What an original subject! It seems like we never read or learn about children's games and toys in history. From a psychological and contemporary standpoint, I was reflecting on how most of these games seem to follow a dynamic where children inflict actively to those less "powerful" than them what they probably suffered passively from adults or elder children.
I agree, childhood is such an interesting subject, and tells us so much about a culture and society! And I think you make a very good point about how power dynamics were acted out through play to make sense of the world.
The ancient Indus Valley civilization (3300-1300 BC) was really, REALLY into bathing. They had private baths at home and public baths. And among the archeological remains were what we'd call today rubber duckies in the drainage systems they had. I think they were made of wood, but you can see that it was supposed to be a ducky.
I lived in a poor country. Not only were the children very creative in their toy making, they were also very violent. Pulling the tails off of lizards, chasing and hitting animals with sticks, or bullying each other was very common.
@@juliamartinshistory some people still raise and sell cocks for fighting in some places like some small towns and mountain villages in the 21 century. in my country (Peru) most people live in cities , so we dont have much cockfights or bullfights but in some parts of the countryside and the andes, (mountains) they still are two popular money making sports.
@nataliapanfichi9933 You're right, sadly... Unfortunately that is similar in my country (Brazil), even though cockfighting has been illegal for decades!
Hahaha thank you! These projects, especially the armor, are next level though... Plus it will take me a while to give her a hot glue gun! But I love their creativity
Julia, once again I loved it! This topic is particularly interesting to me, because by observing and working with children I was able to see the imagination, creativity and imitation of adults' daily lives always present in their development. wonderful! thanks!
That's so kind of you, thank you! How wonderful to hear that you enjoyed the video. I agree, it's so interesting to see children playing and learning about the world around them! ♥
Este é desde já um dos meus vídeos favoritos! As crianças imitando o mundo adulto, inclusive na sua violência, e buscando desenvolver habilidades e imaginação mesmo quando tolhidas pela escola, igreja ou expectativas familiares, são a verdadeira força vital e provavelmente uma das coisas que mais nos definem como humanos! Parabéns Júlia, grande tema e pesquisa!
Well done. Toy soldiers were very common in the US and Germany made from various materials stamped steel for larger weapons, paste board, wire frames with paper mache covering which was then painted when dry, cast metal and later cast plastic.
Really loved this video! I wanted to comment about the violence of children towards animals. While I find the violence towards animals in this video abhorrent I do have a lot of memories of being violent towards insects as a child. This was considered normal behavior - me and all the other little american boys would have fun torturing and killing ants, pill bugs and even bees. If we had shown the same behavior towards animals it would have been seen as a very serious abnormality and worth taking us to a psychologist but for some reason it was seen as normal to pull legs of insects. I even feel like it was kind of encouraged as a a sort of "scientific curiosity" about the creatures. Trying to force insects to fight was a particularly popular sport. Those poor bees. I got stung a lot as a child.
Thank you, I'm so glad you enjoyed the video! :) Your comment about animal cruelty is so interesting. I was raised in Brazil, so maybe that's why I had such a different experience. I wonder if it might have something to do with gender, but in any case I think you're on point in terms of how 'scientific curiosity' could be used to justify it. I also think that most people tend to be more sympathetic to mammals than insects in general... I hope animal cruelty is becoming less acceptable though!
I moved to South America (west side) and found that attitudes towards animals were different--I saw a dog run over in the street, and the local children just joked about it; even the young girl (6 or 7) who had had it on a leash didn't seem affected by it at all. We shouldn't forget, though, that the attitudes in America have changed rapidly over the last half century or so.
Oh that's an excellent discussion. The idea of privacy has its own history but largely, no, children wouldn't have had much privacy at home or school and they would have been subject to adults (hitting children was often seen as beneficial). Having said that, they spent much time with their peers, playing outside etc, where they were outside of adult supervision, so they could have had more freedom to explore the world in that sense, compared to today.
