As the mist cleared, horse and rider emerged from the forest. Moving into the early morning sun, the light gleamed from the silver edges of the shield. The metalclad pair rode slowly to the top of a rise and halted. Sensing danger, the rider swung the lance downward into fighting position. A hawk circled overhead watching the knight in the meadow; a yellow scarf drifted back from the armored arm. . . .
If there is an historic period that can capture the students’ imagination, it is the era of knights, fair ladies, kings and castles. For many, the Middle Ages is a makebelieve world filled with adventure and lore, a time when men were heroic and princesses rich and fair. The above description portrays the romanticized image of the Middle Ages and although it is tempting to treat the period through kings and vassals solely, we should not forget the greater part of medieval society, the silent majority.
Knights and wizards aside, the period of the Middle Ages should include the story of people living and working in a world outside the castle, of people isolated yet connected by a religious faith that threads from the Roman world into this century. Along with the tales of nobles and knights, the story of the manorial peasant should be revealed. This will balance the sense of romanticism that literature may portray with historic reality concerning all segments of medieval society.
The Middle Ages is treated as the time between history’s great divisions of human development; textbooks, after relating the foundations of earlier cultures, tend to rush into the modern period where human history is told in terms of nations. This unit is intended to supplement the textbook material covered in the seventh grade Social Studies class concerning the Middle Ages.
In this unit, students will:
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learn how medieval society was organized and learn of the training for knighthood.
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examine a castle’s elements, the living conditions and the place of children and women.
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become aware of the manorial system and how peasants lived on the medieval manor.
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Because it is difficult to present such a large historical period in a limited time frame, this unit is designed to cover three major concepts—feudalism, the castle, and the manor. For each concept, there is introductory information and a fictional story that relates to the human element with followup questions. Information that follows each story can be used for continued discussion; as well, there is an activity to reinforce student learning. Thus, after the basic textual material is introduced, students can focus on the lifestyles of notable groups of the period. The material can be taught in a fourday block depending on the class and on whether the activity sheets are assigned for homework. A fifth day may be used for testing, extended discussion, or for writing assignments dealing with comparisons of students’ lives to that of medieval living. Otherwise the topics may be integrated into the textbook coverage and used in the order that the instructor determines.
To sharpen the focus and increase interest, the four “tales”, which can be duplicated, give students an opportunity to meet medieval figures, youth to youth. First, from a knight’s squire, they might learn the steps to knighthood and of the ideals of chivalry. In a second story, surveying the estate from the castle tower, a lord’s young daughter reflects upon living in the castle and how her early years of training were preparation for a forthcoming, arranged marriage. Next students can step back into the life of a peasant living on a manor and learn of the duties and routine of a thirteen year old serf. lastly, the story of a young apprentice working as a servant in the master’s household gives us an understanding of the requirements of learning a craft. These vignettes will play against the background information provided by the teacher and lead into related topics and activities.
