Introduction DELIMITATION OF THE SAMPLE

The sample was decided a priori based on the amount of data in literary history and economic history. 19 areas were included:

-2000 BCE -500 BCE: Egypt (from Ancient Egyptian) and Mesopotamia (from Sumerian and Akkadian).

-500 BCE -500 CE: Eastern Mediterranean (from Ancient Greek), Western Mediterranean (from Latin), India (from Sanskrit and Tamil), Central Asia (from Persian), China (from Chinese) -500 CE -1800 CE: England (from English), France (from French), Germany (from German), Italy (from Italian), Spain (from Castilian), Low Countries (from Dutch), Ireland (from Irish), Wales (from Welsh), Iceland and Norway (from Old Norse), Russian (from East Slavic), Japan (from Japanese), Arabic world (from Arabic), India (from Sanskrit, Tamil and Urdu), Central Asia (from Persian), China (from Chinese)

In order to have comprehensive series, we then completed the series with additional literary traditions when needed (Persian in Early Modern India, Latin in Early Medieval France, etc.). This method is common practice in cultural history. For instance, the authors of the Handbook of Spanish Literature write: 'As "Spain" did not exist as a political entity in the Middle Ages, we will have to understand the term "medieval Spanish literature" to be merely a useful shorthand for something like "the literature written in the medieval period in that geographical area corresponding, roughly, to the borders of the present-day Spanish state.' (Gies, 2004). Such a definition means that a survey of Spanish literature will include 'a number of languages and literary traditions we identify today with names like Latin, Occitan, Catalan, Galician-Portuguese, and Aragonese, in addition to the Arabic, Hebrew, and Castilian.' (Gies, 2004).

TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL LEVEL OF ANALYSIS

The temporal and spatial level of analysis were decided based on the availability of economic data. Before the 19 th c., it is impossible to go below the national level for most countries. The only exception is the Roman Empire where some estimates allow for distinguishing between the Western part and the Eastern part of the Empire, which corresponds to our Latin and Greek areas.

To limit bias in data analysis, we use standard historical periods whenever possible, deferring to Wikipedia to label each period. In particular, we use the same temporal division for all European countries: Early Medieval period (500 -1000), Central Medieval period (1000 -1300), Late Medieval period (1300 -1500) and Early Modern period (1500 -1800). These temporal division do not always match the evolution of economic development. However, they allow for limiting the degrees of freedom in the analysis. In the end, the combination of the 19 geographical areas and their standard historical periods leads to 77 cases of observation.

PRESENTATION OF THE SURVEY

The survey is organized by geographic areas (e.g. Greece, England, etc.), and within one geographical area by historical periods, with the earlier periods first.

Comparison within the same area (e.g. Archaic Greece and Hellenistic Greece) are thus naturally presented in the relevant section (e.g. Greece). The survey thus starts with the most ancient traditions (e.g. Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia) and ends with the most recent (e.g. (Iceland and Norway, Russia).

In each case, the survey proceeds as follow: , 1992;Golden, 2015;Lovén, 2013;Manson, 1983;McGinn, 2013;Rawson, 2003;Veyne, 1978 Increase Early Medieval Europe Central Medieval Europe [START_REF] Doris | Enfance et maternité dans la littérature française des XII e et XIII e siècles[END_REF][START_REF] Forsyth | Children in early medieval art : Ninth through twelfth centuries[END_REF][START_REF] Gaffney | Constructions of Childhood and Youth in Old French Narrative[END_REF][START_REF] Lasareff | Studies in the Iconography of the Virgin[END_REF][START_REF] Martindale | The child in the picture : A medieval perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Mclaughlin | Survivors and surrogates : Children and parents from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries[END_REF][START_REF] Orme | Medieval children[END_REF][START_REF] Swanson | Childhood and childrearing in ad status sermons by later thirteenth century friars[END_REF][START_REF] Vadin | L'absence de représentation de l'enfant et/ou du sentiment de l'enfance dans la littérature médiévale[END_REF]Increase Central Medieval Europe Early Modern Europe Ariès, 1965;Cunningham, 1998;Fass, 2013;Heywood, 2017;Stone, 1977 Increase Pre-Tang dynasties Tang dynasty DeWoskin, 1995;Hung, 1995;Kinney, 1995 To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic study of the diachronic evolution of the attitudes toward children in Ancient Egypt.

