Too Much, Too Young: Children of the Middle Ages, BBC Four

Although billed as “a fresh look at the Middle Ages through the eyes of children”, presenter Dr Stephen Baxter had to admit the bulk of historic evidence for how medieval children lived their lives was written by adults. Unfiltered accounts from a child’s perspective are rare. Poring over the 1086 Domesday Book, the census of who, what and where, he noted that children aren’t mentioned. Evoking the barely known is a hard log to roll, and this frustrating programme barely nudged it along.

Dr Baxter spent most of the programme striding purposefully, following the director’s yen to inject a sense of urgency. Alongside London's Smithfield Market, he walked backwards, face turned to the camera. On the streets of York, he hurtled along. Over hill and dale he wandered. The breathlessness felt as if it was there to distract.

The opening minutes were spent defining the world he was about to examine. There were three orders of society: those who prayed; those who fought; those who worked. The Middle Ages were defined by three challenges: the fight for survival; the fight for power; the fight for salvation. The medieval world "was dominated by dynastic politics, wealth and power”. Please, enough with the threes.

He announced that, “It’s often been said that life must have been tough for medieval children.” By whom? There’s too many of these unqualified, sweeping statements in documentaries, and it’s surprising to hear them delivered by a proper academic. Dr Baxter later noted that, “In the Middle Ages, England was very rural.” That director again? Telling him to keep it simple?

There were central questions to grapple with – when did childhood end? Was it a sudden end? Did adult society recognise and accommodate play? Seeing Baxter taking on day-to-day work that children had to do, like threshing wheat or learning combat, didn’t answer them.

Much time was spent on children taking on adult responsibilities or being trained for the adult world, whether through apprenticeships, becoming servants or working at what we now think of as adult tasks. This is hardly stuff revealed by a forensic examination of history. Different period, but hadn't anyone on the production team read The Water Babies?

A bright new strand to archaeology was shown: an apparently developing theory that evidence for children at play might be found in the archaeological – artefactual – record. But the seminal book Playthings From the Past (pictured left) had already shown this a decade and a half ago. The excavated remains of medieval children were marvelled at. Lack of nutrition meant they were shorter than present-day children of the same age. Um, this wasn't unique to children. Medieval adults were also shorter than modern adults.

Adults had it tough, too. Mortality was high. Plagues didn't choose their victims. But without broad-brush, real-life accounts of medieval children this programme was hobbled. Dr Baxter concluded by saying it’s “hard to get at the lives of medieval children, it’s as if history has muted them, failing to transmit their voices directly to us. But if we listen hard we can still hear their distant echo”. However hard you listened to this programme, the echo remained exasperatingly distant.

• Watch Too Much, Too Young: Children of the Middle Ages on BBC iPlayer