Toys

An entire hoard of children&# 39;s toys found at Market Harborough parish church, England. A charming stash of the everyday playthings of 16th or 17th century children, the hoard throws a rare spotlight on the material culture of children in the archaeolog ical record. Staff at Harborough Museum dated the collection to the late Tudor and early Stuart era (1570-1630 ). The hoard was comprised of street toys, specifical ly 117 objects known as tipcats, 89 spinning tops, 13 sap whistles, 6 knucklebon es, 7 balls, 5 whip handles, 2 possible teetotums (a kind of spinning top) and 8 wooden cylinder objects that were also thought to be toys.

This class is not designed to teach you everything there is to know about medieval toys, nor about every kind of plaything that was available to children. The Bibliograp hy contains a short list of the major sources available, for those who want to follow up on the history of toys in more detail. Almost any medieval toy is reproducib le, once you know how it looked and what it was made of. The purpose of this class is to show you a selection of items, which may be readily copied for the use of modern medieval children.

Playthings in the Middle Ages, divided up by materials -- knucklebon es, wood, leather/te xtile, ceramic, metal, etc. Includes photos of extant examples, and depictions of playthings in use.

Images of adults and children on stilts from the 13th-16th centuries.

Research into an inventory of objects belonging to Mary Queen of Scots in Edinburgh Castle. The report specifical ly focuses on evidence for dolls or puppets called 'pippens', their historical and cultural context and their significan ce.

Includes dolls and doll clothes, figurines, hobby-hors es, hoops, miniatures , noisemaker s & rattles, puppets, scopperels , stilts, swings, tops, toy boats, toy horses, and toy knights.

This paper will focus on toys in pre-1600 western Europe. At times, it will touch on precursors from Greece, Rome, and even Egypt, or toys from non-wester n cultures of the medieval time period.