AF could have started the book when Nicholas was even younger, but then he would have been too young to believably cope with the events at the beginning of the book.
There's another point I guess, which is that the sixteenth century would have had very different ideas about childhood from us. I think I'm right that the idea of childhood as a particular stage to be cherished, and as children being very different beings from adults whose innocence should be protected/nurtured etc, is a Victorian idea. Obviously Nicholas is a child, but the attitude of his culture would be that he was an adult-in-the-making, and that maybe effects his own expectations of himself, and of those around him, and so his ability to cope.
Certainly if you read anything about the young Elizabeth I or Edward VI it's very had to see them at any point as normal "children" and although they are obviously one end of the social scale, I think it probably extends more widely. After all children were routinely sent away to become apprentices/servants at a young age (would that have been as young as 11 does anyone know?)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: A nit-pick/voice breaking
Date: 2015-05-04 09:17 am (UTC)There's another point I guess, which is that the sixteenth century would have had very different ideas about childhood from us. I think I'm right that the idea of childhood as a particular stage to be cherished, and as children being very different beings from adults whose innocence should be protected/nurtured etc, is a Victorian idea. Obviously Nicholas is a child, but the attitude of his culture would be that he was an adult-in-the-making, and that maybe effects his own expectations of himself, and of those around him, and so his ability to cope.
Certainly if you read anything about the young Elizabeth I or Edward VI it's very had to see them at any point as normal "children" and although they are obviously one end of the social scale, I think it probably extends more widely. After all children were routinely sent away to become apprentices/servants at a young age (would that have been as young as 11 does anyone know?)