The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance

Historian John Boswell argues persuasively that child abandonment was a common and morally acceptable practice from antiquity until the Renaissance. Boswell examines evidence that parents of all classes gave up unwanted children, “exposing” them in public places, donating them to the church, or delivering them in later centuries to foundling hospitals. 17 photos.