0:00:12 > 0:00:15It's 1450.
0:00:15 > 0:00:19England is on the brink of civil war.
0:00:19 > 0:00:24And the life of one young woman is about to change forever.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31In a world dominated by dynastic politics, wealth and power,
0:00:31 > 0:00:33her future has been decided.
0:00:39 > 0:00:41She's one of the richest heiresses in England.
0:00:41 > 0:00:47And by noon, Margaret Beaufort will have married into one of the most powerful families in the country.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53But this is no ordinary marriage.
0:00:53 > 0:00:58Her husband-to-be is nearly eight years old, and she is not yet seven.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06These were children burdened with adult responsibility.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09And that, in the Middle Ages, was far from unusual.
0:01:15 > 0:01:20It's often said that life must have been tough for medieval children.
0:01:21 > 0:01:26And it's certainly true that it was hard enough just to survive.
0:01:29 > 0:01:33Roughly half the population would die before they reached 1 .
0:01:37 > 0:01:39Although children grow up fast
0:01:39 > 0:01:45what's surprising is that the experience of childhood could be richly rewarding.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48Contemporaries divided the medieval world into three orders -
0:01:48 > 0:01:52those who prayed, those who fought, and those who worked.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55And this was a view of the world in which everyone had a role,
0:01:55 > 0:01:57including children.
0:02:00 > 0:02:02'I'm Dr Stephen Baxter.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07'I've been studying the medieval period for almost 20 years,
0:02:07 > 0:02:10'mostly looking at the adult world.'
0:02:12 > 0:02:17But I've recently learned that if we try to see this period through the eyes of children,
0:02:17 > 0:02:21we give ourselves a chance to view the Middle Ages in a completely new light.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53The medieval period spans more than 1,000 years,
0:02:53 > 0:02:56from the collapse of Roman Britain in the 5th century,
0:02:56 > 0:03:00right up to the rise of the Tudor dynasty in the late 15th
0:03:05 > 0:03:10During this time, lowland Britain evolved from a world of warring kingdoms
0:03:10 > 0:03:14into a nation, England, under one king,
0:03:14 > 0:03:17and with a common language - English.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24It was an age defined by three great challenges -
0:03:24 > 0:03:29the fight for survival, the fight for power and the fight for salvation.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32They all demanded lives of hard work and discipline,
0:03:32 > 0:03:35from which not even children were exempt.
0:03:35 > 0:03:40And each played its role in determining what it was like to be a medieval child.
0:03:46 > 0:03:50By the 7th century, Christianity had swept across the country.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and peoples had once been pagan
0:03:54 > 0:03:57now they were converted to the Christian faith.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10The landscape was being transformed by the monuments of a new religion,
0:04:10 > 0:04:14one which was dominated by the idea of a single, all-powerful God
0:04:14 > 0:04:17who offered the promise of eternal life.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22People were urged to engage in a battle against sin
0:04:22 > 0:04:26to guarantee their place in heaven and escape the torments of hell
0:04:29 > 0:04:32And children were at the heart of this struggle.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41There was a real tension in Christian attitudes towards children.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45According to some texts, children were inherently evil.
0:04:49 > 0:04:50"None is pure from sin,
0:04:50 > 0:04:54"not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth."
0:04:57 > 0:05:01But other biblical texts stressed the value of children,
0:05:01 > 0:05:04adopting the view that children were innately pure,
0:05:04 > 0:05:07and possessed the capacity for ultimate wisdom.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,
0:05:14 > 0:05:16"thou hast perfected praise".
0:05:20 > 0:05:24The question of whether children were born with or without sin
0:05:24 > 0:05:26was central to Christianity,
0:05:26 > 0:05:30as society grappled with how to lead a spiritual life.
0:05:32 > 0:05:40And all this was acted out in the defining institutions of early Christian England - the monasteries.
0:05:44 > 0:05:50This is Jarrow monastery near Newcastle, founded in the late 7th century.
0:05:51 > 0:05:56The monks here devoted their lives to praying for the community at large.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01And it wasn't just men's work.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04Some monks entered the monastery at the age of seven.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07And, for parents, it wasn't like dropping their kids off at school.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11"Child Oblates" as they were called, didn't get to go home in the afternoon.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14In fact, most spent the rest of their lives in the monastery
0:06:16 > 0:06:19And some never got to see their parents again.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26This was a world dominated by sin and the search for salvation,
0:06:26 > 0:06:31so the sooner a child engaged in the great battle for the soul, the better.
0:06:33 > 0:06:38In about 680, a seven-year-old boy called Bede was sent here.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50Just imagine what it must have been like for him when he first arrived.
0:06:50 > 0:06:56First he'd have had to swap his clothes for standard-issue monastic garb.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59Then he'd have to learn the rules. When to eat, when to sleep,
0:06:59 > 0:07:04all in step with the tolling of the monastery bells.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07Then he'd have to wake up at midnight, and again at 3am,
0:07:07 > 0:07:11trooping inside this chapel for services.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14And these were the first of several services held throughout the day,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18a routine that was strictly enforced, every day of the year
0:07:21 > 0:07:24Bede is more commonly known as the Venerable Bede,
0:07:24 > 0:07:30and despite the rigours of this regime, his intellectual life blossomed
0:07:30 > 0:07:33So much so that he later wrote the very first History of the English.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36It's extraordinary to think it's still in print,
0:07:36 > 0:07:40and still read, nearly 1,300 years later.
0:07:43 > 0:07:48Unlike Bede, the children who didn't conform could be severely disciplined.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55"As often as faults are committed by boys or by youths,
0:07:55 > 0:07:58"let them be punished with severe fasts, or chastised with sharp blows
0:07:58 > 0:08:00"in order that they may be cured "
0:08:02 > 0:08:06"Monks who make mistakes in the oratory are to be punished,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09"but boys for such faults shall be whipped."
0:08:11 > 0:08:14Oblates were often the children of aristocrats.
0:08:14 > 0:08:18So how could their parents abandon them to this life?
