What Your Protagonist’s Child Played With In Your Historical Novel
Children have been playing since before there were people, and the moment our species evolved enough ingenuity to craft (which may, again, predate our current form) we started making toys for children to play with.
And, honestly? Those toys have changed only slightly over the millennia. They fall into three categories.
Mini-me Equipment
I bet you didn’t know that princes had doll houses. Historians have found that the children of Edward I had a little wooden house. Toy houses were made out of horn and chalk too, and they had bitty furniture in them.
Little wooden swords for little adventurers and little tin pots for little cooks (some with soot on the bottom) have been found all over medieval towns. The only difference between those and today’s ‘play kitchen’ is materials.
Hobby horses have been popular with children for as long as horses were the fanciest means of transportation. You know what I am talking about, right? Those sticks with cloth heads shaped like a horse’s head so a kid can straddle the stick and run around a hearth making whinnying noises.
Tambourines were given to some children as early as 1600 so they could practice drumming.
We even have the written suggestion from a bishop to a queen that she give her infant daughter wooden letters so she might learn to read, which should remind everyone of letter puzzles in preschool.
Stuff That Moves
No kid could ever resist a thing that spins. Thus, the dreidel and other types of spinning tops date back to the 35th century BC. King Tutankhamen played with spinning tops and so did baby Julius Ceasar and the infant Dauphin Louis XIII.
Balls also move, and evidence of ball games using inflated bladders or other bouncy materials have been found in ancient graves. The oldest ball found to date was a linen bag tied shut with string found in an Egyptian child’s tomb that was dug in 2500 B.C.
Figurines
Archeologists have found many little tin knights and and animals in medieval sites.
There are many paintings of children with wooden birds on a rope from the medieval Europe. Thanks to Louis XIII’s childhood doctor, we know the little dauphin had a little cannon, windmill, and a ‘carriage full of dolls’ before he was three. Yes, he is royalty and thus, gets everything an infant heart could desire, but less fortunate children could have cheaper versions, and their parents would happily buy it for them.
So, if you have a medieval family and you want the kids to play with something, you have options.
Sources:
The Medieval Podcast, episode 207: Medieval Toys
‘Childhood Through The Ages: A Social History of Family Life’ Philippe Aries 1962
History of Spinning Tops — Art of Play
Three Leather Balls Represent Oldest Evidence of Ancient Eurasian Ball Game | Inside Science