| Description |
1 online resource (xiv, 340 pages) |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-325) and index. |
| Contents |
The ancient world -- The new Jerusalem -- Byzantine guardianship -- The Byzantine church -- Abandonment and adoption -- The Orphanotropheion : administration -- The Orphanotropheion : the orphan school -- Did it work? -- The West. |
| Summary |
Historian Timothy Miller argues that it is necessary to look at the history of orphanages, of their successes and failures, and of their complex roles as social institutions for unwanted and homeless children. In The Orphans of Byzantium, Miller provides a study of the evolution of orphanages in the Byzantine Empire. Contrary to popular belief and even expert opinion, medieval child-welfare systems were sophisticated, especially in the Byzantine world. Combining ancient Roman legal institutions with Christian concepts of charity, the Byzantine Empire evolved a child-welfare system that tried either to select foster parents for homeless children or to place them in group homes that could provide food, shelter, and education. Miller discusses how successive Byzantine emperors tried to improve Roman regulations to provide greater security for orphans, and notes that they achieved their greatest success when they widened the pool of potential guardians by allowing women relatives to accept the duties of guardianship. After a thorough discussion of each element of the Byzantine child care system, the book closes by showing how Byzantine orphanages provided models for later Western group homes, especially in Italy. From these renaissance orphan asylums evolved the system of modern European and American religious orphanages until the foster care movement emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century. Miller's study of these systems can provide useful models for reforming the troubled child-welfare system today. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Alexius I Comnenus, Emperor of the East, 1048-1118.
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Alexius I Comnenus, Emperor of the East, 1048-1118. |
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Alexius, I Comnenus, Emperor of the East, 1048-1118. |
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Alexis Ier Comnène, empereur byzantin, 1048-1118. |
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Orphanages -- Byzantine Empire.
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Orphanages. |
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Byzantine Empire. |
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Child welfare -- Byzantine Empire.
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Child welfare. |
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Guardian and ward -- Byzantine Empire.
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Guardian and ward. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Miller, Timothy S., 1945- Orphans of Byzantium. Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of America Press, ©2003 0813213134 (DLC) 2002001419 (OCoLC)48966883 |
| ISBN |
9780813220796 (electronic book) |
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0813220793 (electronic book) |
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0813213134 |
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9780813213132 |
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