Child's Play in Medieval England

self-discipline and team spirit - qualities needed for the health of society and government. Newbolt was one in a long line of people who thought in this way. The notion that children's play should be used for educational and social purposes goes back at least to the ancient Greeks and the toys and games of medieval England tell us much about how adults then saw childhood. But they also reveal a good deal about children themselves, and cast light on what has recently become a controversial issue. B Forty years ago, the French historian Philippe Aries argued, in Centuries of Childhood , that childhood in the Middle Ages did not exist in its modern sense. Children were regarded by adults with relatively little affection and followed a way of life not very different from that of their elders. More recent historians have disputed this, pointing to plentiful signs of parental affection and arguing that childhood, by its very nature, must always have been much the same.