Chapter 7 - Breaking Rules and Telling Tales

Summary

This chapter examines children's daily life in monasteries, examining rules and narrative accounts to reconstruct the social history of these children. Despite the gaps and limitations of our sources, we can map some of the difficult terrain minor children navigated. On the one hand, monasteries offered a fairly stable home with food, healthcare, and educational opportunities for a lifetime. (Though even children could be expelled from the monastery.) On the other hand, children were regarded as a challenge, even a danger, to adult monks, who often prioritized adults’ needs and power over children’s well-being. This chapter looks at these complexities with respect to sexuality, food, labor, health, illness, disability, and even death.