Not just in the case of children, but privacy was rare in the Tudor period, even for nobles. You were very privileged if you had your own bed or room without having to share. Often masters and servants might share beds. Entire families would sleep in the same room. This was even the case for those higher up the social ladder. For example, Catherine Howard (Henry VIII's wife no. 5) spent her youth (her pre-court youth, Henry killed her when she was around 19-20 years old) in a sort of boarding school ran by an aunt of hers. She'd share a bed with another girl and there were large rooms with lots of beds with only some curtains to separate them. A girl who was sharing the bed with her asked to switch beds with another girl, because she was bothered that Catherine was making noise having sex... right next to her. When the court was going on progress, people slept wherever they could, in inns, on the floor in a hall (this was common for servants even when not on progress, they slept in bed rolls on the floors) or they even slept in stables. A big misconception we have about them was they were shy and bashful and polite. They did things we'd consider highly inappropriate, even criminal today. But they saw it as normal. Children would hear/see the same things as adults. There were no equivalents to film ratings, so they'd hear and see all the brutality, swearing, sex, etc. So privacy for kids may have been a thing only for the King and his children who had their own household. But even noble kids would have to share rooms and beds. It got worse the lower you went down the ladder and there were no exceptions for children. Kids would be subject to their parents, expected to obey. Jane Grey's father rented her (as a ward) to Thomas Seymour for 2000 pounds (500 upfront, the guy had gambling debts to pay and he had a good daughter to sell) on the promise he'd marry her to the King (Edward VI). Then when that fell through, he is said to have forced her to marry John Dudley's son, convincing Jane (who was against the marriage) to marry him with his fists ("by the urgency of her mother and the violence of her father, who compelled her to accede to his commands by blows"). So her body was first her dad's property (this was valid for all kids, regardless of gender) and then her husband's. Privacy was out of the question. In case you think this is bad or "those were the times", continental travellers to England at the time also thought this practice of wardship was cruel and abnormal.
I really enjoyed this video, thank you! I am, however, curious about Jewish children? Were the games they played similar? Where Jewish attitudes to playing different from the church's?
Thank you, that's so nice to hear! :) I wish I knew more about Jewish children, too. I'm sure many toys and games would have been similar, but I'm not familiar enough with the subject. Dreidels appear in some depictions of Jewish children, as do folkloric puppets, and I know that lullabies like Yankele would stress the importance of study over play. But it's definitely something to research! Jewish children didn't show up in the sources I used, unfortunately.
29:00 "...just like boys would pretend to be kings and knights, just like today." I can't think of a single time where any boy I knew pretended to be a king unless it was assigned to him in a school play or in the context of being a warrior. In this sense, I don't think that is comparable to the way girls pretend to be princesses (much more so, btw, than they pretend to be queens). Is there really evidence of boys' pretending to be kings way back in the day?
Thank you for your question. I agree with you that in the 20th century (and I guess Disney films have a lot to do with it), girls playing princesses became more widespread than the equivalent for boys. (Having said that, I often visit castles and country houses here in the UK, and the gift shops always sell crowns, shields, and swords, and you see boys playing in the gardens - but I guess that depends on where you live!) In any case, puppets of this sort were common, children would create their own plays, and stories of King Arthur and knights like Lancelot and Gawain were very popular, plus Robin Hood. Ballads and plays about them were a big part of popular culture, and children were a part of that. Hobby horses, which appear in many illustrations, could be used for playing at jousting or fighting battles. And miniature arms, too. Some figurines resembling kings and knights have been found in excavations - not to mention chess. In the medieval period, there's a story about William Marshal, who later became a famous knight, having played at kings and knights with other boys when he was younger. And sons of the nobility would likely have done the same. Plus, in the game king-by-your-leave, one of the players got to be the 'king' of the game. So, I'd say that, although there were lots of toys and games for children to play with, pretending to be kings and knights was likely a part of childhood playing too, especially for boys. :)
