The Datini archive in Prato, Italy, provides much detailed information about mothers and children in a merchant-class household of late fourteenth-and early fifteenth-century Tuscany. Over some thirty years the childless Margherita Datini supervised and cared for children of friends, relatives and business associates, and her husband's illegitimate daughter. Letters, household financial records, and Datini's business ledgers reveal many aspects of the lives of Margherita -as surrogate mother

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... d the children. The data show a fluid environment overseen by a strong-willed and caring mistress.