Page 26 - British Museum: SYTYGIB Medieval Castle

Education
How’s your memory? Here’s a quick test to find out.
Do you struggle to remember the name of that yellow fruit that you peel? The one that rhymes with ‘zanana’?
Do you regularly get lost on the way from your wardrobe to your bed because you’ve forgotten the way?
What’s your name? Did you take longer than 30 seconds to answer that question?
If the answer to all of these questions is ‘yes’ then you officially have a tErRiBlE memory. Just to remind you, the thing you are reading just now is called a book.
Don’t worry - it’s not uncommon to be bad at remembering stuff. But if you think YoU’vE GoT iT BaD, at least you don’t have to remember loads of Latin words or risk getting hit with a stick.
If you were a kid in a medieval castle, you’d need a vErY good memory to do well in school. Actually, that should say, if you were a rIcH kid. Come to think of it, that should say, if you were a rich BoY.
That’s because education was definitely NoT available to everyone. But more on that in a mo. What were we talking about? Oh yes – remembering things.
Back in the Middle Ages, paper wasn’t readily available (at least not until the late medieval period) and the alternative to that, velum, was made of stretched animal skin and was very expensive. And, frankly, yucky. Imagine writing on a goat’s bottom!
Stay still – you´re making my writing all squiggly!
Excuse me, I´m still wearing that!
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