Did the Catholic Church ban adoption in the Middle Ages?
score:15
Adoption was never banned, and in fact was only ever encouraged quite strongly.
First, though, your source is a little off the mark on some of its details:
For one, widows and widowers could certainly remarry and they did so all the time. It is true that second marriages weren’t always necessarily seen favorably throughout the Middle Ages; entering a convent or monastery upon losing a spouse might be regarded more positively for some. But remarriage following the loss of a spouse was not forbidden. (Divorce, on the other hand, was a different matter.)
Specific to priests, celibacy was widely encouraged as early as 305/306 (and perhaps earlier). Saying it was unequivocally "imposed" in 385 is just a tad overstating the situation, but it’s safe to say that by the middle of the 5th century it was already generally adhered to throughout the West.
Now, as for adoption, I’m not sure where this notion is coming from. Laypersons were always strongly encouraged to adopt. And, although members of the clergy do not themselves adopt, medieval monasteries were something akin to modern orphanages in that they took in orphaned youths (albeit mostly to enter them into religious service).
If anything, I would argue that an ever-increasing importance placed on kinship ties would serve to discourage adoption in itself, rather than the Church aiming to put pressure on social systems of inheritance; the argument as stated seems to be confusing cause and effect, in my view.
Further reading:
Brundage, James A. “Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe.” 1987.
Payling, Simon. “The Politics of Family: Late Medieval Marriage Contracts.” In “The McFarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society.” 1995.
More post
- 📝 What is the historical significance of the Tryzub to Ukrainian diaspora?
- 📝 What was the nature of the Japanese presence in China in the later stages of World War II?
- 📝 Where is Heinrich Martin Weber's grave located?
- 📝 How did a few blacks and Indians attain good education during apartheid in Cape Town?
- 📝 What are this uniform and these medals?
- 📝 Did the Incas think Spanish helmets were cooking pots?
- 📝 How did Athenian citizens living standards compare to that of other Greek city-states?
- 📝 Pythagoras: sinfulness of eating beans
- 📝 Help me identify this pin?
- 📝 Why are the borders of the Islamic world where they are?
- 📝 Was the Battle of Trafalgar strategically pointless?
- 📝 Theoretical approaches to History
- 📝 How severe were the casualties in ancient/medieval battles?
- 📝 How many Scots were present at the Battle of Bauge?
- 📝 When did the Hindu-Muslim split start in India?
- 📝 The US founding fathers and Canada
- 📝 When did "Africa" become the name of the whole continent?
- 📝 What were the efforts made by the U.S. government to conserve forests?
- 📝 Approximately what was the short-term economic loss to Britain as a result of the Revolutionary War being lost?
- 📝 Have there been negative large-scale long term effects from vaccines?
- 📝 What is the history of Cartography?
- 📝 Were death camps originally intended as death camps and if not, what changed?
- 📝 Military uniform identification ?French
- 📝 Where did Medieval Europe's gold come from?
- 📝 What education path had to be followed to study law in 17th century Europe?
- 📝 How did messages get back and forth between ship and shore during the Battle of Cherbourg?
- 📝 Why was the Polish 1st Parachute Infantry Brigade dropped at Driel on the South bank of the Rhine?
- 📝 Why didn't Emperor Gaozu of Tang let Crown Prince Li Jiancheng command battles more often?
- 📝 What percentage of the population was in the clergy (chastity vows) in Europe *at its peak* between 500-1500)?
- 📝 What are some examples of clauses against unifications in peace treaties?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Did the Catholic Church ban adoption in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that the Catholic Church slowed innovation during the Middle Ages?
- 📝 What did the people of the Middle Ages call their period?
- 📝 What did men wear at night in the Middle Ages in Europe?
- 📝 What did the Catholic Church do to promote human rights of non-christians from 1500s to mid 1900s?
- 📝 What corrections did the Catholic church make to the Copernicus work "De revolutionibus"?
- 📝 What authority did the Catholic Church have over European monarchs from 900–1450?
- 📝 What did people of the middle ages call their periods?
- 📝 What did the term "Parage" mean in middle ages Langued'oc?
- 📝 (How) Did criminals in the middle ages get treatment for injuries?
- 📝 Did the Catholic Church have a police force in the medieval period?
- 📝 Was hay invented only in the Middle Ages in Europe?
- 📝 How did Medieval armies survive the use of mail armor in the deserts of the Middle East?
- 📝 What is the difference between the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages?
- 📝 What did squires do in the middle of a medieval battle?
- 📝 What advantages did Catholic missionaries to the Indians have over Protestant missionaries in old Oregon Country?
- 📝 Does the Catholic church have a long history of child abuse, or is it something that started in our time?
- 📝 Which European monarch of the middle ages died furthest from home?
- 📝 Why did the Middle Kingdom stop building pyramid tombs?
- 📝 After the fall of the Roman Empire, where did their armor go? Was it used by any dark ages forces?
- 📝 Why didn't mercenary combat after the middle ages lead to the collapse of the ruling class?
- 📝 How long did it take to build siege engines in the middle ages?
- 📝 In what ways did the rise of a true middle class in Europe during the late 19th century become apparent?
- 📝 Republican thought in the Middle Ages
- 📝 Language in German cloisters during the High Middle Ages
- 📝 How did the Catholic Pope manage to become more powerful than Kings in old Europe?
- 📝 What happened to the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church accumulated over the ages?
- 📝 Did people practice multiphasic sleep in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Which was the official position of the Catholic Church on the Atlantic Slave Trade?
- 📝 How did the Roman army go from constantly losing battles in the middle of the 3rd century to winning almost everything?