There is a trend throughout history in many cultures for young men to be the wildest, most violence-prone members of society, and a source of unrest and upheaval. This is likely to have something to do with age, and with the fact that young men tend to not have land of their own, making them poor and ambitious. Rather than continue speaking in generalities, I'll point to a specific instance that illustrates this.

In France during the high middle ages, juvenes (literally, youths) were aristocratic young men who had come of military age, but had yet to inherit or otherwise acquire land. By the time a knight or lord's eldest son came of age (18-21ish), he tended to be in his late forties or early fifties, and was at the peak of his power. Remaining at home under the absolute control of another man often seemed unpalatable to these young nobles. Those who left tended to wander in small groups, frequently led by a lord's son, with the other members being the sons of his father's vassals; they would have in all likelihood trained together for years as children. During this time, they were basically seeking adventure and land. The land might be acquired by finding a lord or king to do homage to in exchange for a land grant, or by marrying an heiress or widow, or, in the case of an eldest son, waiting for his father to become sick, old, or die, and take possession of the patrimony. In the case of the adventure, this was gotten through finding lords or kings in need of household (non-landholding) knights, through mercenary service, or, increasingly, through participation in tournaments, which came of age in the 12th century as a military training exercise and gradually morphed into the pageantry and spectacle of the late middle ages. There's some indication that when not otherwise engaged, these bands of wandering young warriors could be quite hazardous to the stability of the countryside. An armed and warlike man will not willingly starve.

A great example of this lifestyle may be found in David Crouch's William Marshal. Marshal began life as the younger son of an Anglo-Norman baron, and made his way through the world as a household knight and tournament fighter, gradually building a reputation for himself as the greatest of these in Europe. Later, when he was around thirty (and still had yet to acquire land), he became the guardian of the Young King, Henry of England, and served as his guide to the world of war and tournament, before going on to gain great lands in Wales and Ireland and end his life as Regent of England.

In "The Winter's Tale" Shakespeare has a Shepherd say "I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting." source. This is thought to have been written in 1610 or 1611.

I believe that the books "The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen" by Robert Epstein and "Escape from Childhood" by John Holt discuss the history of childhood and adolescence. Of course, these books are persuasive pieces, so be weary of their spin.

Edit: I'm pretty sure "Escape from Childhood" is out of print, but I have a copy that was easily ordered from Amazon.

Edit: Both these books pretty much say that adolescence as we know it has not happened thoroughout history, and that teens in the olden days had less angst. They posit that teens can function just as well as adults, and their "angst/rebellion" is really just frustration at being infantalized and disenfranchised.