Page 307 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

IMAGES OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Entertainment in the Middle Ages
MEDIEVAL PEOPLE ENGAGED in a variety of activities for entertainment. City dwellers enjoyed feast days and holidays, when minstrels and jugglers amused people with their arts and tricks. Castle life had its courtly feasts, featuring tournaments accompanied by banquets, music, and dancing. Games were popular at all levels of society; castle dwellers played backgammon, checkers, and chess. The illustration at the left, from a fifteenth-century fresco, shows a group of ladies and gentlemen playing cards.
Like children in all ages, medieval children joined with other children in playing a variety of games. A number of writers on children saw play as a basic symbol of childhood itself. In this series of illustrations from medieval manuscripts, we see
children engaged in riding hobbyhorses (undoubtedly popular in a society dependent on horses), catching butterflies and playing with a spinning top, and playing a game of blind man’s bluff.
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Culture and Society in an Age of Adversity 269
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