The Orphans of Byzantium: Child Welfare in the Christian Empire PDF
Preview The Orphans of Byzantium: Child Welfare in the Christian Empire
THE ORPHANS OF BYZANTIUM THE ORPHANS OF BYZANTIUM Child Welfare in the Christian Empire TIMOTHY S. MILLER The Catholic University of America Press Washington, D.C. Copyright © The Catholic University ofAmerica Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum re- quirements ofthe American National Standards for Infor- mation Science—Permanence ofPaper for Printed Library Materials, .—. ∞ Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miller, Timothy S. mmThe orphans ofByzantium : child welfare in the mChristian empire / Timothy S. Miller. mmmp. cm. mmIncludes bibliographical references and index. mm --- mm. Orphanages—Byzantine Empire. . Child welfare— mByzantine Empire. . Alexius I Comnenus, Emperor of mthe East, –. . Guardian and ward—Byzantine mEmpire. I. Title. m . m.'—dc m For my wife, Vicki, and our two sons, Justin and Matthew. Many times they have rescued The Orphans of Byzantium. Interest in the ancient civilization of Greece and Rome and in the Christian world of the Middle Ages has declined in recent years. Most of my students find the names Demosthenes and John Chrysostom more difficult to remember than Lao Tzu and Montezuma. In such an atmosphere, I was especially de- lighted to discover that a group of physicians and independent scholars had organized the Hellenic Society Paideia of Vir- ginia, a branch of a national organization founded in , to encourage the study of Greek civilization from its beginnings in the Bronze Age to the present. This organization helped to support my research for this book and has also assisted many other scholars and students in reaching their academic goals. It is especially appropriate that the Hellenic Society Paideia put down strong roots in Virginia where more than two hundred years ago serious study of classical civilization gave birth to the ideals of a new nation. July Salisbury, Maryland CONTENTS Preface ix List of Abbreviations xiii I. Introduction II. The Ancient World III. The New Jerusalem IV. Byzantine Guardianship V. The Byzantine Church VI. Abandonment and Adoption VII. The Orphanotropheion: Administration VIII. The Orphanotropheion: The Orphan School IX. Did It Work? X. Epilogue: The West Appendix: Seventy-Seven Orphan Cases Bibliography Index vii Orphans of Byzantium tears too long forgot how ironic is this innocence gazing to distant shore immovable prow upon the reef hears now the slightest whisper transverse thy broken ship on Heaven’s mercy gleam angels that we slaughered tis to thee we now implore forgive O breathe upon our unfurled swaddle safely to thy harbor yet how pink the inlet is as if born just recently and warm a Mother and her child vicki beth miller // Thus says the Lord: ‘You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me I will surely hear their cry.’ Exodus : , PREFACE When I began research for The Orphans of Byzantiumin , I planned it as a sequel to my first book, The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire(published in ). Just as the East Ro- man Empire of Byzantium supported charitable medical hospitals to offer health care to people from all classes in society, so too did it main- tain a series of orphanages to nurture boys and girls who had lost their parents. But as I examined more closely the primary sources describing orphan care, I discovered that the East Roman method of aiding home- less children had evolved along different lines than had its system of providing free access to physicians. The Byzantine method of assisting orphans relied primarily on the laws of guardianship, which required that members of the extended family assume responsibility for protect- ing the children of their deceased relatives. My initial purpose in preparing this study was thus to describe how Byzantine society cared for orphaned and abandoned children and to examine how this child welfare program differed from the East Roman hospital system. As I pursued the project, however, I realized that many of the problems that Byzantine emperors, church leaders, and directors of orphanages faced did not differ from those confronting to- day’s social workers, psychologists, and educators. The more I read studies of modern orphanages and child welfare issues, the more I saw that societies have been addressing the same problems in assisting homeless children for centuries. Every grade school student has heard the saying that history repeats itself, and all of us have learned the necessity of experience in solving problems. Nevertheless, many modern experts in the field of child wel- fare know almost nothing about the history of how earlier societies ix
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