A Will of their own? Children’s Agency and Child Labour in Byzantium

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2017Author
Rotman, Youval
Suggested citation
Rotman, Youval;
.
(2017)
.
A Will of their own? Children’s Agency and Child Labour in Byzantium.
Imago temporis: medium Aevum, 2017, núm. 11, p. 135-157.
https://doi.org/10.21001/itma.2017.11.05.
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This paper examines the relation between three concepts: a child’s will, children’s
agency and child labour. Addressing the current debate about children’s agency, this
paper shows how these concepts were developed in Byzantine society in order to
advance a religious agenda that encouraged the child to run away from home in
favour of a new life in a monastery. Children were attributed with a will of their
own and acted upon it before they reached the age of puberty. This perspective took
the child out of the private sphere by attributing agency to it. The paper addresses
the current debate about children’s agency revealing the conceptualization of this
term as motivated by an economic agenda in which the need to profit from the
child’s labour plays an important role.
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Imago temporis: medium Aevum, 2017, núm. 11, p. 135-157European research projects
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