Fosterage was a central feature of medieval Irish society, yet the widespread practice of sending children to another family to be cared for until they reached adulthood is a surprisingly neglected topic. Where it has been discussed, fosterage is usually conceptualised and treated as a purely legal institution. This work seeks to outline the emotional impact of growing up within another family. What emerges is a complex picture of deeply felt emotional ties binding the foster family together. These emotions are unique to the social practice of fosterage, and we see the language and feelings originating within the foster family being used to describe other relationships such as those in the monastery or between humans and animals. This book argues that the more we understand how people felt in fosterage, the more we understand medieval Ireland.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- What is fosterage?
- An emotional history of fosterage
- Methodological approach
- The chapters
- 1. Cú Chulainn and Expressions of Foster Fatherhood
- Conchobur and the role of the maternal uncle
- The language of fosterage
- Multiple fosterage and emotions
- Foster fatherhood beyond infancy
- How many foster fathers is too many foster fathers?
- 2. Who Makes a Foster Sibling?
- Cú Chulainn, Conall Cernach and Finnchóem
- The fosterage in Alba
- Fer Diad, death and how to mourn
- Foster brotherhood: A lost idyll
- 3. Identity within Fosterage
- Holy brother, foster brother
- Fosterage and social standing
- Fíanna: Where everyone is a foster sibling?
- Creating foster identity
- 4. Fosterage in the Medieval Irish Church
- Ísucán
- The Christ Child elsewhere in Middle Irish
- Miraculous fosterage in saints’ lives
- Monastic fosterage and oblation
- Divine metaphor and mortal practice
- 5. Animal Fosterage: A Bestial Parallel?
- St Ailbe and Cormac mac Airt
- Children gone to the dogs
- Relationships beyond suckling
- A permeable boundary between human and animal
- Becoming human
- Through an animal darkly
- Conclusion
- Drawing the chapters together
- Revisiting the methodology
- Bibliography
- Manuscript sources
- Primary sources
- Secondary sources
- About the Author
- Index
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