Mesopotamia (2000 BCE -550 BCE)

To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic study of the diachronic evolution of the attitudes toward children in Mesopotamia.

Greek world (800 BCE -1800 CE)

Academic works regarding parental investment are available for 3 periods: Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. In Ancient Greece, artistic representations from the 6 th to the 3 rd century BC show a clear increase in the importance of childhood, as well as a qualitative change from children as incomplete adults and marginal beings toward children as cute and funny creatures requiring caring (Beaumont, 2003;[START_REF] Oakley | Children in Archaic and Classical Greek art : A Survey. The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World[END_REF]. In the 6 th century, children are rare in artistic representations. They appear mostly in minor and inexpensive arts such as painted plaques and vases, and rarely in the costly medium of carved stone. They also are represented as miniaturized adults, in the same way that social inferiors like servants and slaves, and in contrast to adolescents, especially adolescent boys. By contrast, in the 5 th and 4 th c., children are much more often represented, and when represented they occupy a much more central position. For instance, the traditional departure-of-warrior scenes, present all across the Greek art history, accord much more space to the child with his mother in the classical period than in the archaic periods. Strikingly, in the classical period, schoolroom scenes are one of the most frequent representations of children, suggesting that this growing interest is associated with an increase in the investment in human capital.

The classical period also sees the emergence of new topics such as pictures of children in danger or suffering violence aiming to convey the absolute dependence of the infant on its mother and the willingness of the mother to fight to death to protect her offspring. The way children are depicted also insist more and more on their child-like features: large heads, short limbs, chubby torso, wrists and hands, suggesting a greater attention to children and in particular to the trait related to signals of caring [START_REF] Grubbs | Infant exposure and infanticide. The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World[END_REF]. Finally, funerary art also testifies this evolution. While in the archaic period, children are depicted only to the extent that they enhance the prestige of the household, the classical period see the emergence of funerary memorials dedicated to commemorate the dead children as a significant being in their own right. As Beaumont writes "This suggests that by the late fifth or fourth centuries, the status of young child risen sufficiently in Athens to justify the considerable outlay of expenditure on a memorial that apparently did little to overtly enhance the profile of the oikos to which the deceased belonged but that rather commemorated an individual who had as yet fulfilled no practical function within society. Instead the children's tombstones seem first and foremost to give expression to the very personal emotion of love and loss felt by those family members left behind."

While artistic representation provide the least ambiguous signal, other elements such as literature (see for instance, [START_REF] Ingalls | Attitudes towards children in the Iliad[END_REF], medical documents, legal change all points toward an increasing interest to children from the Archaic to the Classical and then Hellenistic periods (Golden, 2015).

FROM THE CLASSICAL PERIOD TO THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

The same trend can be detected up to the Hellenistic period in the artistic representations. This observation goes back to Herter (1927):

"The Hellenistic poets were the first to put children at center stage as they actually are and for their own sakes . . . and the art of that period swims with true depictions of real children, from whose amusing conduct Greeks of that time must have taken special pleasure." (Herter, 1927, p. 251, cited by Golden, 2015, p. 143) This statement is in agreement with more recent studies on the representation of childhood in Hellenistic art. As Beaumont (2003) writes:

'the image of children and childhood was now sentimentalized and idealized, both through the representation of cute childish behavior and physical attitudes and through the iconographic adoption of physically charming childish anatomy. (Beaumont, 2003, p. 75) Indications of a change in mentalities are also visible outside art history. The hellenistic poetry "delighted in scenes of emotion which it found in odd episodes of myth, in the child and the old, the housewife as well as the heroine" (Lane Fox, 1986, 353). New concern to bury infants and small children in cemeteries is evident at Corinth and Olynthus as well as Athens (Morris, 1987;[START_REF] Houby-Nielsen | Burial Language' in Archaic and Classical Kerameikos[END_REF]. Moreover, this new interest in children is is restricted to literature and the visual arts. Hellenistic medicine developed a distinctive therapeutic regime for children-something absent from the Hippocratic Corpus [START_REF] Bertier | Enfants malades et maladies des enfants dans le Corpus hippocratique[END_REF]. At the same time, the exposure of newborns became morally troubling, as a belief grew up in the child's right to live (Deissmann-Merten, 1984, 276-281). As Mark Golden write in his review, there seems to be 'a fundamental shift in mentalité' (143).

