682, and died; Finch, P., ed., Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland, 2 vols (London, 1901), 182.Google Scholar

147 Sharp, , Midwives book, 408Google Scholar; Mauriceau, , Accomplisht midwife, 420Google Scholar; Harris, , Diseases of infants, 138Google Scholar; B.L., Additional MS 28956; Wellcome Institute, MS 4338.

148 Sylvius, , Childrçns diseases, 77Google Scholar; Starsmere, , Childrens diseases, 152–4, 80.Google Scholar

149 Ibid., 24; Sylvius, , Childrens diseases, 82Google Scholar; Guillemeau, , Child-birth, 97, 99100.Google Scholar; McMath, , Expert mid-wife, 373.Google Scholar

150 Still, G. F., The history of pediatrics: The progress of the study of diseases of children up to the end of the XVIIIth century (London, 1931)Google Scholar; see also Radbill, S., ‘Pediatrics’, in Debus, A. G., ed., Medicine in seventeenth-century England (Berkeley, 1974).Google Scholar

151 Roonhuyse, Henry van, Medico-chirurgical observations in Herman Busschof, Two treatises (London, 1676), 115–19Google Scholar; Willughby, , Observations, 145.Google Scholar

152 Wellcome Institute, MS 184 a, 579, 635, 1026, 1320, 4049, 4338, 4496; Royal College of Physicians, MS 504.Google Scholar

153 Sharp, , Midwives book, 414Google Scholar; Starsmere, , Childrens diseases, 83.Google Scholar

154 B.L., Additional MS 42849, fo. 17, Anne Hulton to her mother, 1 Feb. 1697; B.L., Portland loan 29/76, 9 Oct. [16160. The age of the child is not specified.

155 Tryon, Thomas, Healths grand preservative (London, 1682), 12.Google Scholar

156 Wrightson, Keith, ‘Infanticide in earlier seventeenth-century England’, Local Population Studies 15 (1975), 1022.Google Scholar Nevertheless, it should be noted that it was only those women who bore illegitimate babies who had an immediate need to kill them. An unwanted baby of married parents could be disposed of at leisure, and this kind of infanticide would not necessarily lead to prosecution and legal records.; Damme, Catherine, ‘Infanticide: the worth of an infant under law’, Medical History 22 (1978), 124, rightly draws attention to the lower status of infant compared with adult life.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

157 Two sermons preached at the funerals of Mrs Elizabeth Montfort and of Dr Thomas Montfort respectively (London?, 1632).Google Scholar

158 Gouge, , Domesticall duties, 512Google Scholar; Willughby, , Observations, 138Google Scholar; Yonger, William, The nurses bosome: a sermon (London, 1617), 21.Google Scholar

159 MacDonald, Michael, Mystical bedlam: Madness, anxiety, and healing in seventeenth century England (Cambridge, 1981), 83–4.Google Scholar

160 Weinstein, F. & Platt, G. M., The wish to be free: Society, psyche, and value change (Berkeley, 1969), 12 and passim.Google Scholar

161 Becon, Thomas, ‘The Catechisme’, Works (Parker Soc., Cambridge, 1844), ii, 384Google Scholar; Granger, Thomas, The tree of good and evil (London, 1616), 19Google ScholarGouge, , Domesticall duties, 150.Google Scholar

162 Culpepper, , Directory for midwives, 209.Google Scholar; Gardiner, J. K., ‘Elizabethan psychology and Burton's Anatomy of melancholy’, Journal of the History of Ideas 38 (1977), 388Google Scholar; Some account of the circumstances in the life of Mary Pennington from her manuscript life for her family (London, 1821), 71.Google Scholar

163 Savile, George, Marquis of Halifax, ‘Advice to a daughter’, Kenyon, J. P., ed., Halifax: Complete works (Harmondsworth, 1969), 278Google Scholar; Ambrose, , Complete Works, 231.Google Scholar

164 Tryon, , New method of educating, 14, 60–6Google Scholar; Marshall, R. K., Childhood in seventeenth-century Scotland (Edinburgh, 1976), 2021Google Scholar; Culpepper, Marshall, A directory for midwives (London, 1656), 156.Google Scholar

165 Harris, , Diseases of infants, 1114, 20, 49.Google Scholar

166 Mauriceau, , Accomplisht midwife, 420.Google Scholar

167 Cadogan, , Essay upon nursing. 3.Google Scholar

168 Berry, B. M., ‘The first English pediatricians and Tudor attitudes towards childhood’, Journal of the History of Ideas 35 (1974), 561–77, argues that the sixteenth-century physician Jones shows as an adult the attitude of the infant who feared his mother's rejection. For a further discussion of the psychological effects of motheringGoogle Scholar; see Chodorow, Nancy, The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender (Berkeley, 1978).Google Scholar

169 Gouge, , Domesticall duties, 517–18Google Scholar; Countesse of Lincolnes Nurserie, 16.Google Scholar

170 D'Ewes, Autobiography.

171 Mendelson, , ‘Stuart women's diaries’, 195–8Google Scholar; Crawford, Patricia, ‘Women's published writings 1600–1700’, in Prior, Women in English Society, 222, 227.Google Scholar

172 None of the evidence seems a sufficient basis for general conclusions about the impact of patterns of child-care upon subsequent adult behaviour. Cf.Google Scholar; Illick, J. E., ‘Child-rearing in seventeenth-century England and America’, in de Mause, , ed., History of childhood, 303–50Google Scholar. There are other studies which endeavour to predict the impact of child-rearing patterns upon adult behaviour: Gorer, G. and Rickman, J., The people of Great Russia: A psychological study (London, 1949)Google Scholar; Whiting, J. M. W. and Child, I. L., Child training and personality: A cross-cultural study (New Haven, 1953)Google Scholar; Whiting, B., ed., Six cultures: Studies of child rearing (New York, 1963).Google Scholar