The Rescue of the Innocents: Endangered Children in Medieval Miracles (review)

214 Reviews volume, Fichtenau draws attention to the diversity of reflection both within and outside the world of the schools in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. His book is very good for quelling any assumption that medieval scholasticism marked a stultifying period in the history of ideas. In his desire to expose its intellectual vitality, Fichtenau does run the risk of neglecting the desire of medieval intellectuals to defend the traditions that they inherited. H e does bring out, however, the great diversity of ways in which they sought to re-interpret their cultural inheritance. H e shows how there was no consensus of belief in the medieval period. The competing attempts of heretics and schoolmen alike to forge a rational picture of the world demonstrate h o w difficult it was for anyone to succeed in imposing order on a society more divided than it liked to imagine. Constant Mews Department ofHistory Monash University Finucane, Ronald C , The Rescue of the Innocents: Endangered Childr in Medieval Miracles, N e w York, St. Martin's Press, 1997; cloth; pp. 268; R.R.P. US$49.95. This book is about the emotions of medieval men, women and children. The sources used are highly specific—miracle collections featuring physical cures, rescues and resuscitations of children under fifteen—but the themes treated are m u c h broader. Taking social history at its most general, the book examines such issues as parental attitudes towards children, conceptions of illness and death, the differing experiences of medieval boys and girls, and the importance of vows, prayers, pilgrimage and offerings in lay Reviews 215 culture. Although no single theme dominates, Finucane's greatest interest is in medieval grief, remorse, anguish and other emotions often considered too difficult and too culturally specific for scholars today to isolate. His frequent reference to modern examples and statistics helps Finucane describe these medieval people in terms explicable to twentieth-century audiences and, further, encourages us to accept his tacit argument that parental love for children was as strong in the Middle Ages as it is today. This final point clearly defines the book as a response to Philippe Aries, even though explicit references to Aries' Centuries of Childhood are few. The book is quite short and most space is devoted to engaging resumes of miracle stories, all of which are filled with a wealth of unexpected and un-indexable information concerning such fascinating themes as medieval pub culture, social dancing, timekeeping practices, types of baby food, rural accents, surgical techniques, and m u c h more. The structure of the book is effectively based on the life cycle of the child, starting in utero. Following the Preface in which the ghost of Aries is briefly summoned and dispensed with, there are five chapters. The first is an introductory chapter in which the definition of 'child' is presented, the different curative techniques are described, and the sources are discussed. D r a w n from eight major miracle collections covering both northern and southern Europe in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, these sources are 600 cases of children w h o were rescued from danger, cured of illness or returned from the dead through miraculous intervention. The second chapter examines 110 cases in which saintly intervention w a s sought for specific problems concerning pregnancy and childbirth. Following good social studies of the roles of midwives, wet nurses, priests and husbands, Finucane points out that parents were more likely to seek assistance for boys than for girls, thus raising an intriguing 216 Reviews sub-theme of gender difference which persists for the rest of the study. Chapter Three deals with childhood illnesses. Finucane divides illnesses into nine general categories (for example, eye and mouth problems, afflicted limbs, mental afflictions), and discovers that the most c o m m o n ailments were fevers and swellings. Further, boys tended to suffer and be cured of different illnesses from girls, while also being cured more quickly. Chapter Four is devoted to childhood accidents. Various types of accidents are discussedburns , drownings, accidents involving animals, accidents while playing, and accidents involving parental neglect. Like the other chapters, this provides interesting information for both social...