0:08:20 > 0:08:24We might interpret this as callous behaviour by uncaring parents,
0:08:24 > 0:08:28but I think to do so would be to misunderstand the medieval thought world.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32Precisely because parents loved and cared for their children,
0:08:32 > 0:08:34giving them away to a monastery
0:08:34 > 0:08:38was just about the greatest sacrifice one could make for the love of God.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46So what better than to place a child in the monastery who could pray hard for their salvations
0:08:46 > 0:08:48It was almost like buying an insurance policy,
0:08:48 > 0:08:52for their the sake of their own souls, but also, the souls of their children,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55and of their families and of their ancestors.
0:08:57 > 0:09:03It would never have occurred to their parents to postpone this out of respect for childhood.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17Medieval life wasn't just about the fight against sin -
0:09:17 > 0:09:20it was also about the fight for survival.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24Staying alive was a full-time job.
0:09:29 > 0:09:33In the Middle Ages, England was very rural.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38About 90% of its people lived in the countryside.
0:09:42 > 0:09:47They were constantly at the mercy of weather ruining their harvests
0:09:47 > 0:09:52and many of them had to pay cripplingly high rents to their landlords.
0:09:52 > 0:09:54Like here in Barrington,
0:09:54 > 0:09:58a Gloucestershire village clustered around this large green.
0:10:00 > 0:10:06We know from Domesday Book that one of the people who held land here in 1086 was Aelfsige of Farringdon.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10We know that he looked after several of the King's manors in this part of the world
0:10:10 > 0:10:11after the Norman conquest.
0:10:11 > 0:10:17He was an Englishman who made good after the conquest. Why? Because he was good at picking up rents
0:10:17 > 0:10:23So one can imagine him being a rather loathed figure among the peasant families of this village,
0:10:23 > 0:10:26and probably a rather feared figure among the children.
0:10:29 > 0:10:34Domesday Book also reveals it was a complex and hierarchical society.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39There were about 65 peasant families living here towards the end of the 11th century.
0:10:39 > 0:10:44There are 31 villani - that's a medium class peasant,
0:10:44 > 0:10:48eight bordari - a much poorer peasant, and 25 slaves.
0:10:48 > 0:10:53There's also a priest. But, of course, they were all adult males.
0:10:53 > 0:10:54Where are the children?
0:10:59 > 0:11:02This place must have been teeming with children,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06and yet there's simply no mention of them in Domesday Book.
0:11:08 > 0:11:10And that's not unusual.
0:11:10 > 0:11:12They're invisible in most medieval documents,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16because society then was dominated by men.
0:11:26 > 0:11:32But there's one place where remarkable evidence can tell us how hard children fought to survive.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39A village called Wharram Percy used to stand on this Yorkshire hillside.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46Now, down in the valley, this is all that's left.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04This is a beautifully atmospheric place.
0:12:08 > 0:12:13A ruined church, surrounded by humps and bumps in the ground
0:12:13 > 0:12:15where medieval houses once stood.
0:12:15 > 0:12:20But it's also rather a melancholy place - to think that this is all that remains
0:12:20 > 0:12:23of a once thriving village.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33Graveyards are normally out of bounds to archaeologists
0:12:33 > 0:12:37But here, they were allowed to excavate the cemetery.
0:12:38 > 0:12:45And they uncovered the largest burial ground of medieval village children ever found in England
0:12:51 > 0:12:57Their remains reveal the harsh realities of medieval life in extraordinary detail.
0:12:59 > 0:13:01At the English Heritage laboratory in Portsmouth,
0:13:01 > 0:13:05Dr Simon Mays has spent 20 years analysing their bones.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11When we looked at the child skeletons, one of the first things that struck us
0:13:11 > 0:13:14was how small they were, compared with modern children.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17I've laid out here the skeleton of a ten-year-old from Wharram Percy
0:13:17 > 0:13:20and the one we've got to compare it with is the same size
0:13:20 > 0:13:22as a modern ten-year-old is.
0:13:22 > 0:13:24So you can see the size difference between the two.
0:13:24 > 0:13:26That's extraordinary.
0:13:26 > 0:13:31So in theory, a child of ten ought to be that big.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35That's right. So what accounts for the difference between the two
0:13:35 > 0:13:38I think primarily it's nutrition. It's the quality of their diet
0:13:38 > 0:13:41These people are not eating a very nutritious diet.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45So diet helps explain the difference between these two bones.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47This being the ten-year-old from Wharram Percy.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50This being what they should have been at about that age.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54And that translates to about a nine-inch difference in standing height -
0:13:54 > 0:13:56at that age, that's quite considerable.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01Was this child unfortunate to die so young? Was that common at Wharram Percy?
0:14:01 > 0:14:04Well, quite a lot of them did die during childhood.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07About half of the skeletons we have from the church yard
0:14:07 > 0:14:10are of people who've died before they were in their late teens.
0:14:10 > 0:14:14Half? Half, that's right. That's terrifying mortality rate.
0:14:14 > 0:14:1650-50 chance of actually making it to adulthood.
0:14:16 > 0:14:18Roughly speaking, that's right. Gosh.
0:14:22 > 0:14:27With stunted growth caused by poor nutrition and half the children dead by their late teens,
0:14:27 > 0:14:32these bones can tell a story that Domesday Book doesn't reveal -
0:14:32 > 0:14:36just how often children lost the fight for survival.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43As an historian, I usually work on documents, artefacts,
0:14:43 > 0:14:46buildings, things left behind by adult males.
0:14:46 > 0:14:50And it's frustratingly rare to hear the voices of children
0:14:50 > 0:14:53in evidence that they themselves left behind.
0:14:53 > 0:14:54So it's been very moving to come here
0:14:54 > 0:14:57and see the physical remains of children at Wharram Percy.
0:15:11 > 0:15:16Despite the high infant mortality rate, this was a very young society.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20Roughly half the population was under 18.
0:15:20 > 0:15:25So there weren't enough adults to work the land and to feed and clothe everybody.
0:15:31 > 0:15:35Children had to be enlisted into the great challenge to survive.
0:15:38 > 0:15:45They helped with everything, from looking after the animals to separating the wheat from the chaff.
0:15:51 > 0:15:57So it's not quite child's play but it is something that a child could do.
0:15:57 > 0:16:02Chris Russell has been using traditional medieval farming methods for over 20 years.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05You started at seven in the morning, and you went on. Yeah.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09The children would have gone through this, it's a really boring job
0:16:09 > 0:16:13And just made sure that everything was taken out.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20Despite being undernourished and often sick,
0:16:20 > 0:16:24children were doing what we would now consider to be adult work.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28And relatively young boys were expected to do hard manual labour.
