Homeschooling through Medieval Times

One of the things I did want to keep going during the Christmas holidays was the children’s literature class. Since we just finished the The Martha Years Set (Little House in the Highlands, Far Side of the Loch, Down to the Bonny Glen, Beyond the Heather Hills), it was a good time to try something a little different.

Our community center has a class on Medieval times every two years. Sam has taken it and so has Gabe.

This year it is Izzy and Noah’s turn. So in preparation, I decided to take the children through Karen Cushman’s historical novels – The Midwife’s Apprentice, Catherine, Called Birdy, , and Matilda Bone. We started with Matilda Bone as that was the only book that I had not read myself yet. I borrowed an excellent audio book from the library and while the kids ate breakfast and cleaned up afterwards we, listened to the book. By the first week of Christmas break, we had finished. This week we finished Catherine Called Birdy. Next week I personally will read The Midwife’s Apprentice aloud to the children. As their class starts on Wednesday, I think they will already have a good feel for what Medieval times were like in England.

I blogged about the controversy surrounding the Midwife’s Apprentice before. The discussion is here. I still love the Midwife’s Apprentice and am looking forward to reading it next week. I think Izzy will like this book best of all.

Izzy did NOT like Catherine called Birdy but Noah and Gabe enjoyed it very much. I liked how Catherine marked time in her journal by mentioning the feast day and what it commemorated in each of her entries. I told the boys that some people still write the name of the feast on letters and cards that they write and I thought that was a lovely habit to get into. I don’t think Izzy appreciated the fact that she would not get to choose her own husband and I also think it bothered her that Catherine did not have much love or respect for her father and some of her brothers. Perhaps the part about the mother being sick after having a baby (as well as mention that she had lost many other babies before) bothered Izzy as well. Or maybe the fact that she is only 8 put this novel a little beyond her. Somehow it did not engage her, but it did her 9 and 12 year old brothers.

The all enjoyed Matilda Bone, however, I would not recommend that book to a Catholic family without a parent to give a lot of support and explanation. Karen Cushman wrote some subtle anti-Catholic things in her first two novels, but in this third book I felt she took quite a few swipes at Catholicism. Nonetheless, I think I was able to turn a negative into a positive as I explained to the kids that as Catholics are imperfect people, we can’t expect all of the Catholic characters in our books to be perfect either.

Matilda is far from perfect. She has been raised and educated most of her life by Father Leufredus, and while her education has taught her to seek “higher things” one could say that she is so heavenly minded that she is no earthly good! Father Leufredus basically abandons her at the home of Peg the bone setter to work as an assistant, however, Matilda has no idea how to cook, clean, or even go to the market and she tends to look down on people who do. In the end Matilda does come to value some of the skills and the education she obtains by living and working with Peg but it is a slow process. Matilda Bone is a little anti-Catholic, but it pokes fun at higher education and lofty physicians as well.

However, for my purposes of introducing my children to the way of life people had back then, these historical novels have worked out very well and I am very pleased that at least in some way, we kept learning fun over Christmas!