Innocence is one of the dominant paradigms of modern childhood, yet obsolete claims regarding how medieval society viewed childish innocence persist. Misrepresentations of the historical interrelationship between the concepts of innocence and childhood, especially in modern media, can reinforce erroneous teleology. One egregious example asserts:

Childhood and innocence belong within a far longer and more complicated framework than such inaccurate imaginings of a premodern past imply. Those writing in the Middle Ages firmly situated the motif of childish innocence within a broader context of original sin, but they drew on a variety of conflicting biblical and patristic perspectives in which sinfulness, and especially sin's inherited nature, was a contested topic. ‘[N]o man of himself is innocent before the Lord; who renders the iniquity of the fathers to the children, and to the grandchildren, unto the third and fourth generation’, declared Moses when he received God's commandments on Mount Sinai. Later in the Old Testament, God espoused a different approach, conveying a prophecy to Ezekiel which called for the people of Israel to abandon their collective system of judgement, in which the inherited stain of sin tarnished future generations. Ezekiel introduced a new custom: ‘The soul that sins, the same shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son’. Henceforth, the Lord would individually judge each person for their own transgressions. Even though, in the Latin Vulgate, these conflicting verses from Exodus and Ezekiel both use the term filius (‘son’ or the less gendered ‘offspring’) rather than vocabulary specifi-cally associated with young children, the ideas they convey became part of later theological discussions of sin and childhood.

Enigmas make for compelling puzzles because they inspire hope that fresh insights may be found through revisiting an enduring problem from a unique angle or engaging with diverse perspectives. This introduction briefly discusses the theme of 'enigmas' and their prominence across different disciplines and throughout time. Enigmas resonate with the processes and methodologies of research practices across the arts, sciences, and humanities, as is clear from the range of topics covered in the volume's eight chapters. Each of the chapters then receives a short introduction detailing the author's topic and main argument. Although some enigmas can, at first glance, seem to pose insurmountable challenges to humanity, the overall impression provided by this volume is one of hope. Even problems which initially appear overwhelming can be scrutinised, interpreted, and ultimately resolved.

Cultural, social and legal markers of elite maturity were shifting over the central Middle Ages, generating changes which affected how young people experienced late childhood and early adulthood. This chapter examines how some of these developments unfolded in relation to child kingship. It reinforces an argument which recurs throughout the book: that change over time was more substantial than cultural and political differences between kingdoms. First, the chapter examines the shifting significance of a boy king’s knighting. The acceptance of arms had been part of a child king’s rite of passage to young adulthood in the mid-eleventh century but, a century and a half later, knighting had instead become a crucial element in a royal child’s rite of passage to kingship. Then the chapter turns to consider the seals produced for and used by boy kings, emphasising the increasing diversity in seal forms and their creation from the thirteenth century. A crucial theme throughout the entire discussion is how kingship altered a child’s progression from boyhood to manhood, distinguishing a boy king’s experience of adolescence from other elite youths.

The intersection of childhood and rulership has a long history. This chapter compares examples of child kingship across Europe before 1050 with cases between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. It illustrates how structural developments in society, culture, politics and law brought greater political stability to a child’s rule during the central Middle Ages. Over this period, cultural attitudes towards violence were changing, practices of succession and inheritance were evolving, and ideas around marriage, illegitimacy and queenship were shifting. Such developments fundamentally altered the court environments into which royal children were born, the political context within which they succeeded, and the practicalities and precarities of their early experiences of rulership. This chapter examines aspects of violence, succession and queenship in turn before, in the fourth and final section, arguing for the need to revise claims of Germany’s exceptional ‘rejection’ of child kingship. While there are meaningful differences in how children were incorporated within systems and practices of kingship, this chapter suggests divergences between kingdoms should not be exaggerated.

When grave illness compelled rulers to plan for the likelihood of a child’s succession, their chief concern was not that their young son would be passed over as king. Instead, most dying rulers focused on making collaborative arrangements for protecting the kingdom and supporting the child in rule. This chapter examines some of the evidence for the preparations dying kings made as they gathered to their side men and women whose involvement would be crucial for the child’s continuing education and the realm’s administration. The first two sections draw attention to shifts over time in familial attendance at royal deathbeds and in the testamentary records of rulers’ intentions. The actions of kings and queens both before and at their deathbeds suggest hesitancy to impose a wardship model upon royal children, especially upon the new boy king, and this royal reluctance is examined in greater detail in the chapter’s third and final part. Even when it became apparent an infant or child would succeed, kings eschewed entrusting their sons and kingdoms to the care of individual magnates, preferring collaborative arrangements in which the queen often took a prominent role.

Contextualising conflict provides further testimony of children’s legitimacy as rulers between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. This chapter turns to narrative accounts of dynastic challenge, opportunistic conflict and kidnap to address the problematic association between child kingship and magnate violence. Evidence for the appearance and escalation of conflict while a boy was king has often been accepted without sufficient critical scrutiny. The chapter shows that attempts to remove children from their royal positions were rare, and that conflict often upheld their legitimacy to rule rather than undermining it. Applying the arbitrary label of violent opportunism to all instances of conflict when a child was king oversimplifies the complex range of reasons for magnate disputes. Instead, conflict could be, among other things, a legitimate response to royal succession, a habitual aspect of the negotiation of disputed property and rights, or a product of recurring quarrels over hierarchy and prominence. The child king’s presence and active participation could, once again, convey a significant and authoritative weight.