Children's Stories & Pastimes: The Frankish Warrior’s Version of Play with a Purpose

By Kim Rendfeld

Eighth-century Franks had their own version age appropriate, educational toys and games, especially for boys born to noble families.

At age 3, they were given wooden swords, with the expectation that they would wield iron ones in a few years. And I do mean a few years, if we are to believe the annals. Childhood did not last long.

Charlemagne was 13 during his first campaign against Aquitaine in 761 with his father, King Pepin. His son Charles (called Karl in my books) was about 11 or 12 in the 784 battles against the Saxony, and as part an effort to intimidate the duke of Bavaria, Charles’s son Pippin of Italy (spelled this way in self-defense) was about 10 when asked to march an army to Trent in 787, although he did not accompany the soldiers all the way to Balzano. The boys probably led the forces in name only, but taking them even near the battlefield isn’t exactly keeping them out of harm’s way.

So I can imagine medieval fathers taking their sons hands and saying “Hold the hilt like this” and “Move your feet like the way you dance.”

As noble boys got older, their games included archery and simulated combat. To learn to hit a target correctly they aimed a lance at a manikin with a shield. If the blow was not true, they’d been smacked with a bag of flour.

When it came to the pastime of hunting, young boys wanted to be part of the dangerous sport. In 826, 3-year-old Charles (named after grandfather Charlemagne) imitated his father, Louis. When the child spotted the prey, he called for his horse and a quiver of arrows. His mother and tutor had to literally hold him back. Never fear, though. The young animal was caught and brought to the prince, says the poet Ermold, and “he seized weapons of his own size and struck the trembling beast.”

Even indoor forms of play served a purpose. Toy soldiers made of silver, gold, or bronze and board games similar to chess and backgammon were both good at developing strategy. Aristocratic boys were going to grow up to lead common soldiers, conscripts who would get most of their training on the battlefields. The future lords needed to know how to think.

Sources:

Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne, Pierre Riche, translated by Jo Ann McNamara

Carolingian Chronicles, Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernhard Walter Scholz with Barbara Rogers

Daily Life in the Age of Charlemagne, John J. Butt

Kim Rendfeld is the author of two books set in the early days of Charlemagne’s reign:

The Cross and the Dragon (2012, Fireship Press), a tale of love amid wars and blood feuds, and The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar (forthcoming, Fireship Press), a story of the lengths a mother will go to protect her children. For more about Kim and her fiction, visit www.kimrendfeld.com, read her blog at www.kimrendfeld.wordpress.com, like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld, or follow her on Twitter at @kimrendfeld.

  

Children's Pastimes: Knucklebones & Counting Stones

by Heather Domin

In ancient Rome, children played with the same toys as kids of most eras and cultures: dolls, balls, hoops, kites, hobby horses, toy weapons, etc. There were also creative toys like building blocks, models, miniatures, and a Roman version of Play-Doh made from colored wax. Boys might build toy boats or chariots for war games; girls might string beads or make knotted rag dolls. Both genders enjoyed sports and ball games, and to keep the mind fit there were educational toys like carved letters, brain teasers, and even an ancient ancestor of tic-tac-toe. Board games were hugely popular with both adults and children – while games of chance were associated with gambling, which was frowned upon for children (and for women, though they did it anyway), in theory everyone could play board games.

Roman board games were generally two-player strategy games, played on a table made of stone or wood and using enough counters, markers, pieces, and dice to fill any nerd's D&D box. (No 20-siders though, alas.) Game boards and pieces have been found in homes, temples, barracks, and public spaces all over the Roman world, and we know how to play several of them. Here are three of the most common games, along with some of their variations.

Astragaloi (Knucklebones)

a young Roman girl playing
knucklebones. (source: Wiki)

Ever wonder why jacks are shaped the way they are? Google "sheep ankle bones". Jacks is the direct descendant of knucklebones, one of the most ubiquitous and frequently mentioned Roman games – true, it's not really a board game, but it was so popular that it deserves top spot in this post. It was originally played with the astralagus bones of animals, which were replaced by pieces carved from wood, stone, bone, or even glass. As with jacks there were many game variations, some involving coins or other types of game pieces. Knucklebones weren't just for kids, though – they were also used by adults for gambling, fortune-telling, and casting omens. (Hence "roll the bones", a metaphor for risk-taking as well as an excellent Rush song). Today knucklebones are still made from actual bones in Mongolia, where the game remains popular with kids.

Latrunculi (Little Brigands)

my latrunculi set - pebbles in a storage
bag that doubles as a board. thanks Ine!