0:16:31 > 0:16:37So how old would you need to be before you'd be allowed to do this sort of work?
0:16:37 > 0:16:40You'd have been nine, ten years old as an ox boy.
0:16:40 > 0:16:46Because the ox man, as it were the chap, he may have been on the plough behind.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49So the boy would have been doing all the running and stumbling over the plough.
0:16:49 > 0:16:54You've got to be quite energetic to keep them all in a straight line as well
0:17:00 > 0:17:07In the constant struggle to make ends meet, children worked hard and died young.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09Does this suggest that medieval life was so tough
0:17:09 > 0:17:13that parents didn't care about their children as we do today?
0:17:18 > 0:17:22The answer lies at the National Archives at Kew in west London
0:17:24 > 0:17:27These are some of England's earliest coroner's rolls.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30They were first put together in the 1270s,
0:17:30 > 0:17:35so they're nearly 750 years old and you can really tell that
0:17:35 > 0:17:39working on them, the ink is beginning to fade.
0:17:39 > 0:17:42And to be honest, the script's pretty tough to read, too.
0:17:42 > 0:17:48And reading it isn't exactly a joy, either, because it tells a lot of tragic stories.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52You always know that every time you see a child's name in them
0:17:52 > 0:17:55you know that they're going to come to a sad end.
0:17:55 > 0:18:03Here, it's a little girl, and her name was Amice, and she was the daughter of Sybille.
0:18:03 > 0:18:08And she was just helping her mum at home, and her mum had a lead vat
0:18:08 > 0:18:13full of boiling water, and poor little Amice fell into it.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17And her grief-stricken mother rushed across the room
0:18:17 > 0:18:22and tried to pull her out of the vat, but it was already too late -
0:18:22 > 0:18:27Amice had been killed and was scalded to death.
0:18:27 > 0:18:33Here, a certain five-year-old boy called Richard
0:18:33 > 0:18:38was helping his father by going to the well to draw water
0:18:38 > 0:18:44But he fell in, and clearly couldn't get out, couldn't swim, and drowned,
0:18:44 > 0:18:46it says, by misadventure.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49And his sister was the first to find him.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54And here we read of Robert, son of Walter.
0:18:54 > 0:18:59Robert was killed by lightning and his father ran distraught across
0:18:59 > 0:19:04the field to try to save him, but it was too late, he was...he was dead.
0:19:06 > 0:19:12What these records prove is just how much parents were affected by their children's deaths.
0:19:12 > 0:19:14They loved them.
0:19:14 > 0:19:19Their compassion shows that this was a caring society
0:19:24 > 0:19:30Today, we see childhood as a distinct and precious phase of life.
0:19:30 > 0:19:37We try hard to give children a chance to be experimental and free from the stresses of adulthood
0:19:37 > 0:19:40But was medieval childhood all work and no play?
0:19:40 > 0:19:45Is it not tempting to assume that childhood didn't exist at all?
0:19:48 > 0:19:52Well, that's precisely what some historians have argued.
0:19:52 > 0:19:57The pioneering book on the history of childhood, written in the 19 0s,
0:19:57 > 0:20:03argued that there was no such thing as childhood in the Middle Ages - children were just mini adults
0:20:03 > 0:20:07And lots of people believed it after all, it sounds plausible enough.
0:20:07 > 0:20:12Well, actually, no - that myth has been completely debunked.
0:20:15 > 0:20:17Historians have since discovered evidence
0:20:17 > 0:20:22that childhood as a distinct stage of life really did exist
0:20:22 > 0:20:29For instance, we catch the occasional glimpse of children at play in medieval manuscripts
0:20:31 > 0:20:35And Dr Carenza Lewis is developing a theory that
0:20:35 > 0:20:41evidence of children's play could also be uncovered by archaeologists.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45She's been studying Brueghel's painting Children's Games.
0:20:49 > 0:20:54Wow, this is amazing - what's going on here? Well, I just love this It is children playing.
0:20:54 > 0:21:00It's 500 years old but it's really showing children doing all the sorts of things we think of children doing.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02It's such a happy picture.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06Look, you've got girls turning round swirling their skirts out
0:21:06 > 0:21:10You've got children playing king of the castle on a mound there
0:21:10 > 0:21:13We've got knuckle bones down here, where you throw something
0:21:13 > 0:21:16out in the air and pick stuff up before it hits the ground.
0:21:16 > 0:21:21There's a little play - is that a marriage, someone going into a nunnery, a coronation, I'm not sure?
0:21:21 > 0:21:25Yes, she's got a crown on. A procession there, they've all put little hoods on.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28A little girl playing... I'm not sure if that's a mud pie or a dog poo,
0:21:28 > 0:21:29but anyway!
0:21:29 > 0:21:32The sort of thing that children do.
0:21:32 > 0:21:36This painting is a riotous fantasy of children's games.
0:21:36 > 0:21:42Yet Carenza Lewis believes we could find real archaeological evidence for them.
0:21:42 > 0:21:48If you imagine all the children in this scene were suddenly called off to bed and they
0:21:48 > 0:21:52all rushed of and left, dropped everything they were playing with -
0:21:52 > 0:21:56what archaeological site would that leave us?
0:21:56 > 0:22:00So we look at this pile of bricks here, the possibility
0:22:00 > 0:22:03that children had arranged them like that would be ignored
0:22:03 > 0:22:06This pile of standing stones here - there's one game
0:22:06 > 0:22:10which actually describes stones put up on end in a circle.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14Sounds like Stonehenge - your average archaeologist wouldn't think about children.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18Once we've got an idea of the sort of things that children might have
0:22:18 > 0:22:23been doing, then we can look at our archaeological sites and look for evidence of those features
0:22:23 > 0:22:28I mean, this, someone's using an upturned pot here as a base
0:22:28 > 0:22:33You can see he's running towards it, he's just touching it to prove he's touched it.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36And that pot is a classic medieval type,
0:22:36 > 0:22:40but people very rarely suggest they're being used for play.
0:22:40 > 0:22:46And Carenza Lewis's theory is being supported by finds of children's toys.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50They're copies of ordinary household objects.
