At the Edge of the Words Representation of the Social and Economic Fragility of Childhood in Byzantine Hagiographic and Patristic Sources

Abstract

The patristic and hagiographic sources of the IV-VI centuries offer, for the Eastern Empire, information on the condition of children belonging to the most humble strata of the population. The authors’ perception of this condition of fragility is not univocal and refers to the cultural and spiritual contexts in which the text was conceived.