Children and Agency: Religion as Socialisation in Late Antiquity and the Late Medieval West

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present a new approach to the study of pre-modern children and childhood. By exploiting concepts of modern childhood studies, particularly socialisation and agency, we intend to shift the focus from 'childhood' and parental attitudes to children's own experience and action. We synthesise recent research on children in Late Antiquity and the Late Medieval West, which were pre-modern societies based on agricultural production and household economy, with high childhood mortality and religion prominent in everyday life. The essential elements in socialisation were similar in Late Antiquity and the Later Middle Ages, as our parallel examples will demonstrate. The objective of the study is to show that religion was a tool for agency for children, and socialisation by religion a central way through which children were tied into the shared social and cultural networks.

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