0:22:50 > 0:22:55And they're little play items. Like you'd have doll's house furniture,
0:22:55 > 0:22:57collections of objects for children to play with.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01So we have got a culture of childhood in the medieval period.
0:23:01 > 0:23:05Children are playing, they are playing in specific ways to children.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08It wasn't all blood, sweat and tears.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16"I am youth - wild, fearless, and never constant -
0:23:16 > 0:23:19"and I spend all my time playing,
0:23:19 > 0:23:24"running, leaping, singing, dancing, wrestling, stone-casting
0:23:24 > 0:23:27" and climbing trees to steal fruit."
0:23:33 > 0:23:39This reveals that even amongst the privations of the Middle Ages, there was time for children to play.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46And that childhood was a distinct period, which was understood,
0:23:46 > 0:23:50respected, and sometimes even celebrated in art.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01Around the 10th century, the transition from
0:24:01 > 0:24:05childhood to adulthood became sharply defined in law.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12In the early medieval period, Britain was a mosaic of small
0:24:12 > 0:24:15kingdoms frequently at war with each other.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18Within each kingdom, there were bloody rivalries, where
0:24:18 > 0:24:23vengeance was a personal issue pitting one family against another.
0:24:30 > 0:24:35Imagine it's the 7th century and I've killed someone.
0:24:35 > 0:24:40The victim's family would come after me for revenge
0:24:40 > 0:24:43And if they succeeded in maiming or killing me,
0:24:43 > 0:24:46my family would be honour-bound to extract revenge from them,
0:24:46 > 0:24:50so we'd be locked in a vicious cycle of revenge and retribution,
0:24:50 > 0:24:53spiralling out of control - a blood feud.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01In the late 9th and 10th centuries, all that began to change.
0:25:02 > 0:25:07England was united as one country for the first time.
0:25:07 > 0:25:13And during the reigns of Athelstan, Edgar and Cnut, English law was transformed.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18This book is a collection of early English legislation.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21It shows that a defining moment of transition
0:25:21 > 0:25:25from child to adult became recognised in law.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28It says in old English,
0:25:28 > 0:25:34"We willeth that al ja freoman beon hundred et un teothinga yer bracht."
0:25:36 > 0:25:40This means that once boys reached the age of 12,
0:25:40 > 0:25:43they became adults in the eye of the law.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47They had to join a "teothinga" a tithing group,
0:25:47 > 0:25:54which was a legal gang of ten village men - a medieval answer to crime and punishment.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58The essence of the situation was this - if any one
0:25:58 > 0:26:02of this member of ten people were accused of committing a crime,
0:26:02 > 0:26:06it was the responsibility of the other nine to bring them to justice,
0:26:06 > 0:26:09or else they faced the consequences of that crime themselves.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12They were, in a sense, guilty of it.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18Out went blood feuds, in came a form of community policing.
0:26:18 > 0:26:23Every male aged 12 and over was responsible for everyone else.
0:26:23 > 0:26:25And there was no opting out.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30In this world, the consequences of not being in a gang
0:26:30 > 0:26:32were really very serious indeed
0:26:32 > 0:26:36Because if you weren't in a tithing, you were outlawed,
0:26:36 > 0:26:39and that meant that anyone could kill you with impunity.
0:26:43 > 0:26:45This was a sophisticated piece of law.
0:26:45 > 0:26:47It created a new mark of manhood.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52To prove your commitment to society, you had to swear an oath.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58"By the Lords, before whom this relic is holy,
0:26:58 > 0:27:01"I will be faithful and true to the King Cnut,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04"and love all that he loves, and shun all that he shuns,
0:27:04 > 0:27:06"according to God's law.
0:27:06 > 0:27:11"And never by will or by force, by word nor by work,
0:27:11 > 0:27:14"do ought of what is loathful to him."
0:27:14 > 0:27:17So you can imagine that for a 12-year-old,
0:27:17 > 0:27:22this would be an extraordinary moment of transition from childhood
0:27:22 > 0:27:25into adulthood, performed in public
0:27:25 > 0:27:29with everyone else in their village around them.
0:27:29 > 0:27:33All this gave you an entry into the adult world, with a status
0:27:33 > 0:27:38in society, responsibilities but also protection.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43This oath was to become one of the foundations of our common law,
0:27:43 > 0:27:46and helped save England from lawlessness.
0:27:58 > 0:28:04Between about 900 and 1300, England's economy was booming.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08The population was growing, the land was being more intensively
0:28:08 > 0:28:12exploited, and there were growing opportunities to profit from trade.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18Sheep farming and selling wool to continental merchants
0:28:18 > 0:28:22helped make the heart of England and East Anglia very rich.
0:28:25 > 0:28:30And this increasing prosperity began to transform society,
0:28:30 > 0:28:33with the emergence of a new social class.
0:28:33 > 0:28:40They were known as the gentry not quite upper nobility, but definitely posh.
0:28:43 > 0:28:48They built themselves luxurious and impressive manor houses.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56This gorgeous place
0:28:56 > 0:28:59is probably the best surviving manor house anywhere in England -
0:28:59 > 0:29:02and the best thing is, I've got the key.
0:29:13 > 0:29:15Large houses like this needed servants.
0:29:15 > 0:29:18Many would have been adolescent boys
0:29:18 > 0:29:22from the surrounding hamlets and villages, lads from the better-off
0:29:22 > 0:29:25peasant families, who'd be living away from home for the first time.
0:29:29 > 0:29:31They were a source of cheap labour,
0:29:31 > 0:29:33but they also had a lot to gain
0:29:33 > 0:29:36This was an opportunity to better themselves.
0:29:39 > 0:29:43Professor Nicholas Orme is a leading authority on medieval childhood
0:29:45 > 0:29:49This is a self-supporting household - it gets its crops,
0:29:49 > 0:29:52its meat, in from its own lands
0:29:52 > 0:29:57It's got its own kitchens, brewery, bakery, stables.
0:29:57 > 0:30:01And in these departments, you have three or four people working,
0:30:01 > 0:30:05of whom at least one will be a lad who's being trained up.
0:30:06 > 0:30:11This is the main room of the castle,
0:30:11 > 0:30:15where a lot of the servants will be, especially if they're not
0:30:15 > 0:30:18actually doing anything, this is their kind of base.
