Tiny voices from the past: New perspectives on childhood in early Europe

The project (2013-2017) has studied children's life and attitudes to childhood at a formative stage of European culture: Antiquity and the Early/High Middle Ages. The project covers the period from the fifth century BC to the twelfth century AD, but with emphasis on the period from the first to the eight century AD. The project has also, with financial support from IFIKK, developed a sub-project on "Nordic Childhoods 1700-1960", with approaches similar to the main project, and with a scholarly anthology as its main aim. WEBSITES/BIBLIOGRAPHIES: The core group established in 2013-2014 project websites in English (www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/projects/childhood/index.html) and Norwegian (www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/forskning/prosjekter/barndom/index.html). These were updated in 2015 and 2016, and will at the end of the project in 2017 be updated to function as a more permanent presentation of its results. The group has also developed a research bibliography on children/childhood for the period 700 BC to 700 AD. The bibliography, which is intended for scholars and students, was updated in 2015 and 2016, and will be updated in a new version (9th ed.) Nov./Dec. 2017, now with ca. 2300 entries. It can be accessed on the English and the Norwegian project websites. ANTHOLOGIES: In 2014-2015 the project held five workshops/seminars with a total of ca. 60 scholars (Norwegian, Nordic and international), with the aim of producing the three planned anthologies. The editors of the Nordic Childhoods volume had a four week workshop in 2015. One anthology was published in Nov. 2016, the other two in July/Aug. 2017, all on Routledge. MONOGRAPHS: The project leader is working on a commentary on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a 2nd century apocryphal story on the childhood of Jesus. Parts of the material have been presented in workshops in the UK and Germany. The volume will be published in an international commentary series on early Christian apocryphal writings (probably in 2019). The post doc. researcher is, in collaboration with an English scholar, working on a study of childhood in Oxyrhynchus, a central city in late antique Egypt, in which a large number of papyrus texts have been discovered. These texts also contain much material related to children (agreements, school exercises etc.). Publication is planned for 2019. His post doc. period ended in May 2016, but he still participates actively in the development of the web bibliography. SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES: The project leader and the post doc. researcher have both published a number of scientific articles in English and Norwegian in this period, as have also the phds(see the publication list in the final report). DOCTORAL THESES: One of the phd students studied conceptions of children and childhood as a stage of life in the medieval Byzantine Empire (9th-11th centuries), with attention both to continuities and changes in the perceptions of children as human beings. The main material for the thesis was hagiographies and various historical writings. The phd student handed in her thesis within deadline (March 2016) and defended it successfully in October 2016, and is now aiming at a publication of it. The other phd students is in the end stage of her thesis work (will hand in a reworked version Dec. 2017). Her thesis deals with the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (see above), and how its story about the childhood of Jesus during late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was adapted to new conditions and places, not least when translated from Greek into other languages, such as Latin, Syriac, and Slavonic. MASTER THESES: Two students have handed in MA theses within the project, one on descriptions of Jesus as a child in medieval texts/art (spring 2017), and the other on childhood in the hagiography of Catherine of Siena (2014). The latter has recently begun a phd project at the NTNU in Trondheim on childhood in sources from the Nordic Middle Ages. CONTRIBUTIONS FROM OTHER PROJECT PARTICIPANTS: Prof. Espen Schaanning at the History of Ideas has within the Nordic Childhoods sub-project contributed with a number of works on children/youth, scouting, and school (articles, lectures etc.). Also other scholars at the History of Ideas, the IFIKK department, and the University of Oslo have contributed with chapters and other to the project. These have been included in the entries taken from the research database Cristin. PRESENTATIONS/POPULARIZATION: Both the core group and other participants have presented their works at seminars and conferences, in papers and magazines, and in lectures for the general public (in English and in Norwegian). See the publication overview taken from Cristin. The results of the project have in 2017 been presented at an end conference, and in special sessions at international conferences in Berlin and Boston. In 2017, an international panel gave the research project a top rating in an evaluation of the Humanities in Norway.

The project studies the lives of children and attitudes to childhood at a culturally early and formative stage in the history of European culture: antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Within this period we find the two main ideological traditions that st ill inform our modern perceptions of humans and their value, and also of children as human beings: Greco-Roman culture and early Christianity. The project will cover the period from the 5th cent. BCE to the 12th century CE, but with an emphasis on the 1st -8th centuries. During the last few decades there has been a growth of scholarly interest in ancient childhood, with a much more balanced views of children's living conditions than the earlier negative view. Still, there are several areas that have not been sufficiently covered within research. The project will particularly study three types of sources: early Christian apocryphal stories about the childhoods of Jesus and his mother Mary (e.g. the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew), works by central philosophers and theological thinkers (from ancient Greece to the high Middle ages) which reflect their notions about children and childhood, and various sources and remains that can in some way document the lives of the children themselves (such as children's letter s, toys, stories etc.). The material will be approached with a conscious view to "finding" children in the sources, whether they speak directly of children or use metaphors taken from the domain of childhood. It will also pay attention to continuities an d changes in the attitudes to children through the centuries, and also study the sources with an awareness of the difference gender made in the lives of children. The project will involve a considerable number of scholars, two ph.d. students and one post doctoral student. The outcome of the project will be a book related to each of the three areas, and result in two ph.d. theses and a book published by the post doctoral student.