HIST 398
SYLLABUS
WEEKLY DISCUSSION MATERIALS
CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE IN THE CASTLE
Tuesday:
Mini-paper topic:
You are the senior nursemaid in charge of the young children of the lord and lady of the castle. A new junior servant has been ordered to assist you. Describe for this assistant four of the most common hazards of castle life from which the children must be protected.
Readings:
Gies and Gies, Marriage and the Family, Chap. 10 (pp. 196-217): “Children in the Middle Ages”
Singman, Daily Life in Medieval Europe, pp. 17-27 (notes on p. 32)
Images:
Baby Moses and Bathsheba gives birth to a son, from the Maciejowski Bible, c. 1244-54
Virgin and swaddled Child, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1340-45 (Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera)
Birth of the Virgin Mary to St. Anne (psalter, end of 13th cent.)
Toys:
Doll clothes from the Northern Caucasus, 8th or 9th cent. (St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum)
Doll cradle (14th cent.)
fighting knight-puppets, end of 12th cent. (Hortus deliciarum)
tops, dice, and balls, after 1278 (from excavations in Konstanz and Freiburg)
pewter knight on horseback, c. 1300 (Museum of London)
walking on stilts, c. 1350 (Voeux du paon: PML G.24, fol. 40r)
puppet show, 1338-44 (Romance of Alexander)
clay dolls, 14th cent. (Nuernberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum)
clay dolls with “Kruseler” headdress, c. 1350-1425
ceramic toys, 14th-15th cent. (Esslingen, Germany)
riding stick-horses, early 15th cent. (Blumen der Tugend)
clay doll, 15th cent. (Nuernberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum)
baby and children, c. 1475-1500 (illus. of the 7 ages of man, from De proprietatibus rerum)
boy and girl playing, c. 1484-6 (book of heraldry, ÖNB 12820, fol. 182r)
Pieter Brueghel, Children’s Games, 1560 and detail (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum)
Portrait of Arabella Stuart holding a doll, 1577
Thursday:
Videos:
Vladimir Propp’s Seven Basic Stories (2:48 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf9lI80Ub60
Readings:
Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages, beginning of Chapter 10, “Education in the nobility,” pp. 209-213 (notes on pp. 320-322)
Oosterwijk, “The Medieval Child: An Unknown Phenomenon?”
https://web.archive.org/web/20121220111653/http://www.the-orb.net/non_spec/missteps/ch6.html
Gies and Gies, Marriage and the Family, pp. 141-145
An aristocratic education, from John Harding’s Chronicle (c. 1457); and the ideal squire, from Philippe de Remi, sire de Beaumanoir‘s Blonde of Oxford (Jehan et Blonde, c. 1250-65)
https://sites.uwm.edu/carlin/an-aristocratic-education-and-the-ideal-squire/
Discussion:
List fairy tales or nursery rhymes that might preserve medieval themes.
Identify possible medieval elements of these themes or stories.
(Example: “Little Red Riding Hood,” available in a 6-minute YouTube video; summaries of some well-known fairy tales)
Create the elements of a medieval fairy tale:
1. Setting the scene: There once was a knight who had three sons, Albert, Boris, and Carl . . . (Create the opening scene and describe the knight and his family.)
2. The problem: The three sons have to go out into the world with no resources . . . (Explain why, and say what each does.)
3. The danger(s): Each son must encounter danger . . . (Describe the danger, and how each son responds to it.)
4. The conclusion: The return home . . . (Who returns home? What happens then? How does the story end?)
5. What is the moral or point of this story?