It worth noting the limits of these conclusion. As Mark Golden notes:

There is no series of textual or iconographic data that permits any reasonably reliable conclusion about levels of exposure during the classical or Hellenistic periods. Arguments need to be based on the distribution of the evidence over time, on quantitative data from particular locales and times, which then need to be generalized, and on scattered statements of uncertain validity. (...) we have no Hellenistic tragedies, and small choes showing children were apparently a fashion that did not continue much past the end of the fifth century. On the other hand, the genres of literature that supply much of the evidence for the new Hellenistic outlook-the hymns of Callimachus, Theocritean idylls-are unknown, or nearly so, in the classical period. Consequently, what appears to be a shift in mentalité may be mostly or even entirely an effect of genre.

Despite these reservations, Golden (2015) concludes his review by unambiguously stating tghat there was in an increase in the attention given to children during the hellenistic period.

Lane Fox, R. (1986). "Hellenistic Culture and Literature." In The Oxford History of the Classical World: Greece and the Hellenistic World, edited by J. Boardman, J. Griffin, and O. Murray, 338-364 (Oxford).

Morris (1987) 57-69. Morris, I. (1987). Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State (Cambridge).

Indian world (800 BC -1800 CE)

To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic study of the diachronic evolution of the attitudes toward children in pre-modern India.

Persian world (500 BCE -1800 CE)

To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic study of the diachronic evolution of the attitudes toward children in the Persian World.

Latin world (300 BCE -500 CE)

Academic works regarding parental investment are available for 2 periods: the late Republic and the Early Empire. From the late Republic to the Empire, the Roman culture saw an evolution similar to the Greek one (Dixon, 1992;Golden, 2015;Rawson, 2003). The iconography is again a great source of evidence. While there are very few inscriptions, no funerary monuments and almost no art dedicated to children during the Republic, children start being represented during the Augustan period and the frequency of children representation culminate under the Antonines, in the 2 nd c. CE (Lovén, 2013;Rawson, 2003;Rawson & Weaver, 1999). It is worth noting that this evolution of the attitude toward children cannot be ascribed to the Greek Influence. Indeed, while the Romans borrowed a lot from the Greeks during the Republican period, it is precisely during this period that the presence of children is the most limited (Manson, 1983;Rawson, 2003). This cannot be either a matter of the greater survival of more recent evidence as after the peak in the second century, the importance of children declines (Rawson, 2003). Finally, it cannot be attributed in a change of medium. For instance, the sarcophagus and inscriptions of the Cornelii Scipiones family, dating from the third and second centuries BCE, have no record of non-adult children. But when sarcophagi start to be popular (among the elite population) in the second century CE, the new medium gave an importance place to children. Later on, when affluence started to decrease, sarcophagi also see a decrease of the place attributed to the representation of children (Rawson, 2003). Literary evidences confirm this pattern. The depiction of the small child become more precise in the late Republic, filled with a new tenderness and love (just as in the Hellenistic art) that is absent in earlier writings (Dixon, 1992;Manson, 1983).

In the legal domain, the Augustan period is famous for its pro-familial laws rewarding marriage and childrearing and punishing celibacy and adultery. Aftre this period, during the Golden Age of the early Empire, the Roman State kept trying to ameliorate the situation of children by protecting the rights of the children, in particular through a series of limitations placed on the exercise of patria potestas (McGinn, 2013). Two changes to the law are worth mentioning. Under certain circumstances, a paterfamilias might be denied custody of a child in favor of the mother following a divorce. The paterfamilias also saw limits upon his right to break up his daughter's happy marriage. The emperors also established a range of official and private sponsored projects for the support of children and family life (McGinn, 2013;Rawson, 2003).

