HIST 398
SYLLABUS
WEEKLY DISCUSSION MATERIALS

 

 EDUCATION AND MANNERS

Tuesday:

Videos:

 

Readings:

Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages, end of Chapter 10, “Education in the nobility,” pp. 214-224 (with notes on pp. 322-325)

Guibert of Nogent (d. 1124), Autobiography. Read first paragraph (editor’s introduction), then scroll down to paragraph beginning “(Col 843)” and read all remaining text:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/nogent-auto.asp

“Distichs of Cato” (a medieval schoolbook for teaching Latin) – read editor’s introduction, and then click on “The Monostichs, as `Prologue’” and read that page also:
https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/cato-catoun

Carlin and Crouch, Lost Letters, Document 78 (pp. 243-245)

 

Mini-paper topic:

You are an adolescent boy or girl being educated in a castle.  Which parts of your education do you enjoy the most? Which the least?

 

Images:

Starting school (15th cent.)

Boys in school (Manessa Codex, c. 1300)

Hornbooks (16th cent. and later)

Writing tablets and styli (from ancient Egypt to medieval Europe)

Children holding hornbooks or wax tablets  (fresco in St. Vigil unter Weineck, c. 1385-1390)

Girls dance in street; boys study in classroom (detail from Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory of Good Government, 1338, Siena)

Classroom scene (from Omne Bonum, English, c. 1360-75)

St. Anne teaching the Virgin to read (c. 1430)

Girls reading (c. 1400-25) and female teacher instructing girls (S. Netherlands, c.1445: BL, Harley MS 3828, f. 27v)

Classroom scene (15th cent.)

A child’s alphabet (S. Holland, c. 1480)

Signboard for a German schoolmaster (1516)  The schoolmaster teaches three boys, while a woman teaches a girl.

Discussion:

Proverbs, maxims, and aphorisms (short, pithy sayings, like Cato’s monostichs) have often been used in teaching children, both at home and in shcool.
Write down at least five different proverbial sayings (more, if possible).  Here are some typical topics and examples to prompt your memory:

Relationships:
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Out of sight, out of mind.”

Behavior:
“Silence is golden.”
“Children should be seen and not heard.”

Financial/workplace:
“Penny wise and pound foolish.”
“Haste makes waste.”

Political:
“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

Human nature:
“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
“One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

Moral/Biblical:
“Thou shalt not steal.”
“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

Time:
“Better late than never.”
“The early bird gets the worm.”

 

Thurday:

 

Videos:

Gigi – ortolans (1958; 2:21 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvPJ0hRA6x4

King of Queens, “Hungry Man” clip (1:13 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unXKYK0uRJ8

 

Readings:

“Medieval Writing – The Laity” (read both websites below):

https://web.archive.org/web/20181118225629/http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/literacy/laity3.htm               https://web.archive.org/web/20181118200124/http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/literacy/laity5.htm

“The Duenna’s Advice on Table Manners,” from Jean de Meun’s continuation of The Romance of the Rose, late thirteenth century
https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/duennas-advice-table-manners

“The Little Childrenes Little Boke,” circa 1480
https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/little-childrens-little-book-courtesy-book-c-1480

 

from the Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1325-35):  the Luttrells at table

Duccio: The Wedding at Cana (Italian, 1308-11)

From Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (early 15th cent.): January (the duke at table)

Brueghel, “Peasant Wedding” (16th cent.)