This book offers a novel treatment of medieval Irish sources, uses a wide variety of genres of comment on the history of emotion and fills a gap in our understanding of fosterage as central to medieval Irish society.
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.
Abbreviations, Acknowledgements, Introduction, -What is fosterage? -An
Emotional History of Fosterage, -Methodological Approach, -The
Chapters,
Chapter
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?
Chapter
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,
Chapter
3.
Identity Within Fosterage, -Holy Brother, Foster Brother, -Fosterage and
Social Standing, -Fíanna: Where Everyone is a Foster sibling? -Creating
foster identity,
Chapter
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,
Chapter
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.
Dr Thomas C. O'Donnell is an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London.
