Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England

Abstract

224/ Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme family (such as this reviewer) who are not specialists in Renaissance Italy will find certain parts of the detailed discussion of urban confraternal politics and governance a bit difficult going.It is also a challenge to keep track of the numerous institutions in two places whose story Terpstra interweaves with the political histories of two large cities over more than a century.This is not to say that the author becomes mired in detail, since he provides clear summaries of his findings from time to time, and integrates conclusions from the histories of multiple institutions.For this reviewer, Terpstra's chapters 3 and 4 on the daily lives of boys and girls in the institutions constitute the most vivid and moving accounts of the subject I have ever read.The author treats all of those whose histories he tells with extraordinary grace and subtlety.He is singularly able to avoid imposing twenty-firstcentury values upon the material, and instead challenges his readers to enter a quite different world of childhood and of the family.The author enhances his study with some comparative remarks about the importance of ideals of civic community in the provision of assistance to children and families-particularly those of the "respectable" poor-in other parts of Europe.Terpstra's study contributes significantly to our growing understanding of the central place of charitable provisions in the growth of European urban culture and society.

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