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Bridgwater's Blake Museum
Learning opportunities
at the Blake Museum
Symposium on Bridgwater Castle for Teachers January 2011
Books
Books-General
Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, 2008 [A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century] (Paperback)
Joseph & Frances Gies
- Life in a Medieval Castle, 1974
- Life in a Medieval Village, 1990
- Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel, 1994
Jean Gimpal, The Medieval Machine, 1977
Carol Grafton Belanger, Medieval Life Illustrations, 1995
Paul Lacroix, ed by Carol Belanger Grafton, Medieval Life and People (CD-ROM and Book)
Books with cutaway drawings
Mark Bergin, The Medieval Castle, 2007
David Macauley,
Stephen Biesty, Cross Sections - Castle, 1994
Sheila Sancha, The Castle Story, 1991, new ed 1996
Richard Harris, Discovering Timber-Framed Buildings, 1978
Children's historical fiction
Children's historical fiction dealing with medieval times has a long ancestry, beginning with
Sir Walter Scott. Writers of adventure stories such as Maryatt, Ballantine, Kingston, Henty and Stevenson all mined historical themes.
In the twentieth century, four writers stand out for books on a more domestic scale,
with medieval everyday lives - Geoffrey
Trease, Rosemary Sutcliff, Cynthia Harnett and Henry Treece. The genre
had a decline in the 1960s, and the introduction of the National Curriculum placed constraints on the topics covered.
There has been a revival in recent years. It might be held that a number of the older titles will be beyond modern children since the language is too archaic and dense. But
if they cope with the writings of Leon Garfield, Phillip Pullman and J.
K. Rowling, they will surely survive these.
Famous people and events associated with our area which feature
in children's fiction are King Arthur, associated with Glastonbury and
South Cadbury and King Alfred, associated with Lyng, Athelney, Cannington
and Wedmore, The local events of the Civil War, the Duke of Monmouth and
the battle of Sedgemoor also feature.
Adult writers who will probably appeal to the older child who is
an enthusiastic reader are:
- Ellis Peters whose Brother Cadfael series is based an apothecary detective
in fourteenth-century Shrewsbury.
- T.H. White retold the Arthurian legends in The Once and Future King.
- Mary Stewart retold the Arthurian legends in a trilogy about the life. Merlin, the first volume of which, The Crystal Cave,
deals with his boyhood.
- Alfred Duggan wrote a number of adult historical novels as well as a number of factual books about the period for young people.
Selected Titles
King Arthur
There is a wealth of children's writing
about King Arthur and his Knights. The most recent appear to be:
Kevin Crossley-Holland (a trilogy on Arthur as a young boy and beyond)
- Arthur and the Seeing Stone, 2000
- Arthur at the Crossing Places, 2002
- Arthur, King of the Middle March, 2004
Philip Reeves Here Lies Arthur, 2007
King Alfred
C.Walter Hodges,
- The Namesake, 1964
- The Marsh King, 1968
Geoffrey Trease, Mist over Athelney, 1958
Medieval life
Cherith Baldry
- The Abbey Mysteries
- The Burned Cross
- The Silent Man
- The Scarlet Spring
- The Drowned Man 2004-2006 [Set in Glastonbury]
Karen Cushman
- Catherine, Called Birdy 1994 [In 1290, a 14-year-old girl keeps a diary detailing her attempts
to resist her father's efforts to marry her off. Excellent medieval detail.]
- The Midwife's Apprentice 1995
- Matilda Bone 2000
Elizabeth Janet Gray, Adam of the Road, 1942 [A tale of a minstrel-boy set in Chaucerian England]
Dennis Hamley, Joslin de Lay series, 1998 on. [6
crime novels set in medieval Oxford]
Cynthia Harnett
- The Wool Pack, 1951 [The Cotswold Wool Trade in the C16]
- Ring Out Bow Bells, 1953 [Story of Dick Whittington of Gloucestershire.
He made his fortune in Londonand died in 1423.]
- A load of Unicorn, 1959 [Tale set in Caxton's day]
Alison Jago, Montacute House (set in 1590), 2010
Richard Platt, Castle Diary: the Journal of Tobias Burgess, Page, 1999 [Large format well illustrated]
Rosemary Sutcliffe,The Witch's Brat,
1970
Geoffrey Trease
- Cue for Treason, 1940 [Elizabethan spies and the theatre]
- Trumpets in the West, 1994
Barbara Willard, The Mantlemass Series, 5 vol 1970 -1975 [Set in the Ashdown Forest, Sussex it covers from the Battle of
Bosworth in 1485 to the Civil War.]
Civil War
W H G Kingston,The Boy who sailed with Blake, 1880 [Siege of Lyme and later sea battles.]
Rosemary Sutcliffe, Simon, 1953 [Set in the West Country.]
Geoffrey Trease, Trumpets in the West, 1994
Frances Usher, That Rebellious Towne, 1998. [Siege of Lyme,]
Monmouth Rebellion
John E
Masefield, Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger 1910 out-of-print, but can be had for download. Excellent read.
9 January 2011
©
2011 Compiled by A P Woolrich webpage Dr P E Cattermole
All text and images are subject to copyright.
