Episode 17 - Coronation Special! Titus Groan with Toby Frost

[Teresa Edgerton]

As I understand it, in both Christian monasteries and nunneries during the Middle Ages. It was one way to assure the futures of such children (also not have to worry about raising them during dangerous times), and at the same time win divine favor for the parents.

 

[Phyrebrat]

As I understand it, in both Christian monasteries and nunneries during the Middle Ages. It was one way to assure the futures of such children (also not have to worry about raising them during dangerous times), and at the same time win divine favor for the parents.

Yes. I seem to recall a similar situation in Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth.

 

[Toby Frost]

I wonder if what I'm thinking of is basically magical realism?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Toby, are you thinking that the Gormenghast trilogy is basically magical realism? (We've got so many different conversations going on that I think I may have lost track.)

If so, I would disagree. All of the stories that I have read that were clearly designated as magical realism (which isn't a whole lot), the supernatural impinged somehow on an otherwise utterly mundane and realistic setting, like a choir boy growing wings, or a shop assistant turning out to be a witch, and everyone keeps carrying on as though nothing unusual had happened (though it clearly had).

In Gormenghast, there is no influence of the supernatural, but it's the setting that is utterly fantastical (except for the part in the boys' school, which I take it is fairly realistic).

I will agree that whatever one wants to call it, looking for logic or internal consistency in any of Peake's work is perhaps missing the whole point.

 

[The Judge]

With the exception of those promised (sometimes at birth) by their parents to a monastery and sent there to be raised at a very early age. There would be no choice for the child in such circumstances, and in many cases little or no natural vocation.

Was that a feature of medieval Christian monasticism?

As Teresa says, child oblates weren't uncommon, though the practice was meant to be regulated to an extent, for instance from the C7th children under the age of 10 weren't meant to be offered to the church and they were allowed to choose whether to leave or remain upon attaining puberty, though I suspect both terms were abused, and it was certainly still an issue in the C12th with discussion within the church whether it was ever right to accept children.

And, of course, many adults entered the church not from a sense of vocation anyway -- men might use it as a way of achieving prominence and power (and wealth) when the clergy could also attain high secular rank, and women gravitated to convents in order to avoid an uncongenial life outside while others might be forced into a nunnery by their family.

 

[Dan Jones]

Surely you need magic for magical realism? Though granted there is clearly more "magic" in the subsequent books in the series.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

they were allowed to choose whether to leave or remain upon attaining puberty

Not much of a choice if they had no resources and their families were unlikely to welcome them back (unless, I suppose, they suddenly had some other use for them, as, for instance, older children in the family had died, and they needed an heir or a daughter they could marry off for political advantage).

 

[The Judge]

Yes, that was my thought as I was typing it, that if they chose to leave they'd likely be on their own and penniless -- they'd have to be desperate even to contemplate it, especially after a few years within the cloister. Better the devil you know, especially for adolescent girls.