0:30:20 > 0:30:26This would be home to perhaps a dozen young lads, but not all of them from peasant stock
0:30:26 > 0:30:29The top servants are themselves aristocratic.
0:30:29 > 0:30:35You see, they are these teenage gentry boys, who are learning
0:30:35 > 0:30:39how to receive guests, how to be polite, make conversation,
0:30:39 > 0:30:41how to serve meals.
0:30:41 > 0:30:45They actually serve the lord and lady themselves.
0:30:45 > 0:30:51You've got a very interesting social mix - children of gentry mixing with
0:30:51 > 0:30:53children of much lesser families,
0:30:53 > 0:30:57perhaps freemen and people from lower down the social spectrum
0:30:57 > 0:31:01That's right. They're actually spatially living much closer together than
0:31:01 > 0:31:05in Victorian households, where you have this upstairs-downstairs division.
0:31:05 > 0:31:07You haven't got that.
0:31:07 > 0:31:11They're much more mingled together.
0:31:11 > 0:31:13It's a different sort of society.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17If we were to imagine a 14-year old boy coming here for the first time,
0:31:17 > 0:31:23perhaps the son of a freeman, would he have been surprised by the opulence of a place like this?
0:31:23 > 0:31:28It would have been a moment of passage in life, wouldn't it?
0:31:28 > 0:31:34To go from a peasant house, which was very much smaller, to this sort of place.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37It would certainly be good in terms of food.
0:31:37 > 0:31:43There will always be adequate supplies of bread, meat and beer.
0:31:43 > 0:31:48In an age of subsistence farming, where a lot of people don't get enough to eat at particular times
0:31:48 > 0:31:54of the year, that is a really good position to have - you've got your feet under the table there.
0:31:58 > 0:32:02The migration of young people to manor houses like Stokesay
0:32:02 > 0:32:07made social mobility possible, creating opportunities for children to move up in the world.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14Boys from relatively humble backgrounds
0:32:14 > 0:32:18had a chance to break free from the constraints of village life
0:32:18 > 0:32:20and to have their rough edges knocked off.
0:32:25 > 0:32:30There's a bit of a myth that medieval lords were rather an uncouth lot.
0:32:30 > 0:32:35You have the image of a lord gnawing away at a roasted chicken
0:32:35 > 0:32:38and throwing it over his shoulder when he's done,
0:32:38 > 0:32:42that life in the evening was all about boozing and puking and wenching.
0:32:42 > 0:32:45In fact, the medieval world was obsessed about courtesy,
0:32:45 > 0:32:46about manners.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51"Thou shalt not spit over the table,
0:32:51 > 0:32:57"nor scrape nor scratch thine own flesh with thine fingers.
0:32:57 > 0:33:01"At table, beware of cleaning thy teeth with thy knife."
0:33:05 > 0:33:08Courtesy books were popular.
0:33:08 > 0:33:13Evidence that children were expected to acquire good manners very young
0:33:13 > 0:33:15if they were to get on in life
0:33:18 > 0:33:22"Look they nails be clean," it says, "in truth," which is ironic because
0:33:22 > 0:33:24my nails aren't very clean at the moment,
0:33:24 > 0:33:27I wouldn't make a very good medieval servant.
0:33:30 > 0:33:34"Retch not nor spit too far, nor laugh or speak too loud."
0:33:36 > 0:33:40"Do not pick your nose or let it drop clear pearls,
0:33:40 > 0:33:43"or sniff or blow too hard lest your lord hears."
0:33:53 > 0:33:57These instruction manuals were intended to teach children model behaviour.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02But they hid some of the realities of life in a manor household.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06This was essentially an all-male world,
0:34:06 > 0:34:11and young boys especially would have encountered bullying and brutality.
0:34:13 > 0:34:18You were likely to be a victim of a kind of casual violence that characterised the medieval world.
0:34:18 > 0:34:22According to one source, "A lord's huntsman should choose a boy servant
0:34:22 > 0:34:26"as young seven or eight who was physically active and keen of sight."
0:34:26 > 0:34:29That boy would have to sleep with the hounds to make sure they didn't
0:34:29 > 0:34:34fight and bark at night, and during the day he'd walk, feed and comb them.
0:34:34 > 0:34:37But if he made any mistakes, the huntsman should beat him
0:34:37 > 0:34:40as hard as possible until he had a proper dread
0:34:40 > 0:34:43of failing to carry out his master's orders.
0:34:49 > 0:34:55Knowing how to be forceful, even brutal, was an important skill.
0:34:55 > 0:35:00The great royal and noble dynasties of Britain and Europe were rich and powerful.
0:35:00 > 0:35:03And they aimed to stay that way
0:35:05 > 0:35:10The inevitable conflicts between them were often settled by violent confrontations.
0:35:14 > 0:35:18Medieval society was organised for war.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21It had to be. Rebellion, civil war,
0:35:21 > 0:35:26running battles between the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh were common.
0:35:26 > 0:35:31And there were long campaigns overseas, in France and on crusade in the Holy Land
0:35:31 > 0:35:35All this created another clear opportunity for boys.
0:35:40 > 0:35:42Lords needed to protect themselves,
0:35:42 > 0:35:46and they were also expected to supply warriors for the king's army.
0:35:49 > 0:35:55So it was a nobleman's responsibility to train up the next generation of fighting men
0:35:55 > 0:35:57Learning combat skills started young,
0:35:57 > 0:36:02but it was possible to become one of the superstars of medieval Britain -
0:36:02 > 0:36:03a knight.
0:36:06 > 0:36:08This is William Marshall.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11He ended up becoming the most celebrated knight
0:36:11 > 0:36:16in Europe in the late 12th century - an extraordinary warrior.
0:36:16 > 0:36:19But before that, he had a pretty eventful childhood.
0:36:23 > 0:36:25At one point, when he was just six years old,
0:36:25 > 0:36:28he was within seconds of being hurled to his death.
0:36:30 > 0:36:33He'd been taken hostage by his father's enemy, King Stephen,
0:36:33 > 0:36:35who was now besieging his castle.
0:36:35 > 0:36:42The King's plan was to throw the young William into the castle using a siege catapult.
