It's not Fair! Youth in Charge

Apparently,* the short life expectancy during the Middle Ages** may have meant that European society was ruled in large part by the young. This statistic has been used to explain the high rate of violence and general silly behavior exhibited by some medievals. It leads me to ponder a society run by children, and certain facets of the Middle Ages are making more and more sense in this context.

Sleeping naked, for instance. It takes an act of Congress to convince my sons to put on proper clothing in the daylight hours, never mind after dark. Of course, since my teenaged daughters need to be harangued not to sleep fully clothed (complete with shoes), this theory may be flawed.

And courtly love -- what about that? It's hard enough to get a fourteen-year-old to commit to a single radio station for an hour, never mind a mate. No wonder teenaged brides were forever swooning over the jousting arena hotties to the detriment of their geriatric husbands.

The Flagellants? They were the medieval version of emo teens, cutting themselves 'just to feel something.' If they had had iPods, they would have been full of Marilyn Manson and Tool.

Marginalia. Reminds me of my tenth-grade biology notebook -- beside my notes on natural selection and the Krebs Cycle, one could find caricatures of my teacher having his arm bitten off by a rabid macaque. Anyone who doesn't see the parallels needs to visit Carl Pyrdum's marginalia gallery at Got Medieval. Strange monkeys with overlarge nether-regions, monks being violated in the bum by unusual instruments . . . in short, this must be the work of teenagers given over to the scriptoria against their wills. I wonder how many of those monkeys were meant to symbolize the local bishop?


Medieval art in general shows a notable lack of reality and perspective. Those "young, kicky kids"*** of the medieval art scene were too busy getting high at the apothecary's to be dragged down by a bummer like realism. Except Giotto, of course, who always stood by his media statement that "that potable gold wasn't mine -- I don't know how it got into my travel bag."


* according to certain medievalists that shall not be cited herein due to extreme laziness

** certain other medievalists, also not cited here due to extreme laziness, report that there are problems with the assumption of short life expectancy during the Middle Ages, since infant mortality rates were so high (wow, this post is already becoming quite academic, isn't it? alarming!)

*** to quote my art history professor, whose name shall be omitted to protect the innocent