Moral attitudes also changed during the Early Roman Empire. While exposure was accepted in the Republic, it becomes less and less tolerated, to the point that it was finally banished in the second century [START_REF] Grubbs | Infant exposure and infanticide. The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World[END_REF]Paul Veyne, 1978). Whereas there is almost no mention of exposure or infanticide in the Roman Republic, in the late first and early second century a number of Roman and Greek writers-Stoic philosophers, but also rhetorical writers, biographers, and jurists-mentioned infant exposure and its consequences, indicating a growing discomfort with the practice of getting rid of children. This shift also occurs in other domains. Abortion becomes less and less tolerated, while breastfeeding by the mother (and not by a wet nurse) is seen as a moral duty (Paul Veyne, 1978). The State also accompanied this shift in moral attitudes toward children promoting a new kind of patria potestas based pietas rather than on violence (McGinn, 2013). This is clearly illustrated in the ubiquity of the official representations of family values through the 'holy family' of Anchises-Aeneas-Ascanius (Manson, 1983;Rawson, 2003).

Table 1 : Relative importance of childhood by area and by period ( Periods References Evolution Least developed Most developed

 1

	• Economic Development across periods (when possible Living Standards and Human
	Development indicators were added)
	• Evolution of attitudes toward children in cultural history
	Results
			Beaumont, 2003; Golden,
	Archaic Greece	Classical Greece	2015; Grubbs, 2013; Oakley,	Increase
			2013
	Classical Greece	Hellenistic Greece	Beaumont, 2003	Increase
	Late Republic (Latin)	Early Empire (Latin)	Dixon

Table 1 : Relative importance of childhood by period (predicted and observed)

 1

	Periods
			Prediction	Observations
	Least developed	Most developed
	Archaic period	Classical period	Increase	Increase
	Classical period	Hellenistic period	Increase	Increase
	FROM THE ARCHAIC PERIOD TO THE CLASSICAL PERIOD

Table 2 : Relative importance of childhood by period (predicted and observed)

 2

	Periods
			Prediction	Observations
	Least developed	Most developed
	Late Republic	Early Empire	Increase	Increase
	FROM THE LATE REPUBLIC TO THE EARLY EMPIRE

 Dixon, S. (1992). The Roman Family. JHU Press. Golden, M. (2015). Children and childhood in classical Athens. JHU Press. [START_REF] Grubbs | Infant exposure and infanticide. The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World[END_REF]. Infant exposure and infanticide. The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World, 83. Lovén, L. L. (2013). Children and Childhood in Roman Commemorative Art. The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World, 302. Manson, M. (1983). The emergence of the small child in Rome (Third century BC-First century AD). History of education, 12(3), 149-159. McGinn, T. A. (2013). Roman Children and the Law. The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World, 341. Rawson, B. (2003). Children and childhood in Roman Italy. OUP Oxford. Rawson, B., & Weaver, P. (1999). The Roman family in Italy : Status, sentiment, space. Oxford University Press. Veyne, P. (1978). La famille et l'amour sous le Haut-Empire romain. Annales, 35-63. 7. China (300 CE -1800 CE) Parental investment from the pre-Tang dynasties to the Tang dynasty

Several work have demonstrated that the low importance of childhood during the early imperial period (DeWoskin, 1995;Hung, 1995;Kinney, 1995). For instance, Wu Hung studied Han pictorial carvings of children who can be identified by name and concludes and concluded there are no true portraits of children from the Han. The images of children that have been preserved (with one exception) serve instead to illustrate didactic tales that are largely concerned with the virtues of public duty and filial love. Genuine love, by opposition of socially or morally required love, is seldom represented (Hung, 1995). In the same way, Kenneth DeWoskin (DeWoskin, 1995) has showed that in the earliest biographies, the passage on the youth of eminent figures typically serve to foreshadow the nature of the adult personality rather than to inform the reader about an individual's childhood per se (a similar observation has been made for the early European biographies, see above).

