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The bachelor thesis examines the perception of childhood and the role of children among Hasidei Ashkenaz, a pietistic group active during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries mainly in Mainz, Regensburg and Speyer. Analyzing the text of Sefer Hasidim, a collection of moral exhortations and exempla produced by Hasidei Ashkenaz, the thesis focuses both on the legal and the social status of children within in the community, as well as on specific childhood rituals and on the reflection of parent-child relationship. The thesis aims to extract the motifs which reflect attitudes toward children on behalf of the Hasidei Ashkenaz. These motifs can be described as a tention that emerges from taking care of a child and a pursuit of larger piety, trespassing boundaries of the community of Hasidei Ashkenaz or uncontrollable behavior of children which may be an obstruction in the right fulfillment of religious obligations. |
