[Teaser] Growing up Byzantine (early script)

Here's a teaser of an early version of the script for our upcoming documentary Growing up  Byzantine. Sassanid Horse Archers will be premiering soon. Until then, enjoy this early preview of our upcoming video!

Introduction

We all want to know how our ancestors lived, how they loved, what they thought, what they ate, even simple mundane things like how they washed clothes or how they counted time to bake bread. All of these little details, the ones you don’t even notice as you live your everyday life, have largely been lost. Consider it, do you know how your great grandparents lived? Do you know where they went to have fun? What they talked about there? What they thought about when they bathed and got dressed? Even if you do, what about your great great grandparents? Or their parents? Even within a family line this intimate information is totally lost. So, as outside observers, we historians (who are often not even members of the culture we study) have an even foggier view. This history of everyday life is something we take for granted, something that we ourselves forget the moment we’ve moved on to the next task or thought. As a result, these deep dives are difficult to do properly. That's why we're bringing it to you.

Source and Bias Discussion

Classical Greek sources are well known for completely ignoring little details. Typically, Greek writers only put something to paper if it was unusual or exciting in their minds. The Byzantines inherited this infuriating trait. Therefore a proper historical survey has to be done in a bit of an unorthodox way.

The majority of sources mentioning children and adolescents during the Byzantine period [6th-15th Century] come to us through religious, legal, and medical works. Primarily, these include records of Saints’ Lives, lawsuits, medical records, and the odd collection of letters or professional histories. If we were to perform a similar investigation in the modern day, that would mean that all of our conclusions about the life of a child would come from places like the DMV, court records, church registries, and the occasional letter. Naturally, this presents a very narrow view of the world.

For example, in Byzantine legal tradition a teenager would become an adult at anywhere from 20 to 25. In the American tradition we could say that teenagers become adults anywhere from 18-25 if we went strictly by legal definitions. While this is correct, it doesn’t tell us about the little parties, ceremonies, duties, or expectations a newly minted adult would experience.

Childhood

During the Byzantine period, the growth of a child followed four distinct phases. From the age of 5 through the age of 10 an individual was considered a child, from 10-15 they were teenagers, and from 15 to 25 they were ‘young people’.

We observe that there is a sharp divide between rural and urban children, and an even sharper divide between everyone and the inhabitants of Constantinople herself. The people who were that close to the beating heart of the empire had more mobility and independence than in the other cities of the Empire. They had access to the great Imperial University established by Theodosius II as well as the imperial court.  Legends like the great Empress Theodora, as just one example, could only begin in Constantinople.

Rural boys often learned hunting and riding and played at running, jumping, and fighting each other. Young boys of sufficient age probably also appeared at the thematic muster and drill and acted as pages while the men trained. All of these activities were distinctly military in nature. These young boys were playing games that would one day become their training regimen when they finally took their place among the men. This was of utmost importance, as there were very few places in the empire that were safe from attack. Even the arid highlands of Anatolia weren’t safe from raiders and invaders. The coasts were threatened by pirates, the north was threatened by steppe raiders, and the west was under near constant assault by Christian powers. The young men of the empire were no strangers to war and hardship, and even their childhood games reflected this.

In urban centers, these sorts of martial activities were limited to the aristocracy. Young boys in the city were instead far more likely to be found learning their father’s craft, if they were lower class, or receiving a more general education from religious or secular institutions if their parents had money. Rural boys only had access to a religious education, if they were educated at all. Local priests would teach young children, both boys and girls, their letters using stories from scripture, in a similar fashion to modern Sunday School.

The Byzantines are commonly remembered by posterity as a snobby and uptight people, and while this is certainly true of the upper classes, especially when dealing with foreigners, the common people hadn’t changed much from the days of Antiquity. These were the same Greeks who exulted in dick jokes, fart jokes, slapstick, humiliation, and gore humor. The twist comes from the church. It was considered a saintly virtue not to laugh. Jesus, in the tradition of the Gospels, is not recorded as laughing. Thus, a somber and often grumpy demeanor is one of the saintly virtues of ancient holy men like Loukas the Younger, Paul of Latros, and George of Amastris. All of them are recorded as being serious children who frowned upon laughter. Laughter was not something that was done in polite society. Monks were warned against such a lewd and vulgar activity and the church fathers regularly reminded their flock that laughter was sinful and dangerous. While there is no doubt that common people still indulged in this overwhelmingly human activity, it wouldn’t be surprising if someone glared at you if you laughed in public.

