Medieval Life: Children's Play

With all the preteen brides and teenage boys dying in battle or under mysterious circumstances in towers, it might seem that childhood in the Middle Ages was non-existent and certainly not pleasant.  Kids will be kids and children did find ways to act up, play and have fun. 

Childhood was a precarious time.  Death in infancy or from a routine childhood disease or accident was all too common.  Under both canon (church) and common (secular) law, childhood ended at about 12 for girls or 14 for boys, which could roughly coincide with the onset of puberty.  At that point, children, though young, were considered old enough to be held accountable for their actions.  Thus, childhood during this time period was short.  However, there was the idea that play during childhood was necessary for children to learn the roles they would step into as adults.  Boys began practicing with toy swords and bows until they were strong enough to work with scaled down models of real weapons.  Girls did play with crude dolls, carved or stuffed with straw and scraps. 

But there were other games, as well.  Tag, blindman's bluff, hide and seek and prisoner's base were known during the Middle Ages.  Children could play with balls made of leather, animal bladder or other material, tossing, kicking or hitting with sticks.  Chasing a hoop with a stick was another past-time.  Marbles were made of clay instead of colored glass, which would have been too expensive.  There was also knucklebones, played similarly to marbles with small pieces of bone, wood or clay.  Jacks was another common game.  Puppet shows, the forerunner of Punch and Judy, were also common.  If nothing else, mud puddles were fun to splash in.  By the time Peter Bruegel the Elder painted his famous work, Children's Games, some of these pastimes were as old as time.