@@juliamartinshistory Thank you for that extensive answer. If I might clarify, I agree wholeheartedly that boys play at being knights, and I view your examples as very good evidence of this. I myself taught The Sword and The Circle, by Rosemary Sutcliffe, at a boys’ school for many years, and while it was nominally well above their reading level, they always rose to the occasion and put in the effort because of their interest in the subject matter. It was the single best vehicle for improving their reading skills and interest of any text. My single, and only mild, objection is that this interest doesn’t seem to apply to pretending to be kings specifically, “unless...in the context of being a warrior.” King Arthur is a great example of just this because after becoming king, he becomes something of a bore, even remarking on that himself at one point (I think when he is sending Beaumains, the “Kitchen Knight” on his quest). It’s no surprise to see a boy dress as a knight for Halloween, but a king-IMO not so much. I just don’t think I can remember a time either from childhood or as a teacher when a boy wanted to play at being a king. There’s nothing to do! All the honors have been won, you have no more bravery or fortitude to prove, and you can’t leave your court. A war might bring some excitement, but only if said king takes a personal hand in the fighting. As for my mention of princesses, I don’t think I heard your statement quite right, which was, “Girls would pretend to be mothers and queens just like boys would pretend to be kings and knights, just like today.” I backfilled “princesses” for “mothers.” I would agree that pretending to be mothers is a long-accepted, cross-cultural aspect of girls’ play. But I would still suggest that girls would rather play princess than queen. I understand that there is less to go on in the historical record, but it seems to me that being a princess is much more attractive; a princess is the center of everyone’s attention and has some influence over her future, which is bright. A queen has already finished her story and for the most part becomes a rather static figure, usually subordinate to the king (although a deeper reading of the aforementioned book and history generally reveals they often have a much bigger influence than one sees on the surface). I’d say princesses and knights are comparable in their stage of life but not comparable in their underlying goals and overt actions. I wouldn’t want to endorse the idea that an interest in princesses is the result of Disney’s influence; I think the efforts of Disney to promote a very different, some would say “woke” message over the last decade, which have resulted in repeated flops, heavy financial losses, and what seems to be the final collective eye-roll toward “Acolyte,” demonstrate that advertising and big budgets cannot create interest where there is none or establish a new tradition when such a small percentage of the audience identifies with it. Disney’s earlier highlighting of princesses seems to me to have arisen organically from a long-standing and equally cross-cultural interest in princesses on the part of girls. Cinderella and Snow White long predate Disney, and I would rank very low the chances of finding any culture that doesn’t have some rough equivalent to princess narratives. In that sense, it seems natural that princesses were chosen as protagonists and that they are an ongoing focus of interest for girls, just as there is an ongoing interest in knights, but not kings, for boys. Not that girls and boys have to have a one-to-one correspondence of interests or role models; I don’t think things are that simple. Anyway what stood out for me at the start was just the small point that in my observation, pretending to be king isn’t on par with pretending to be a knight for boys. I did very much enjoy your video, and I learned a lot from it! I hope you will make many more in the future.
@@juliamartinshistory **Very much as a footnote to the above answer I posted a minute ago, I had two other thoughts. 1) Though I am far from a scholar of William Marshal, through various searches, I can’t find much reference to his playing at kings and knights with other boys. I don’t doubt he did, whether it is on record or not, but I found some search tools (primarily AI) pointing to his time as a hostage to King Stephen. He supposedly collected flowers, and he and Stephen played “knights” with the flowers. It seems with the fuzzy logic of AI, it was putting king and knight together; in any case I couldn’t find anything specific to his playing king in particular. I took a stab at getting Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal but found it only as a grainy pdf-a little beyond my ambitions for today-and other biographies are not to hand right now, so I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that research in its inchoate state. 2) The game king-by-your-leave does have the chaser named as king, but since it is a variation on tag, whit the king as “it,” is it really playing at being a king? Thanks again; I enjoyed the thinking about all this, and your video really is top notch!
Thank you for your reply! I used to love The Sword and the Circle when I was younger. I understand your point better now; and I agree that being 'king' specifically would probably only be fun in the context of a warrior king. About girls, I think pretending to be mothers and playing with dolls was widespread, but I see your point about princesses being more fun than queens, too. And yes, although the two would be comparable, there would have been gendered differences, too. I agree with you that of course an interest in princesses predates Walt Disney, I just meant that he helped reimagine these stories for new children, especially in the postwar period. And I'm not a fan of Disney remakes, either - with the possible exception of Maleficent, which isn't really one. Anyway, thank you for your insightful comment and for watching the video!
