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Children and the Church in Medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Nicholas Orme
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Extract

At the beginning of Langland's poem Piers Plowman, the narrator, having glimpsed the field of folk and the two castles, meets a lady with a beautiful face, clothed in linen. When he fails to recognise her, she gently chides him. ‘I am Holy Church; you ought to know me. I received you at the first and taught you faith. You brought me pledges to fulfil my bidding and to love me loyally while your life lasts.’ In these few words, Langland affirms the importance of childhood as inaugurating the relationship between human beings and the Church. Every child becomes a member of the Church by baptism soon after birth. The Church teaches its faith to the child, and the child is committed by its godparents to carry out the Church's requirements in a loving way. This view of childhood is a limited one. It centres on the outset of life—birth and baptism – not on the following fifteen years or so, and it does not perceive the status of children in the Church to differ in principle from that of adults, who also received teaching and owed commitments. Nowhere in his work has Langland much to say about children and in this respect he is typical of most medieval writers. Little was written about the work of the Church with children or the involvement of children in Church, despite the extent to which children – actually or potentially – made up the membership of Christendom.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 563 - 587
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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