Ancestors: The Loving Family in Old Europe

by Steven E. Ozment

Rescuing the premodern family from the grim picture many historians have given us of life in early Europe, Ancestors offers a major reassessment of a crucial aspect of European history--and tells a story of age-old domesticity inextricably linked, and surprisingly similar, to our own.

An elegant summa on family life in Europe past, this compact and powerful book extends and completes a project begun with Steven Ozment's When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Harvard). Here Ozment, the leading historian of the family in the middle centuries, replaces the often miserable depiction of premodern family relations with a delicately nuanced portrait of a vibrant and loving social group. Mining the records of families' private lives--from diaries and letters to fiction and woodcuts--Ozment shows us a preindustrial family not very different from the later family of high industry that is generally viewed as the precursor to the sentimental nuclear family of today.

In Ancestors, we see the familiar pattern of a domestic wife and working father in a home in which spousal and parental love were amply present: parents cherished their children, wives were helpmeets in providing for the family, and the genders were nearly equal. Contrary to the abstractions of history, parents then--as now--were sensitive to the emotional and psychological needs of their children, treated them with affection, and gave them a secure early life and caring preparation for adulthood.

As it recasts familial history, Ancestors resonates beyond its time, revealing how much the story of the premodern family has to say to a modern society that finds itself in the throes of a family crisis.

Genres: History, Medieval, Sociology, Family

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2001

About the author

A specialist in early modern and modern Germany, the European family, and the Protestant Reformation., Steven Ozment was the McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History emeritus at Harvard University.

Reviews

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short introduction to a view of families during the pre-modern era (1500s through 1800s). It starts out with a brief explanation of several key scholars in the field and then becomes a bit more topical and not as strictly academic as I was being to believe it might turn out to be. To summarizing families weren't barbaric and uncaring. Using primary sources of censuses, journals, letters and the like he presents deeply caring relationships, if not always as loving by modern day standards, that while different from those of today certainly informed and shaped them.
Worth reading.

[JD Waggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning of this was rough, as it was a mini-history of the scholarly views of the family. Once Ozment branched into his own ideas and topics, however, this was a really easy and short read. The language is very accessible, the topic is very interesting, and the conclusions are a gentle thumb bite to the modern audience who wishes to paint medieval families as barbaric fools thankfully saved by advances in the studies of love and respect.

[Brigitta Riegers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice easy read. Started out talking about how some historians of the 60s and 70s had their own ideas of how families were during medieval and renaissance times. They were biased and slanted their findings. Ozment shows letters from parent to child to admonish them to do better in their endeavors and make them proud. Or continue to do well and make them proud or continue to earn the parental love.