The importance of children seems to increase with the Tang. Pei-yi Wu shows that from about 800 CE onward, the corpus of writings commemorating a child's death began to grow steadily, at the time where the first romantic stories start to be written (Wu, 1995). This upward trend goes on during the Ming and culminates during the Qing dynasties. Comparing 9 th c. and 17 th c. commemorative texts written by two fathers morning their deceased daughters, Pei-yi Wu shows that parents' depictions greatly increase in precision and emotionality:

'the ninth-century girl was a shadowy figure passively enduring her fate. While her father could still "see her eyes and face" when he stood over her temporary grave, the reader cannot share the vision. There is nothing in the text to suggest a real person. Even the standard topoi are absent. But the seventeenth-century girl, perishing after only three short years in this world, is nevertheless the most fully realized child in all traditional Chinese literature. Self-assured and perhaps a bit spoiled, she was playful, agile, and totally engaged with all the people, young or old, who came her way. Her individuality and complexity are lovingly recalled by her father: her innocent wiles and revelries, her little games and amusing mimicries, her quick though simple comprehension of the adult world, even her importunities.' (Wu, 1995).

This increase in emotionality and individuality in commemorative writings cannot results solely in an increase of literary materials, nor in the development of literary skills. Indeed, a similar trend can be observed in funerary rituals. There was indeed an initial reluctance, both in classical Europe and ancient China, to accord children more than a minimum recognition in death rituals.

EARLY MODERN CHINA COMPARED TO EARLY MODERN EUROPE

Although the importance of childhood increased during the Imperial era, it seems that children and childhood did not have the same importance and the same positive value as in Europe. For instance, in his review of A Tender Voyage: Children and Childhood in Late Imperial China (Hsiung, 2007), Pei-yi Wu wrote:

The changes in the lives of children of the Ming and Ch'ing periods as described above do not seem to amount to a fundamental break from the past. They are certainly not the kind of discontinuities that, according to Ariès, occurred in seventeenth-century Europe. In China there was no "discovery", no new culture, of childhood. The changes from previous times were changes only in degree, not in kind (Wu, 2006) Furthermore, the contact period (19 th c.) and the reaction of Chinese intellectuals to European culture suggest that they perceived the Chinese culture as less concerned with children than Western Europe (Stearns, 2016).

For the cultural reformers of the early 20 th c., the traditional child-rearing in family and school made children "more dead than alive". As Saari writes, the reformers felt that "Instead of emancipating their children into independence, parents required that children 'learn from the sages and sacrifice themselves.' Instead of guidance, there were orders; instead of understanding, only commands to obey." (Saari, 1990, p. 41)

Arab World (400 -1800)

To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic study of the diachronic evolution of the attitudes toward children in the Arabic World. 9 -14 Western Europe: England, France, Germany, Italy, Low Countries and Spain (500 -1800)

FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL PERIOD TO THE CENTRAL MEDIEVAL PERIOD

In line with our main hypothesis, recent works have shown that there is an increase in parental feeling during the very same period (11 th -13 th c.) during which we have observed an increase in romantic feelings (for a review, see [START_REF] Orme | Medieval children[END_REF]. According to Georges Duby, this is one of the major changes of the period:

'the slow conversion of Christian sensibility that, in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, through the progressive spread of certain Gospel themes, the development of the Christmas liturgy and the proliferation of legends concerning the child Jesus, moves towards childhood values, would indeed appear to be one of those profound changes, one of those major turning-points in the history of attitudes that calls for detailed study. ' (Duby, 1961) Examining famous autobiographies of these periods, Mary M. McLaughin notes that while the idea of the child as the possession and property of its parents continued to dominate parental attitudes and actions in the 11 th and 12 th c.:

"the proprietary notion had also been joined by more favorable conceptions, by a sense of the child as a being in its own right, as a nature of "potential greatness," and by a sense of childhood as a distinctive and formative stage of life." [START_REF] Mclaughlin | Survivors and surrogates : Children and parents from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries[END_REF] She adds: 'Among the many great changes that emerged during the century and more spanned by the lifetimes none was more profound than the slow transformation in modes of consciousness and expression with which the relationships and experiences of childhood were inextricably bound up.' [START_REF] Mclaughlin | Survivors and surrogates : Children and parents from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries[END_REF] Among these changes, she cites an increase in tenderness, compassion and the capacity to comprehend the needs and emotions of others. Historical chronicles, medical writings, Marian legends, hagiography, and popular theological texts, all display an increasing concern for children during the 11 th -13 th c. period [START_REF] Maclehose | A tender age » : Cultural anxieties over the child in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries[END_REF][START_REF] Swanson | Childhood and childrearing in ad status sermons by later thirteenth century friars[END_REF].