I'm not an expert on this either, but the story as I remember it from L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal is that because of his father, he was taken hostage by King Stephen while young; when he was found, he was playing knights with Stephen's sons, using plants as swords and other kinds of weapons. (I confess I don't remember the kind of plant though, but possibly not flowers?). I'll see if I can find my copy and find the exact passage. As to king-by-your-leave, that's a fair point, as it is a 'chasing game'. I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed the video! :)
😃 Hi, Dr. Julia! I love your every day history videos. And yes, childhood playtime can be plenty of fun and imagination as of oddity as well! That Tudor era games sound very amusing (not the violent ones)! I wonder what music or songs (if any) as a part of playing could be like! The restrictions that you mentioned are super interesting! All is fascinating in this video, so thank you for sharing historic facts as always! I will remark your final words on games as a mirror of us! 😃 See you next time! 👋
Thank you for such a kind comment, I really appreciate it! 😊 That's a good question about songs and music. Besides ballads, tavern songs, and music played in popular and religious festivities, which would have been a staple of popular culture, there were many songs that would have been a part of playing, not to mention lullabies. Plus playing musical instruments and dancing (like 'base dances') were an important part of a child's education. Plus, boys could become choristers in churches, too. I'm so glad you enjoyed the video, thank you again for taking the time to comment! 😉
@@juliamartinshistory 😊 Truly said, Dr. Julia! Like those sung by mom and playmate kids.😊Can't wait for you to tell us how women dealed with those education, play and art issues, how do such restrictions build "women spaces" and "man spaces"? Thank you again and keep it up! 😊
@@juliamartinshistory I suppose songs like "Stand up, Sit Down" would be a good example of where song meets play; I wonder if there were similar things then, too.Square dancing might be an adult version of that (?)
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What an original subject! It seems like we never read or learn about children's games and toys in history. From a psychological and contemporary standpoint, I was reflecting on how most of these games seem to follow a dynamic where children inflict actively to those less "powerful" than them what they probably suffered passively from adults or elder children.
I agree, childhood is such an interesting subject, and tells us so much about a culture and society! And I think you make a very good point about how power dynamics were acted out through play to make sense of the world.
The ancient Indus Valley civilization (3300-1300 BC) was really, REALLY into bathing. They had private baths at home and public baths. And among the archeological remains were what we'd call today rubber duckies in the drainage systems they had. I think they were made of wood, but you can see that it was supposed to be a ducky.
I lived in a poor country. Not only were the children very creative in their toy making, they were also very violent. Pulling the tails off of lizards, chasing and hitting animals with sticks, or bullying each other was very common.
How sad! It breaks my heart to read some of these descriptions, honestly...
@@juliamartinshistory some people still raise and sell cocks for fighting in some places like some small towns and mountain villages in the 21 century. in my country (Peru) most people live in cities , so we dont have much cockfights or bullfights but in some parts of the countryside and the andes, (mountains) they still are two popular money making sports.
@nataliapanfichi9933 You're right, sadly... Unfortunately that is similar in my country (Brazil), even though cockfighting has been illegal for decades!
I have a child who is always creating armor, airplanes, cars, or whatever with cardboard boxes and a hot glue gun. I loved your daughter's alien head.
Hahaha thank you! These projects, especially the armor, are next level though... Plus it will take me a while to give her a hot glue gun! But I love their creativity
Julia, once again I loved it! This topic is particularly interesting to me, because by observing and working with children I was able to see the imagination, creativity and imitation of adults' daily lives always present in their development. wonderful! thanks!
That's so kind of you, thank you! How wonderful to hear that you enjoyed the video. I agree, it's so interesting to see children playing and learning about the world around them! ♥
Another excellent video and such a fascinating subject! Thank you Dr Martins.
Thank you so much! ♥ 😊
Este é desde já um dos meus vídeos favoritos! As crianças imitando o mundo adulto, inclusive na sua violência, e buscando desenvolver habilidades e imaginação mesmo quando tolhidas pela escola, igreja ou expectativas familiares, são a verdadeira força vital e provavelmente uma das coisas que mais nos definem como humanos! Parabéns Júlia, grande tema e pesquisa!
Muito obrigada, que bom que tu gostaste do vídeo! Acho esse assunto super interessante. ♥ 📚 😊
Well done. Toy soldiers were very common in the US and Germany made from various materials stamped steel for larger weapons, paste board, wire frames with paper mache covering which was then painted when dry, cast metal and later cast plastic.