0:36:42 > 0:36:48But William managed to charm the King by treating the catapult as a fantastic toy.
0:36:48 > 0:36:52"Is it a swing?" He asked as he was being lead to his death.
0:36:52 > 0:36:54"Can I swing on it, please?"
0:36:56 > 0:36:59The King was so moved by the child's innocent words that he called off
0:36:59 > 0:37:03the execution, and played a game of knights with him instead.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11William went on to have a remarkable career as a real knight.
0:37:11 > 0:37:16He excelled in the art of war and was impossibly glamorous.
0:37:16 > 0:37:18He fought alongside Richard the Lionheart,
0:37:18 > 0:37:21went on Crusade and survived several sieges.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23William was a legend.
0:37:30 > 0:37:37Becoming a knight was an expensive business, so it was primarily a role for the sons of noblemen.
0:37:37 > 0:37:42Growing up in the Middle Ages could be richly rewarding for the wealthy.
0:37:43 > 0:37:47For the knights, the potential gains in land and status were immense
0:37:51 > 0:37:56By the late 14th century, this was just one of hundreds of castles in Britain.
0:37:56 > 0:38:01And this one's especially magnificent - just what a medieval castle should look like.
0:38:04 > 0:38:08This is Bodiam in Sussex, built in the 1380s.
0:38:19 > 0:38:21The lord who built Bodiam, Sir Edward Dalyngrigge,
0:38:21 > 0:38:27clearly intended the castle to be an emphatic statement of his social status and military might.
0:38:27 > 0:38:29It would have been a formidable stronghold
0:38:29 > 0:38:34and so the ideal place to train young boys to become soldiers.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37It was, in effect, a military academy.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46And becoming a knight could start young.
0:38:46 > 0:38:48As long as you were of noble birth,
0:38:48 > 0:38:52you would be sent away to live in another castle with a lord who was
0:38:52 > 0:38:56already a fully-trained knight, and he would teach you how to be a knight.
0:38:56 > 0:39:00Now, you'd start your career right at the bottom as a medieval page.
0:39:00 > 0:39:05And a page is effectively a servant, an errand boy, the lowest of the low, I'm afraid.
0:39:05 > 0:39:12So your jobs would include, sweeping the courtyard, cleaning the stables, cleaning the poo.
0:39:12 > 0:39:14Pretty grim.
0:39:14 > 0:39:18Trainees were taught how to be respectful.
0:39:18 > 0:39:22There was a strict code of conduct amongst knights.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25Now this is called a sallet helmet.
0:39:25 > 0:39:30You can only see through the eye holes. Who knows what a salute is?
0:39:30 > 0:39:34You know in the army when you salute your commanding officer
0:39:34 > 0:39:39Now when you raise the visor to see who's approaching you, or for other
0:39:39 > 0:39:44people to see who you are, you lift your visor with your right hand
0:39:44 > 0:39:46So that's where the salute comes from.
0:39:46 > 0:39:48It comes from the sallet helmet
0:39:51 > 0:39:54This culture of chivalry emerged during the Middle Ages and defined
0:39:54 > 0:39:58how noblemen should behave in war and peace.
0:39:58 > 0:40:03You can imagine lads training here - the atmosphere competitive, testosterone-fuelled.
0:40:07 > 0:40:12The marshal would be running his eye over the pages to see who had potential.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16He'd be looking for boys who were strong, fit
0:40:16 > 0:40:18and had a good eye...
0:40:18 > 0:40:23with challenges like this.
0:40:24 > 0:40:26climbing up ladders on the inside...
0:40:29 > 0:40:30..hands only.
0:40:38 > 0:40:40Sorry, that's as far as I get.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49And it wasn't just physical training - leadership, tactics and strategy
0:40:49 > 0:40:52were also taught to armies of young men.
0:40:52 > 0:40:57Success here could catapult you into a meaningful adulthood.
0:41:00 > 0:41:03If you showed promise, you might make it to the rank of squire
0:41:03 > 0:41:06essentially a young warrior, perhaps in your mid-teens,
0:41:06 > 0:41:11in the hope of being dubbed a fully-fledged knight maybe in your early 20s.
0:41:11 > 0:41:15And you'd be expected to become a brilliant horseman and master
0:41:15 > 0:41:20the art of riding in full armour, so that you could compete in tournaments.
0:41:25 > 0:41:29"There see men who can joust and who can ride
0:41:29 > 0:41:34"Up spring the spears, 20ft high.
0:41:34 > 0:41:39"Out come the swords, bright as silver.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42"They hew at the helmets to shatter them.
0:41:42 > 0:41:45"Out bursts the blood in stern streams red."
0:41:48 > 0:41:51Chaucer - he wasn't just a poet
0:41:51 > 0:41:55he was also a man who'd campaigned with the Black Prince in France
0:41:55 > 0:41:58So his description comes from experience
0:41:58 > 0:42:02and gets right to the heart of what it meant to be a knight.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06This was a violent world, and fighting was a serious business -
0:42:06 > 0:42:12young boys in castles like this were being trained to kill.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18"He is not fit for battle, who has never seen his own blood flow,
0:42:18 > 0:42:22"who has not heard his teeth crunch under the blow of an opponent,
0:42:22 > 0:42:26"or felt the full height of his adversary upon him."
0:42:32 > 0:42:35Despite the risks, becoming a knight was a proven way for
0:42:35 > 0:42:41eldest sons to maintain and protect their family's wealth and honour.
0:42:41 > 0:42:47And for younger sons, it was their best chance of acquiring status and land.
0:42:47 > 0:42:52This imbued aristocratic society with a restless, dynamic energy
0:42:52 > 0:42:59So warfare was just as endemic at the end of the medieval period as it was at the beginning.
0:43:10 > 0:43:16It the mid-14th century, when many young knights were helping England to win wars in Europe,
0:43:16 > 0:43:20the country faced an even deadlier threat at home.
0:43:26 > 0:43:28It's known as the Black Death.
0:43:28 > 0:43:34It had already ravaged most of Europe, and it struck Britain in the spring of 1348.
0:43:34 > 0:43:39Once you caught it, you'd get pustulant lumps under your armpit.
0:43:39 > 0:43:44And then your hands and feet would go black, and within four days you'd probably be dead.