Girls lived a more sheltered life. In Byzantine culture, women were viewed as fragile, and it was deemed necessary to protect them from the antics (or worse) of the boys. Moreover, young girls could be betrothed as young as 7 and were married as young as 12, though marriage at this age was typically restricted to the aristocracy. Therefore, much of a young girl’s childhood was spent training to maintain a household. They learned spinning, weaving, washing, cooking, and all the traditional values that were meant to form them into the Byzantine ideal of womanhood. Marriage wasn’t their only option though. Many girls, especially in accounts of Saint’s lives, would take the vows and join the Church in order to avoid a particularly unpleasant match.

Monastic communities were an important institution within the Empire and often took in wayward children, even if the monks grumbled all the way. Many parents would pledge their child to God, if only they could have a child that would survive, and when the child came of age, typically 8, they would be given to a nearby monastery in order to fulfill the parents promise.

They weren’t just giving their child away to strangers though. Often in cases like this, the family already had a relative within the church who could facilitate matters and keep an eye on their child. Sometimes girls would be given to the church if their parents could not afford their dowry or if the family didn’t have the resources to care for the child. This is a step up from the practice of exposure and slavery that the ancient Romans practiced, but it didn’t mean that their children were going into easy lives. The lives of children in monasteries were deliberately harsh in an attempt to weed out those who couldn’t commit to the Church. These kids could expect nothing more than early morning prayers, long overnight vigils, silent meals, poor food, and harsh teachers giving out harsh lessons.

Less fortunate children, typically orphans, were also taken in by the monasteries. Regardless of their origin or gender, at the age of 10 the children had to make a choice; take the vows and serve the Church or find another place in life. In Byzantine society, 10-year-olds were considered old enough to decide their fate and commit themselves to an entire life of service.

Teens

The ‘teen years’ happened between the ages of 10 and 15. During this time, both boys and girls reached marriageable age. Girls reached marriageable age at 12 and boys at 14. From 15 to 25, a person was considered a young adult. Young men specifically were their own social category during this period of their life. While these young men were the backbone of the Byzantine military, they were also a point of major instability. They instigated riots, they overthrew emperors, they rebelled against the social order and generally made a nuisance of themselves [Some things never change]. In the tales of Saints' Lives, young men are often rash, pleasure loving, and unreliable. These young men were typically seen in brothels, taverns, and theaters and generally enjoying themselves. Our sources frown upon such frivolous behavior. Having fun, after all, isn’t much of a saintly quality. The titular saint, who embodies all of the heavenly virtues that society valued so highly, was always shown to resist and despise these dens of sin, alcohol, and [worst of all] women.

Most young men were educated by relatives. Many were sent off to stay with an influential uncle who could show them the ropes of the military or political world. Ideally, they would be sent to Constantinople where they could see the true beating heart of the empire with their own eyes. It is hard to overstate how culturally important the city of Constantinople was to the Byzantines. It was the city of world’s desire; it was the axis upon which the world turned. It was a place of majesty and opportunity, and for its time it was a truly massive city. Constantinople birthed its great citizens through its people, not the other way around. The city lived and breathed, and the people within it just happened to be its chosen instruments. Saint Michael Choniates wrote this about his experience as a 20-year-old man sent to Constantinople alongside his younger (9-year-old) brother.

“I am now able to reflect on what how much love we gained from that journey, residing far from our homeland and parents, not yet having made friends or even acquaintances or finding any pleasant fellowship whatsoever, bearing alone with one another the sufferings of living far from home yet extremely content with sojourning abroad, far from our native land, because of the education which we received in exchange for much sweat and by practicing the rules and art of rhetoric by which we were trained. I devoted myself to advanced studies under the direction of teachers, while he, reared by me like a baby bird, made progress according to the measure of his age, ever growing towards the more perfect, until soaring by way of general studies and rhetoric, he reached the more heavenly and divine sciences.”

Average Byzantine women, by and large, were already homemakers during this period of their lives and their activities are mostly forgotten or ignored. The mothers of saints fought their unjust iconoclast rulers and nurtured their young sons into a life of proper piety. While the women of Constantinople wove their way through plot after plot, the average woman had no such opportunities.