Conclusions
The Taivassalo children’s play reflected in a way the division of religious education and authority in early modern Finnish society into the theoretical and pragmatic on the one hand and the church and the lay on the other.
On the one hand, there was the theoretical instruction in religion driven by the church, mediated by catechisms and sermons, and eventually carried out at home. Previously, most of the scholarship on early modern religious teaching has concentrated on this theoretical and theological part. On the other hand, a different kind of religious upbringing also existed, one that could be thought of as practical training in dealings with the sacred—that is, religious education in praxis rather than in abstract catechism teaching. It resembled the sort of apprenticeship-type education and socialisation within and outside the home and the family sphere where the children were just taken along in performing the normal household work and religious rituals, given small tasks, encouraged to play along with the work, and taken by the hand to learn in practice. Here, theology played a smaller part: the pragmatic upbringing concentrated on the unofficial religious rituals and customs of the village lay community, on things like processions around the village after baptismal, sharing church ales, and other communal rituals, which held the community together and marked the boundaries of the sacred. While this was a successful way of teaching customs and traditions, it could also lead to trouble when the children started to explore the traditions on their own and re-created those boundaries in the wrong places or at wrong times.Parental power and failure were mixed in such situations. This challenged the society’s understanding of patriarchal disciplinary power and authority and blurred the lines between private family matters and communal interests.
Both the village community and the larger society in the form of legal authorities were reluctant to interfere. In the end, the court authorities took over the disciplinary power to punish the children but did so only in part. The court ordered that a punishment must take place, and it also stipulated what this punishment was, but it left the execution to the extended families. This shows us how unstable and ambiguous early modern patriarchal power was, and how interdependent and restricted by each other both the parents, the village community and the legal system were in their use of power, even in such a seemingly simple context as bringing up children in a family.Notes
1. Lofgren stated, e.g. that the gendered division of work was clear for both adults and children, but this conclusion is largely based on nineteenth-century material. In Mispeläere’s earlier material, Swedish boys and girls largely shared the same tasks, with only a couple of exceptions: handling firewood and saw materials was a boy’s prerogative, whereas milking and threshing were tasks for girls.
2. ‘ottaa waarin Jumalallisesta totuudesta … ja tällä tavalla andais wanhembain oma esimercki lapsihin sen kaldaisen waikutuxen, jota usein on Tyoläs woittaa monein skouluin ja Kuristuxsen kautta.’ This manuscript material and the reference was pointed out to me by Dr Päivi Mehtonen, who is currently making a literary analysis of it.
3. ‘ej nijn paljo angaruutta kuin ystäwällisyden ja Lembeyden osottamista viljellä tulee’.
4. ‘Jolleika he tahdo, nijn heidän täytyy ja sen jälken andawat he kaikki tulla täytymisen päälle—mutta se on enämmän yxi eläinden pakko kuin järjesllisten christillisten lasten ylos kasvattajain.’
Archive Material
Court Record 1676: County Court Records, Ulvila 11–12 September. Bielkesamlingen vol. 27. Sveriges Riksarkiv.
Court Record 1678: Rural district court records, Taivassalo 14 February.
Vehmaa ja Ala-Satakunta I KO a 4. National Archives of Finland.Court Record 1678: Rural district court records 1678, Taivassalo 16–17 December. Vehmaa ja Ala-Satakunta I KO a 4. National Archives of Finland.
Court Record 1687: Rural District Court Records, Ulvila 21–23 and 25 February: Ala-Satakunta II, KO a2. National Archives of Finland.
Christillinen neuwo nuorukaisille waelluxeen Jumalan edesä ja myoskin kansakäymisen ihmisten kansa Madame Guyonilda, Unpublished manuscript, sine anno. Manuscript collection C III, 22, 5 (1). University Library Helsinki
Lyhyt ja ytimellinen ulos weto muutamain ylos walaistuin sielun kirjoituxista nijn kuin ensixi P. Poirettilta. Unpublished manuscript, sine anno. Manuscript collection C III, 22, 5 (2), University Library Helsinki
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