This collection addresses fundamental but rarely asked questions about social and family relations in the past by bringing together two emerging fields within cultural history - childhood and emotion - and provides avenues through which to approach their shared histories.

Bringing together a wide-range of materials such as court records, self-narratives and educational manuals across medieval to eighteenth century Europe and North America - childhood emerges as a function not of gender or age but rather of social relations. The contributors come a step closer to portraying emotions as they were thought to be experienced by the historical subjects. Childhood and Emotion establishes new benchmarks not only for the history of these linked subjects but also for the whole history of social relations.