Mudlarks' medieval toys

You might not be familiar with the kind of everyday-life stuff that's been dug up in the mud of London and the Low Countries in recent years; National Geographic now has a good article on the amateurs who probe the Thames' shores:

Members of the London-based Society of Thames Mudlarks look very different today from the Victorian street children the group takes its name from. Where ragged waifs once searched for bits of bone and coal to sell, men in overalls, gloves, and rubber boots now comb the River Thames foreshore with metal detectors.

And though these amateur treasure hunters seldom find silver or gold, historians say what they do dig from the mud is transforming our understanding of childhood during the Middle Ages. . .

Dating from as early as the 13th century, items include tiny cannons and guns, metal figurines, and miniaturized household objects such as stools, jugs, cauldrons, and even frying pans complete with little fish.

Made mainly from pewter (a tin-lead alloy), these medieval toys are exceptionally rare and have helped transform perceptions of childhood during the Middle Ages, says Hazel Forsyth, curator of post-medieval collections at the Museum of London.

"In the 1960s French historian Philippe Aries claimed that there wasn't really such a thing as childhood in the Middle Ages and that parents didn't form emotional attachments with their offspring, regarding them as economic providers or producers for the household," Forsyth said.

Aries pioneered ways of looking beyond kings, politics, and war to everyday medieval life. He argued that parents invested little emotional capital in their children because they had lots of offspring, many of them died in infancy, and that surviving children were sent to work at the ages of six or seven. "His views had a lot of currency. And for very many years, people believed this," Forsyth said, noting that it has only been recently, with discovery of ancient childhood items by contemporary treasure hunters, "that we've challenged this received wisdom."

The amazing thing is that anyone took Aries' notions seriously -- a classic triumph of theory over common sense (not to mention an extreme example of the rejection of inborn human nature).

The British Museum's Richard Hobbs, curator of the Buried Treasure exhibition, said: "We knew very little about these miniature objects until the 1980s, when metal detecting really took off. It shows how a whole new class of objects can come to light and suddenly play a big part in writing social history."

Miniatures are rare today because pewter quickly corrodes under normal conditions, according to Hobbs. But the Thames's thick, foul-smelling mud is low in oxygen. As a result, it prevents organic decay and helps preserve such objects.

Another reminder to dot-connectors of quite how many of the dots are still missing.

Many of the miniature guns and cannons were once working replicas and consist of copper alloy to withstand firing pressures. "The largest of them are equivalent to a pocket pistol. So [they're] perfectly capable of killing somebody," Forsyth said. "It's obvious they are not perfect replicas. But we know they worked, because some of the barrels have exploded. If these were being used by children, then they probably met with an unfortunate accident. Certainly children had access to black powder and could use all sorts of projectiles," she said.

And we worry about BB guns!

The miniatures weren't the only playthings that worked. For instance, tiny copper cauldrons have been found with sooty bases, suggesting children used them to cook food.

Hobbs says other replicas, including a three-legged stool, a birdcage, and tools such as saws, are important because no previous record of these objects is known for the period.

Posted by David on May 5, 2004 2:34 PM