One problem is that such observation could result from the simple increase in literary materials available for the later periods. To really compare different periods to each other, a more systematic method consists in comparing similar materials. In a very systematic study, Phyllis Gaffney studied the evolution of literary depictions of children in old French narratives [START_REF] Doris | Enfance et maternité dans la littérature française des XII e et XIII e siècles[END_REF]; see also [START_REF] Vadin | L'absence de représentation de l'enfant et/ou du sentiment de l'enfance dans la littérature médiévale[END_REF]. She demonstrates that from the 12 th to the 13 th , the very period during which the topic of romantic love explodes in French literature, children become more important in narratives. They are more active and better characterized. But more importantly, their depiction emphasized the importance of development, and thus of investment during childhood. In the earlier narratives, writers are not interested in childhood for its own sake. Childhood is important not in itself but for what it might tell the reader about the adult to be: childhood, in particular, would reveal the future qualities of the hero or the saint. By contrast, in the later narratives, the heroes can become better and they change over time. In Gaffney's words, the medieval narratives shifted from the 'child as a prodigy in adults battles' towards 'the child as a youthful apprentice in search of experience', from 'the immutable nature of the young' toward 'the influences of nurture' [START_REF] Gaffney | Constructions of Childhood and Youth in Old French Narrative[END_REF]. This interest in development reflect a view of childhood as time where things can change and thus where care, education and parenting might be important. In the end, concludes Gaffney:

'cumulative indications tend to support Duby's proposition that the twelfth century was propitious for a slow conversion of sensibility towards the young. the precocious little warrior of the chanson de geste is gradually superseded by the vulnerable apprentice of romance, and the popularity of enfances poems indicates an increased interest in childhood as a state in itself worthy of narrative interest.' [START_REF] Gaffney | Constructions of Childhood and Youth in Old French Narrative[END_REF] Further works suggest that this increase in the importance of children goes on during the 14 th and 15 th c. [START_REF] Vadin | L'absence de représentation de l'enfant et/ou du sentiment de l'enfance dans la littérature médiévale[END_REF].

Art is another domain where systematic comparison are possible. Victor Lasareff's pioneering study of portrayals of the virgin and Child revealed a steady humanizing of the infant Jesus:

'no longer the austere Judge of the universe, and free of all shadow of grief, he is (by the thirteenth century) a joyous Babe, who plays with his mother. The stereotyped attitude of blessing is gone; he now gesticulates freely, reaches up to the virgin's face, or towards her veil or an apple, moves his small feet, and throws back His head.' (Lasareff, 1938, p. 63) Surveying the evolution of the paintings of the Madonna and the Christ during the 13 th c., Martindale notes that:

'By the end of the century, one finds the Christ-child walking around on the Virgin's knee and reaching up to touch her face. The theme of lactation gradually becomes more common. The child acquires a degree of expression unknown at an earlier date.' [START_REF] Martindale | The child in the picture : A medieval perspective[END_REF] Martindale also notes that the representations of maternal feelings are not confined to Italy: 'In the north, one of its earliest manifestations is likely to be the famous statue of the Madonna and Child on the trumeau of the south portal of Amiens Cathedral (c. 1230-40) where the mother smiles at the child. (…) on a boss in the nave vault of the abbey church at Tewkesbury (c. 1340), there is a charming scene in which the Virgin appears to be teaching Christ to walk.' [START_REF] Martindale | The child in the picture : A medieval perspective[END_REF] More generally, Ilene Forsyth garnered a variety of illustrations of childhood from the Carolingian period onwards and showed that, in the 13th c., child-types appear that can be regarded as precursors of later iconography: the figure of the adolescent angel; the 'realistic' child Jesus playing in His mother's arms; the naked infant symbolizing the soul of a dead man. In the 14th c. century, the childhood of Christ, the virgin and saints becomes a popular motif in art; and by the end of the 14th c. the putto, or little cherub, so well-loved by the renaissance and baroque periods starts appearing [START_REF] Forsyth | Children in early medieval art : Ninth through twelfth centuries[END_REF].

