Conditions of the Little Ice Age
Books for teaching children
Children’s heroes during the Little Ice Age
About the author
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The Fairy Tale,
1845,
James
Sant
(1820-1916)
The Little Ice Age was a cold climatic interval that lasted from about 1300 to 1850 AD. During this period, growing seasons were shortened, snow stayed longer in the spring, and frosts came earlier. Drought was common and arable lands were significantly reduced in extent. Land with poor soil and at higher elevations became unsatisfactory for cultivation or suitable only for pasture. That became a serious problem for a rising population, adding to the problem of sufficient food production.
Originally, the stories were designed to be lessons for children – moralistic, educational, religious, or behavioral. Early books for children were meant as instructional publications. An early Protestant belief was that man was born sinful, and children’s literature was thus most concerned with saving souls. As printed material expanded during the 15th century, books about raising children began to be seen. Some of the classic and most better-known publications include:
Heroes of the most popular fairy tales seem to be invariably beautiful girls, most of them princesses. Their rescuers were handsome princes. Their antagonists often evil queens or stepmothers. In almost every instance, fairies – godmothers or otherwise – were present to offer advice and protection.
Wayne Shepheard has published several articles and a book, Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests, that describe how climate change and other natural phenomena impacted our ancestors. www.discovergenealogy.ca
Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts: https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html
These factors resulted in less food production and higher prices for what was available, which caused even more stress on the populace. With cooler temperatures, unstable weather and reduction in arable land, back-to-back harvest failures became more frequent, resulting in repeated subsistence crises, including major famines. It does not stretch the imagination to see that all these elements would have affected lives and livelihoods, indeed the very survival of people.
• The Babees Book: Medieval Manners for the Young or Lytyl Reporte of how young people should behave (1868) – This book was a compilation by Frederick Furnival of all manner of lessons that originated during the Middle Ages. Good manners taught to children were meant to help perfect their Christian education and prepare them for Salvation. Using rhymes and writing in a cadence allowed the child to easily memorise and learn the material.
All these attributes stimulated the imaginations of children and imbued them with hope for better lives, if they were good. This was an important lesson during times when living conditions were harsh and the future was anything but rosy.
Basile, Giambattista. (1634). Il Pentamone (The Story of Stories). (John Edward Taylor, translator, 1848). David Bogue. Available online at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Pentamerone,_or_The_Story_of_Stories
What is it about those fictional characters that we remember from our childhood? And how did they achieve their immortality? What did your ancestors read, or have read to them as children?
There was a substantial increase in landless people and the unemployed. Poverty became a widespread issue and many families, previously engaged in farm work, relocated to urban areas that had begun to develop during the previous warmer centuries. The result was crowded and unsanitary conditions. Accompanying diseases added to depopulation.
• Lytil Childrenes Lytil Boke (1480) – This was an etiquette book that ‘taught children table manners, so that they would know how to behave in noble or royal households.’
Furnival, Frederick J., Editor. (1868). The Babees Book. N. Trübner & Co: https://archive. org/details/babeesbookmediev00furn
Some stories, particularly during the Little Ice Age period, were penned by authors who had their own bad experiences in those difficult times. Harsh living conditions, that contributed to both despair (of the world around them) and hope (that times would be better in the future), would have coloured their outlook and affected their creativity. Characters in their stories might have been based on real events or people but would be given attributes in keeping with cheerless times.
Overall, many people were overwhelmed with a mood of despair as prospects for the future diminished. It would take a few decades and substantial resilience, hard work and innovations in agricultural and manufacturing enterprises for communities to begin to recover.
• A booke in Englysh metre, of the great Marchaunt mand called Dives Pragmaticus (1563) – This book was specially intended for children so that they could learn to read and write of their wares and implements. It was thus a basic a child’s spellingbook.