Chapter 3 and 4 Summary and Analysis

The wealthy tend to marry younger than the poor and to have wet nurses which shortens the time of infertility after pregnancy. They thereby have more children than their poorer counterparts. Until age seven, children are taught manners and sometimes letters by the women. The boys of the wealthy are then sent to a neighboring castle to serve as a page. The sons of the poor are sent to neighboring families to learn a trade. At fourteen, the training in combat intensifies, though a young man might learn some academics. Young women are taught at home or by the Church. At the time of the birth of Enguerrand VII, anything with no other explanation becomes the product of a particular line-up of the planets and astronomy is the "noblest science." Alchemy—the changing of metals into gold&mdash...