This game is often called "Roman chess": two opponents captured each other's pieces by moving around a grid one square at a time. The size of the board determined the difficulty; the bigger the grid, the more pieces were used, and the more skill it took to win. Advanced players arranged their pieces all over the board to start (rather than lined up on each end), which required even more strategy. There were also much simpler variations like Calculi (Counters), which was essentially Roman Connect Four, except you connected five. Like knucklebones, latrunculi pieces were made from a variety of materials, and boards could be anything from a marble table to a grid scratched in the dirt. I have my own latrunculi set, sent to me by a friend from a Roman souvenir shop in Egypt. It makes me even prouder of my title as Connect Four champion of the 5th grade.

XII Scripta (12 Marks)

XII Scripta table circa 2nd cent CE
(source: wiki)

This game combined strategy with dice, using a board marked with three lines of twelve squares each. Not much is known about how it was played, but we know it was popular because boards have been found all over the Roman world. Ovid mentions this game in The Arts of Love, where he assures young ladies that boys dig gamer girls: "It is bad for a woman not to know how to play [games], for love often arises during play." (True that.) Some boards used letters instead of squares, but we know even less about this version; such a game would be useful for teaching children, but it seems to have been reserved for adult wit and sarcasm. (See this collection for some great examples – my favorite is the menu.)

So in addition to a toy collection that any child today would recognize, little Romans would have grown up playing many of the same games as their parents. As we might expect from a culture so enamored with sports, contests, and gambling, the ancient Romans were serious gamers, and that love of gaming started in childhood.

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Heather Domin writes historical, romantic, and speculative fiction. She is the author of The Soldier of Raetia, set in Augustan Rome, and Allegiance, set in 1922 Dublin, and is currently finishing up The Heirs of Fortune, a sequel to The Soldier of Raetia.

Children’s Stories and Pastimes: Medieval children's games

By Lisa J. Yarde

What did medieval children do for recreation? Their parents had cards, dicing games like six-ace, and the Philosopher’s Game, but what would a medieval child have played? Play was as important to development then as it is now and it started with toys for babies. Rattles were readily available in the medieval period, as were spinning tops, hobbyhorses, and poppets made of wood, wax and cloth, which became dolls in later centuries. Wealth or lack of it did not preclude children from inventing games to entertain themselves. When the famed Anglo-Welsh monk and chronicler Gerald of Wales was a boy in twelfth-century Pembrokeshire, he and his brother made castles and churches of sand. Medieval hopscotch courts, scratched onto a stone pavement, could be up to one hundred feet. Miniature models of knights, cups, plates, and ewers existed in England from the fourteenth century. As children aged, their games evolved. Noble sons played at war-games, learning techniques with the sword and other weapons. Non-nobility would have trained at archery, as contests became popular in England. Child’s play in medieval times allowed children to mimic adult lives.

Children's Games, Pieter Bruegel (1560) -
source: Wikimedia Commons

One of the most popular games were prisoner’s base or barres, a game of chase and confinement in which children divided into two teams with the goal of capturing all of the members of the opposing team. Boys and girls played the game.

“Object of the Game: The team with the most prisoners at the end of the time limit wins.

Required: A minimum of ten players, a stick or chalk, large playing area

How to play: The group divided in half and a line of chalk was placed down the middle between the two teams. About 20-30 feet behind each team a large square (prison) was drawn on the ground using chalk. Each team picked one person to be the prisoner of the other team (usually someone who could run fast). Then each team would try to free their prisoner by sending a team member to the prison through the opposing team to bring him/her back without being captured by a member of the opposing team. If the person attempting to rescue their own prisoner made in to the prison through the opposing team without being caught, he/she was safe while in the prison and could pick their own time to run with the prisoner back to their own side of the line. If the team member was caught by the opposing team, they also became a prisoner needing rescue. So each team was busy both trying to rescue their own prisoners and protect the prisoner(s) from the opposite side from being rescued. At the end of time, the team with the most prisoners won.”

Another was queek, a game of chance played on a cloth of squares with alternating colors, which the Anglo-Normans introduced to England through their heraldic symbols. “This game is played by using a large, checkered cloth and spread on a hard, smooth surface, or on a chessboard, then the children would toss pebbles on the board, calling out in advance whether the pebble would land on a light color or dark color board.”

There was also a children’s version of bear baiting, in which two played the role of bear and keeper. The goal was to touch the “bear” and simultaneously avoid being grabbed.
 

Sources:

Medieval Children by Nicholas Orme

Sports and Games of Medieval Cultures by Sally E.D. Wilkins

Medieval Games and Recreation

Lisa J. Yarde writes fiction inspired by the medieval period. She is the author of historical novels set in medieval England and Normandy, The Burning Candle, based on the life of Isabel de Vermandois, and On Falcon's Wings, chronicling the star-crossed romance between Norman and Saxon lovers. Lisa has also written three novels in a six-part series set in Moorish Spain, Sultana,  Sultana’s Legacy and Sultana: Two Sisters, where rivalries and ambitions threaten the fragile bonds between members of a powerful family.