Summary
So you lived through birth…now what? Despite the popular image of the Middle Ages putting children to work the instant they were capable of holding a tool, Medieval childhood was actually pretty similar to modern childhood. No iPads, but people bought cute clothes for their kids, lots of different types of toys, sent them to school where they learned Latin (and riddles). Join Em and Jesse to learn about childhood!
Notes
Important sources for this episode:
Nicholas Orme’s Medieval Children https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Children-Nicholas-Orme/dp/0300097549
Christopher Cannon’s From Literacy to Literature: England, 1300-1400 https://www.amazon.com/Literacy-Literature-England-1300-1400/dp/0198779437
1/ Kid President isn’t a kid anymore! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robby_Novak
2/ Marie Antoinette and Her Children (1787) , by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656654) Vigee Le Brun painted a number of portraits of Marie Antoinette, and achieved full membership in the Academy. (Although she wasn’t the first woman to be awarded this honor–there were a number who gained Academy membership before the French revolution.)
For more on Le Brun, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Élisabeth_Vigée_Le_Brun and Evangelia Karvouni (2014), “Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun: A Historical Survey of a Woman Artist in the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of International Women’s Studies, 15(2), 268–285, available at https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1765&context=jiws
3/ True facts, the day that I (Em) was editing this, I calmed a baby by singing “Mack the Knife.” You probably don’t want me to sing to your children. [Jesse: That sounds awesome!]
4/ Coventry Carol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIvH5GdY4JE&ab_channel=drwestbury
5/ Henry Percy, called “Hotspur” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Percy_(Hotspur)) is a major character in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, pt. 1 (and also a real person who predated Shakespeare considerably).
6/ John Ball (c.1338–1381) was a priest who played a very important role in the Peasants’ Revolt (1381).
7/ Also, “sparrows” and “arrows” are an obvious English pairing if you want to rhyme.
8/ We have recorded a series of episodes on England Before 1066 in which the Exeter Riddles feature prominently, so look for those episodes in the future! For more on Exeter Riddles in the meantime, see the riddles and the answers and a nice essay (from the British Library) on the riddles: https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/the-exeter-book-riddles-in-context
9/ I (Jesse) had a lot of fun running through some cute Duolingo Latin exercises. It’s definitely Classical pronunciation (“c” always pronounced as “k,” “g” as in “go,