Thank you! And that's so interesting - I think toys were often made with leftover materials like these.
King Henry 5, What treasure Uncle? Exeter, Tennis-Balls, my liege. Shakespeare
Well remembered! I forgot that one.
Judging by the title, it sounds promising!
Really loved this video! I wanted to comment about the violence of children towards animals. While I find the violence towards animals in this video abhorrent I do have a lot of memories of being violent towards insects as a child. This was considered normal behavior - me and all the other little american boys would have fun torturing and killing ants, pill bugs and even bees. If we had shown the same behavior towards animals it would have been seen as a very serious abnormality and worth taking us to a psychologist but for some reason it was seen as normal to pull legs of insects. I even feel like it was kind of encouraged as a a sort of "scientific curiosity" about the creatures. Trying to force insects to fight was a particularly popular sport. Those poor bees. I got stung a lot as a child.
Thank you, I'm so glad you enjoyed the video! :) Your comment about animal cruelty is so interesting. I was raised in Brazil, so maybe that's why I had such a different experience. I wonder if it might have something to do with gender, but in any case I think you're on point in terms of how 'scientific curiosity' could be used to justify it. I also think that most people tend to be more sympathetic to mammals than insects in general... I hope animal cruelty is becoming less acceptable though!
I moved to South America (west side) and found that attitudes towards animals were different--I saw a dog run over in the street, and the local children just joked about it; even the young girl (6 or 7) who had had it on a leash didn't seem affected by it at all. We shouldn't forget, though, that the attitudes in America have changed rapidly over the last half century or so.
Your video made me wonder about how children's body was viewed in terms of privacy. Were their bodies seen as their own?
Oh that's an excellent discussion. The idea of privacy has its own history but largely, no, children wouldn't have had much privacy at home or school and they would have been subject to adults (hitting children was often seen as beneficial). Having said that, they spent much time with their peers, playing outside etc, where they were outside of adult supervision, so they could have had more freedom to explore the world in that sense, compared to today.
Not just in the case of children, but privacy was rare in the Tudor period, even for nobles. You were very privileged if you had your own bed or room without having to share. Often masters and servants might share beds. Entire families would sleep in the same room. This was even the case for those higher up the social ladder. For example, Catherine Howard (Henry VIII's wife no. 5) spent her youth (her pre-court youth, Henry killed her when she was around 19-20 years old) in a sort of boarding school ran by an aunt of hers. She'd share a bed with another girl and there were large rooms with lots of beds with only some curtains to separate them. A girl who was sharing the bed with her asked to switch beds with another girl, because she was bothered that Catherine was making noise having sex... right next to her. When the court was going on progress, people slept wherever they could, in inns, on the floor in a hall (this was common for servants even when not on progress, they slept in bed rolls on the floors) or they even slept in stables.
A big misconception we have about them was they were shy and bashful and polite. They did things we'd consider highly inappropriate, even criminal today. But they saw it as normal. Children would hear/see the same things as adults. There were no equivalents to film ratings, so they'd hear and see all the brutality, swearing, sex, etc. So privacy for kids may have been a thing only for the King and his children who had their own household. But even noble kids would have to share rooms and beds. It got worse the lower you went down the ladder and there were no exceptions for children. Kids would be subject to their parents, expected to obey. Jane Grey's father rented her (as a ward) to Thomas Seymour for 2000 pounds (500 upfront, the guy had gambling debts to pay and he had a good daughter to sell) on the promise he'd marry her to the King (Edward VI). Then when that fell through, he is said to have forced her to marry John Dudley's son, convincing Jane (who was against the marriage) to marry him with his fists ("by the urgency of her mother and the violence of her father, who compelled her to accede to his commands by blows"). So her body was first her dad's property (this was valid for all kids, regardless of gender) and then her husband's. Privacy was out of the question. In case you think this is bad or "those were the times", continental travellers to England at the time also thought this practice of wardship was cruel and abnormal.
@octavianpopescu4776 Yes! You are so right - privacy as we understand it today was a very rare commodity indeed!
@@juliamartinshistory "hitting children was often seen as beneficial"--true, and I've read that not hitting children was even seen as neglectful!
I really enjoyed this video, thank you! I am, however, curious about Jewish children? Were the games they played similar? Where Jewish attitudes to playing different from the church's?