0:43:51 > 0:43:57Whilst a battle might kill thousands, the Black Death took the lives of millions.
0:43:59 > 0:44:03In London, people were dying so fast that in Charterhouse Square,
0:44:03 > 0:44:07next to Spitalfields, they had to dig mass graves.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14The largest one lies right here, beneath my feet.
0:44:14 > 0:44:21According to one contemporary, people were being buried here at a rate of 200 per week.
0:44:21 > 0:44:25But for children, worse was to come.
0:44:25 > 0:44:28A second onslaught swept across England in 1361.
0:44:32 > 0:44:35This time it was particularly hard on the very young,
0:44:35 > 0:44:39who had no immunity because they hadn't lived through the earlier epidemic.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42Medieval writers called it the Pestilence of Children.
0:44:47 > 0:44:52These murderous pandemics caused loss of life on a terrifying scale.
0:44:52 > 0:44:57According to one estimate, the population of England plummeted
0:44:57 > 0:45:00from around 5 million to 2.5 million.
0:45:00 > 0:45:04It's almost unimaginable to think that the population halved
0:45:04 > 0:45:08in just one generation and because children were hit the hardest,
0:45:08 > 0:45:13England shifted from being a young society to an ageing one.
0:45:13 > 0:45:17Suddenly, the Middle Ages had become middle-aged.
0:45:21 > 0:45:26This was one of the biggest social and economic crises England had ever faced.
0:45:26 > 0:45:28Labour was suddenly scarce.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34But this meant that young people who survived the Black Death were in great demand.
0:45:36 > 0:45:39For the peasantry, it was the beginning of a golden age.
0:45:40 > 0:45:44And children now had many more opportunities to learn a skill
0:45:44 > 0:45:49that would set them up for their adult lives, especially if they were prepared to travel.
0:45:51 > 0:45:54Take the legendary Dick Whittington,
0:45:54 > 0:45:57who supposedly came to London penniless
0:45:57 > 0:46:01and acquired a cat that caught the rat, that lived in his master's house,
0:46:01 > 0:46:04winning his daughter's hand in marriage.
0:46:04 > 0:46:07It turns out it's actually not that far from the truth.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21The real Richard Whittington did come to London,
0:46:21 > 0:46:26where he became an apprentice to a mercer - a trader in fine cloth.
0:46:26 > 0:46:30He turned out to be a natural wheeler dealer. By the 1390s, he was selling
0:46:30 > 0:46:35goods worth ?3,500 to the king That's millions in today's money.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38And he really did become the Lord Mayor of London.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42And at his death, he left a vast fortune in charity.
0:46:42 > 0:46:47He was a successful and popular man, a classic example of a young lad
0:46:47 > 0:46:50who made good through trade and apprenticeship.
0:46:58 > 0:47:01Apprenticeship was an urban phenomenon.
0:47:02 > 0:47:05Towns had been a crucial part of the English economy
0:47:05 > 0:47:10from as early as the 7th century, and by the 14th, they were booming.
0:47:10 > 0:47:15Cities like London, Bristol and York were offering new prosperity
0:47:15 > 0:47:18and even freedom for some adolescents.
0:47:22 > 0:47:25York was one of the biggest, richest cities in the land.
0:47:25 > 0:47:30Getting an apprenticeship here would have been a real step up in the world.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40This was THE place to live in medieval York.
0:47:41 > 0:47:44Stonegate had some of the richest real estate,
0:47:44 > 0:47:47so a lot of the well-to-do cloth traders lived here,
0:47:47 > 0:47:51had their workshops here and trained their apprentices here.
0:47:55 > 0:48:00Young apprentices hoped to enter a very powerful and lucrative system.
0:48:00 > 0:48:05They aspired to becoming masters and merchants who were rich and influential
0:48:05 > 0:48:11freemen of the city, without the ties that bound the peasants to their lords out in the villages
0:48:18 > 0:48:20This is the Merchant Adventurers' Hall.
0:48:28 > 0:48:35An astonishing space, almost untouched since it was built about 650 years ago.
0:48:38 > 0:48:43Its lavish design shows how rich the merchants of York had become.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48They formed a guild, effectively a trade association
0:48:48 > 0:48:52and they built this hall as a place to meet and do business.
0:48:56 > 0:49:01Masters often took on apprentices who were as young as 12 years old.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04The relationship between them was often very precisely defined.
0:49:07 > 0:49:13The contracts that bound them together are kept by archivist Jill Redford.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16We've got a typical example here,
0:49:16 > 0:49:18which has the...
0:49:18 > 0:49:20indented line.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22OK, wow.
0:49:22 > 0:49:28And it's so-called because of these dents, teeth marks, in the document.
0:49:28 > 0:49:32Yes. It would be written out twice on one sheet of parchment and then cut
0:49:32 > 0:49:37in this wavy line, so that the two halves matched each other and only matched each other.
0:49:37 > 0:49:41So you'd place them next to each other, so it's proof that these are exact originals. Yes
0:49:41 > 0:49:47So that's a wonderful one from the 17th century. I'll put that back.
0:49:47 > 0:49:50And then we have one here which is described as an indenture,
0:49:50 > 0:49:54although the cuts have gone, it's been trimmed.
0:49:54 > 0:49:58It has, yes. From 1364.
0:49:58 > 0:49:59Right, so, very early.
0:49:59 > 0:50:01And here are the contracting parties,
0:50:01 > 0:50:04Wilelmus Filius Magote De Lincolne.
0:50:04 > 0:50:07So, William, son of Magote, probably a woman...
0:50:07 > 0:50:12Yes. ..of Lincoln, is contracting with John Pate of York.
0:50:13 > 0:50:17It's for a period of 12 years. Gosh, that's a long time.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21You often get terms of seven years, 12 is unusually long.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25I suspect maybe he was quite young. If he was being apprenticed for 12 years,
0:50:25 > 0:50:29it may have been a way of providing him with a home.
0:50:29 > 0:50:32Perhaps his mother was a widow
0:50:32 > 0:50:38OK. Here are some things which the young apprentice is being banned from doing.
0:50:38 > 0:50:42"Ad talis non ludet." He's not allowed to go and play dice.
0:50:42 > 0:50:44Erm...OK.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47Or go to "tabernas", go to the tavern.