Again, one problem with these observations could be that there are simply more paintings for the later periods and thus a greater variety of materials. However, Martindale note that not only are children more 'childish' and more often represented, but:

'Thoughtfulness concerning the nature of childhood and the role of the child spilled over into other scenes and episodes in the biblical and sacred stories. In a fresco in the Baptistery at Parma (c. 1270), the boy Baptist sets out for the wilderness, escorted by an angel, and armed with his ABC on a scroll. Children take part in the scenes of the Road to Golgotha and the Crucifixion (c. 1340). At Assisi, children form part of the crowd to witness St Francis renouncing his father (c. 1290); and in a further version deriving from the first, they actually throw stones at St Francis (c. 1340).' Thus, children simply seem more salient in people's minds.

One final evolution are religious changes regarding children. During the 12th and 13th c., the Church, too, came to insist on baptizing infants within a few days of birth, instead of waiting until the traditional baptismal seasons of easter or Pentecost. An opposite trend is noted in the two sacraments traditionally administered with baptism: 12th and 13th c. theologians gradually argued the separation of communion and confirmation from the sacrament of baptism because seven years old children were deemed too young for such initiations. Thus, on the one hand, a higher regard for the fate of infants, and on the other hand, a willingness to give more time to children before reaching social maturity. In a nutshell, a desire to grant childhood a bigger importance.

FROM LATE MEDIEVAL PERIOD TO THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

The question about the evolution of childhood during the early modern period hardly needs discussion. The early observations of Ariès (1965) and Stone (1977) have been replicated in a number of works (Cunningham, 1998;Fass, 2013;Heywood, 2017). During the early modern period, a shift in philosophical and social attitudes toward children. Adults increasingly saw children as different from adults, blameless and in need of protection and education by the adults around them. In families, parents became aware of the pleasure they felt in observing children. The writings of the time mention dialogues between children and parents, which the conventions would not have allowed a few decades earlier. Outside the family, moralists like Erasmus began to develop the idea that children were fragile creatures of God whom adults had to protect and change (educate). In the 18 th c., the works of philosophers like

Wales (500 -1800)

To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic study of the diachronic evolution of the attitudes toward children in Wales.

16. Japan (700 -1800) Kinski, 2015). Farris notes that in the Heian period, emotional relations between children and their fathers seem distant or even non-existent. For instance, fathers almost never express their feelings about their children in classical poetry, despite the fact that all sorts of emotions are portrayed in classical poetry (Farris, 2009). Later on, in the medieval period, attitudes toward deceases children also seems to reveal relatively low level of investment (Farris, 2009).

By contrast, a few works suggest that the importance of children grew during the Edo period notably through a sharp increase of private schools in the biggest cities, the launch of local campaigns against abortion and infanticide beginning in the late 18 th and the emergence of new pictorial representations of children (Platt, 2005).

EDO JAPAN COMPARED TO MODERN EUROPE

Again, the literature of childhood is limited (Jones, 2010;Paget, 2011;Stearns, 2016). However, the political debates about children and schooling during the early Meiji period suggest that Japanese thinkers regarded their investment in children as less important than in the West (Jones, 2010;Paget, 2011;Stearns, 2016).

Ireland (700 -1800)

To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic study of the diachronic evolution of the attitudes toward children in Ireland.

Old Norse world (800 -1800)

To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic study of the diachronic evolution of the attitudes toward children in the Old Norse World.

East Slavic world (1100 -1800)

To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic study of the diachronic evolution of the attitudes toward children in the East Slavic World.