Learning to be a man: public schooling and apprenticeship in late medieval Manosque

This article looks at teachers' contracts and apprenticeship contracts from the Provençal town of Manosque. It argues that, in late medieval Manosque, education was institutionalised and gendered. Manosquin society implemented formal systems in order to inculcate a particular type of masculine identity. This identity, a function of the growing burgher class of townsmen, was driven by rapid urban expansion, economics, and secularisation. This article demonstrates how gender acquisition took place. It also explores in detail the form and content of secular schooling for young boys and apprenticeship for adolescents.