Thank you, that's so nice to hear! :) I wish I knew more about Jewish children, too. I'm sure many toys and games would have been similar, but I'm not familiar enough with the subject. Dreidels appear in some depictions of Jewish children, as do folkloric puppets, and I know that lullabies like Yankele would stress the importance of study over play. But it's definitely something to research! Jewish children didn't show up in the sources I used, unfortunately.
Are you still planning to do an episode on historical birth control and abortion?
Yes, I'm planning on releasing a video about that in the coming months!
29:00 "...just like boys would pretend to be kings and knights, just like today." I can't think of a single time where any boy I knew pretended to be a king unless it was assigned to him in a school play or in the context of being a warrior. In this sense, I don't think that is comparable to the way girls pretend to be princesses (much more so, btw, than they pretend to be queens). Is there really evidence of boys' pretending to be kings way back in the day?
Thank you for your question. I agree with you that in the 20th century (and I guess Disney films have a lot to do with it), girls playing princesses became more widespread than the equivalent for boys. (Having said that, I often visit castles and country houses here in the UK, and the gift shops always sell crowns, shields, and swords, and you see boys playing in the gardens - but I guess that depends on where you live!) In any case, puppets of this sort were common, children would create their own plays, and stories of King Arthur and knights like Lancelot and Gawain were very popular, plus Robin Hood. Ballads and plays about them were a big part of popular culture, and children were a part of that. Hobby horses, which appear in many illustrations, could be used for playing at jousting or fighting battles. And miniature arms, too. Some figurines resembling kings and knights have been found in excavations - not to mention chess. In the medieval period, there's a story about William Marshal, who later became a famous knight, having played at kings and knights with other boys when he was younger. And sons of the nobility would likely have done the same. Plus, in the game king-by-your-leave, one of the players got to be the 'king' of the game. So, I'd say that, although there were lots of toys and games for children to play with, pretending to be kings and knights was likely a part of childhood playing too, especially for boys. :)
@@juliamartinshistory Thank you for that extensive answer. If I might clarify, I agree wholeheartedly that boys play at being knights, and I view your examples as very good evidence of this. I myself taught The Sword and The Circle, by Rosemary Sutcliffe, at a boys’ school for many years, and while it was nominally well above their reading level, they always rose to the occasion and put in the effort because of their interest in the subject matter. It was the single best vehicle for improving their reading skills and interest of any text. My single, and only mild, objection is that this interest doesn’t seem to apply to pretending to be kings specifically, “unless...in the context of being a warrior.” King Arthur is a great example of just this because after becoming king, he becomes something of a bore, even remarking on that himself at one point (I think when he is sending Beaumains, the “Kitchen Knight” on his quest). It’s no surprise to see a boy dress as a knight for Halloween, but a king-IMO not so much.
I just don’t think I can remember a time either from childhood or as a teacher when a boy wanted to play at being a king. There’s nothing to do! All the honors have been won, you have no more bravery or fortitude to prove, and you can’t leave your court. A war might bring some excitement, but only if said king takes a personal hand in the fighting.
As for my mention of princesses, I don’t think I heard your statement quite right, which was, “Girls would pretend to be mothers and queens just like boys would pretend to be kings and knights, just like today.” I backfilled “princesses” for “mothers.” I would agree that pretending to be mothers is a long-accepted, cross-cultural aspect of girls’ play. But I would still suggest that girls would rather play princess than queen. I understand that there is less to go on in the historical record, but it seems to me that being a princess is much more attractive; a princess is the center of everyone’s attention and has some influence over her future, which is bright. A queen has already finished her story and for the most part becomes a rather static figure, usually subordinate to the king (although a deeper reading of the aforementioned book and history generally reveals they often have a much bigger influence than one sees on the surface).
I’d say princesses and knights are comparable in their stage of life but not comparable in their underlying goals and overt actions.