0:50:47 > 0:50:52So he's not allowed to gamble or go to the pub, that's a bit of a pity.
0:50:52 > 0:50:55And this rather striking word, "fornicacionis."
0:50:55 > 0:50:58So, he's not allowed to commit fornication,
0:50:58 > 0:51:02not allowed to fornicate with.. the wife? Gosh.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06So he's not being told not to fornicate with the master's wife,
0:51:06 > 0:51:14with his daughter or with... I think this word is "ancilla"
0:51:14 > 0:51:16so that's a female servant.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19Yes. He's living in the house, he's growing up as a young man
0:51:19 > 0:51:21The opportunities might be there.
0:51:21 > 0:51:25On pain of duplicating the number of years of the contract
0:51:25 > 0:51:26That's extraordinary. Yes.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30So if he did it, he'd have to spend 24 years there, not 12.
0:51:30 > 0:51:32I can't really believe it!
0:51:32 > 0:51:35It's going to be pretty unpleasant, the relations between them.
0:51:35 > 0:51:39You can't imagine them spending 24 years together. I think he'd be out on the street.
0:51:45 > 0:51:50The young apprentices were a very valuable source of cheap labour in the city's economy.
0:51:51 > 0:51:56And they must have had a real presence in the hustle and bustle of medieval York.
0:52:00 > 0:52:03Their indentures said they shouldn't drink, gamble or fornicate.
0:52:06 > 0:52:11But that's actually a pretty good indication there was plenty of that going on.
0:52:11 > 0:52:15Experienced apprentices would have earned a small wage
0:52:15 > 0:52:18The idea was that they would save that money so that they could set
0:52:18 > 0:52:21themselves up in business once their apprenticeship was complete.
0:52:21 > 0:52:24But these were young adolescents with money in their pocket
0:52:24 > 0:52:30and many of them would have been much more interested in going out and having a good time.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33Potentially, this was the time of their lives.
0:52:38 > 0:52:43But for those able to resist that temptation, the rewards were potentially enormous.
0:52:44 > 0:52:49Entry into a guild opened up new possibilities -
0:52:49 > 0:52:52the chance to set up your own business.
0:52:53 > 0:52:57This class of young, skilled craftsmen and traders made a major
0:52:57 > 0:53:03contribution to the flourishing and increasingly urban economy
0:53:11 > 0:53:14In the Middle Ages, children clearly had to
0:53:14 > 0:53:17shoulder adult responsibilities at a much younger age.
0:53:17 > 0:53:23But their contribution to the religious, economic and strategic well-being of the kingdom was vital.
0:53:26 > 0:53:33By joining the three orders - working, praying and fighting they gained more than survival
0:53:33 > 0:53:38They had status, and for some, even independence
0:53:43 > 0:53:47But not everyone enjoyed such freedom.
0:53:47 > 0:53:53Surprisingly, aristocratic children, the children of the rich, could be the most unfree of all
0:54:02 > 0:54:07Throughout the medieval period the ultimate source of wealth and power was land.
0:54:11 > 0:54:17And kings and barons, the richest people in the country, fought desperately to control it.
0:54:17 > 0:54:20And children were often amongst the casualties.
0:54:22 > 0:54:29If their parents died, and they stood to inherit, there was a danger they would become political pawns.
0:54:30 > 0:54:36In 1444, Margaret Beaufort became one of the richest heiresses in the country.
0:54:38 > 0:54:43When her father died, a legal guardian seized control of her whole life.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46And although she was only six years old,
0:54:46 > 0:54:49he swiftly married her off to his own son.
0:55:00 > 0:55:04By the time she was 12, Margaret was living here, a royal stronghold
0:55:04 > 0:55:08on the south-western corner of Wales - Pembroke Castle.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16Even the King hadn't been able to ignore her vast wealth
0:55:18 > 0:55:22He dissolved her first marriage and then married off to his half-brother.
0:55:25 > 0:55:29Margaret had been manipulated into the heart of political intrigue
0:55:35 > 0:55:38And now for the shocking bit -
0:55:38 > 0:55:42in order to secure her wealth, her husband had to make her pregnant.
0:55:42 > 0:55:47She was a slight 12-year-old girl, still basically a child.
0:55:47 > 0:55:51He was a strapping 26-year-old knight.
0:55:51 > 0:55:55Yet within weeks, it was clear the marriage had been consummated,
0:55:55 > 0:55:59because Margaret was pregnant with her first child.
0:56:02 > 0:56:08Although her adult life had barely begun, young Margaret had done her duty.
0:56:08 > 0:56:13Within months, her husband was dead, a victim of civil war.
0:56:13 > 0:56:20So, just 13, twice married and now a widow, she gave birth to a son.
0:56:21 > 0:56:24And this little boy would change the course of history.
0:56:24 > 0:56:29He would become King of England and would unite the kingdom after the Wars of the Roses.
0:56:29 > 0:56:34His name was Henry VII, founder of the whole Tudor dynasty.
0:56:38 > 0:56:42The Tudors had a profound effect on the course of English history.
0:56:42 > 0:56:45And by giving birth to their first king,
0:56:45 > 0:56:50Margaret Beaufort played a decisive role in their rise to power.
0:56:50 > 0:56:55She was exceptional, but in a sense, her experience wasn't.
0:56:55 > 0:56:59Margaret was just one of millions of medieval children
0:56:59 > 0:57:03who made a vital contribution to England's transformation.
0:57:04 > 0:57:08Like virtually everything we know about medieval children,
0:57:08 > 0:57:12Margaret's story was written and preserved by adults,
0:57:12 > 0:57:14usually adult men.
0:57:14 > 0:57:17That makes it hard to get at the lives of medieval children
0:57:17 > 0:57:20It's as if history has muted them,
0:57:20 > 0:57:23failing to transmit their voices directly to us.
0:57:23 > 0:57:27But if we listen hard, we can still hear their distant echo.
0:57:27 > 0:57:31And to my mind, it's vital we try to do so.
0:57:31 > 0:57:36Because if not, we risk losing so much - in fact, about half
0:57:36 > 0:57:38of what it meant to be alive in the medieval world.
0:57:52 > 0:57:54Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:57:54 > 0:57:56E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk