“Well-Beloved Child” – Letters from Mothers to their Children

 By Simonetta Carr - Posted at Place For Truth:

From the earliest times, mothers have felt the responsibility of training and instructing their children. We find plenty of examples both in the Bible and in church history. This desire has often been expressed in their letters.

When Sons Leave Home

During the Middle Ages, the Frankish noblewoman Dhuoda wrote a long and moving treatise to her son fourteen-year-old son William, who had moved with his father to the royal court.[1] She hoped her written words will continue to guide William and, possibly, that he would share them with his younger brother who had been taken from her as a baby.

In the sixteenth century, Anna Bullinger wrote to one of her sons at college, “I ask you to be sound, hardworking, and to clean yourself, fearing God, honorable toward God, and all people,”[2] she said, adding words of advice about washing clothes and caring for shoes.

But it is in the seventeenth century that the genre of mothers’ legacies began to flourish. Brilliana Harley’s letters to her son Edward (Ned), who left for Magdalen Hall, Oxford, when he was fourteen, were later published and circulated widely. Like Anna Bullinger, Brilliana included both practical and religious admonitions – from health and fashion tips to instructions to continue in prayer, keep the Sabbath, and avoid introspection.[3] She wrote Ned almost weekly for the five years he was away.

Equally concerned about her son, William, was Katherine Paston, who wrote him loving letters for the four years he was at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Many of her letters were accompanied by gifts of food, with constant prayers that God would keep Will in "all healthe bothe for sowll and body" and guide him “in the pathes of true knowledge.”[4]

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