I wouldn’t want to endorse the idea that an interest in princesses is the result of Disney’s influence; I think the efforts of Disney to promote a very different, some would say “woke” message over the last decade, which have resulted in repeated flops, heavy financial losses, and what seems to be the final collective eye-roll toward “Acolyte,” demonstrate that advertising and big budgets cannot create interest where there is none or establish a new tradition when such a small percentage of the audience identifies with it. Disney’s earlier highlighting of princesses seems to me to have arisen organically from a long-standing and equally cross-cultural interest in princesses on the part of girls. Cinderella and Snow White long predate Disney, and I would rank very low the chances of finding any culture that doesn’t have some rough equivalent to princess narratives. In that sense, it seems natural that princesses were chosen as protagonists and that they are an ongoing focus of interest for girls, just as there is an ongoing interest in knights, but not kings, for boys.
Not that girls and boys have to have a one-to-one correspondence of interests or role models; I don’t think things are that simple. Anyway what stood out for me at the start was just the small point that in my observation, pretending to be king isn’t on par with pretending to be a knight for boys.
I did very much enjoy your video, and I learned a lot from it! I hope you will make many more in the future.
@@juliamartinshistory **Very much as a footnote to the above answer I posted a minute ago, I had two other thoughts. 1) Though I am far from a scholar of William Marshal, through various searches, I can’t find much reference to his playing at kings and knights with other boys. I don’t doubt he did, whether it is on record or not, but I found some search tools (primarily AI) pointing to his time as a hostage to King Stephen. He supposedly collected flowers, and he and Stephen played “knights” with the flowers. It seems with the fuzzy logic of AI, it was putting king and knight together; in any case I couldn’t find anything specific to his playing king in particular. I took a stab at getting Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal but found it only as a grainy pdf-a little beyond my ambitions for today-and other biographies are not to hand right now, so I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that research in its inchoate state. 2) The game king-by-your-leave does have the chaser named as king, but since it is a variation on tag, whit the king as “it,” is it really playing at being a king?
Thanks again; I enjoyed the thinking about all this, and your video really is top notch!
Thank you for your reply! I used to love The Sword and the Circle when I was younger. I understand your point better now; and I agree that being 'king' specifically would probably only be fun in the context of a warrior king. About girls, I think pretending to be mothers and playing with dolls was widespread, but I see your point about princesses being more fun than queens, too. And yes, although the two would be comparable, there would have been gendered differences, too. I agree with you that of course an interest in princesses predates Walt Disney, I just meant that he helped reimagine these stories for new children, especially in the postwar period. And I'm not a fan of Disney remakes, either - with the possible exception of Maleficent, which isn't really one. Anyway, thank you for your insightful comment and for watching the video!
I'm not an expert on this either, but the story as I remember it from L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal is that because of his father, he was taken hostage by King Stephen while young; when he was found, he was playing knights with Stephen's sons, using plants as swords and other kinds of weapons. (I confess I don't remember the kind of plant though, but possibly not flowers?). I'll see if I can find my copy and find the exact passage. As to king-by-your-leave, that's a fair point, as it is a 'chasing game'. I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed the video! :)
😃 Hi, Dr. Julia! I love your every day history videos. And yes, childhood playtime can be plenty of fun and imagination as of oddity as well! That Tudor era games sound very amusing (not the violent ones)! I wonder what music or songs (if any) as a part of playing could be like! The restrictions that you mentioned are super interesting! All is fascinating in this video, so thank you for sharing historic facts as always! I will remark your final words on games as a mirror of us! 😃 See you next time! 👋
Thank you for such a kind comment, I really appreciate it! 😊 That's a good question about songs and music. Besides ballads, tavern songs, and music played in popular and religious festivities, which would have been a staple of popular culture, there were many songs that would have been a part of playing, not to mention lullabies. Plus playing musical instruments and dancing (like 'base dances') were an important part of a child's education. Plus, boys could become choristers in churches, too. I'm so glad you enjoyed the video, thank you again for taking the time to comment! 😉
@@juliamartinshistory 😊 Truly said, Dr. Julia! Like those sung by mom and playmate kids.😊Can't wait for you to tell us how women dealed with those education, play and art issues, how do such restrictions build "women spaces" and "man spaces"? Thank you again and keep it up! 😊
@StoneHerne Definitely something to explore! Thank you so much for watching and taking the time to comment 😊
@@juliamartinshistory I suppose songs like "Stand up, Sit Down" would be a good example of where song meets play; I wonder if there were similar things then, too.Square dancing might be an adult version of that (?)