To flesh out this post a bit more I'll point out that we talked more about the "mythology" of knights rather than the "truth." What do I mean? Well, I didn't get into things like church politics, state politics, rapes, murders, oppression, slavery, ignoring the knights code, Crusades, etc. In my kids eyes knights are heroes and I figured they're six, they can live with that myth for as long as they want. So what they learned about was the ideal situation. Where knights always followed their code, where lords never attacked a neighboring land unless they had too (and not because they wanted to spread their own territory), where the words rape, torture, and genocide don't exist, where religious or state politics didn't determine who should live or die or who should marry who, where people were civilized and not... human. More of a Disney version of knighthood with clear good and evil than a A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones version which is far more accurate and truthful.
So, they learned about how castles worked, why knights obeyed their lords, what a serf was, why serfs served the castle, political marriages, etc. All of which is true, and accurate... and the ideal which is only part of the reality.
These last three concept weeks (Pirates, Viking/Norse Mythology, and Knights) were more about the fun aspects than the truth. Granted, I did tell my kids that these people killed other people, I just omitted than some of these people were bad people. My kids still live in the world where good always triumphs over evil, and I'm not ready to burst that bubble yet...
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