Orphans and adoption in early modern Castilian villages

Abstract

The high mortality rates of early modern rural Castile left multitudes of children without mothers and fathers. Castilian villagers found various informal ways to deal with these children: many were placed in adoptive homes; others in service or with guardians. Increasingly, though, the responsibility was institutionalized, as foundling hospices became centers for receiving and distributing orphans. The transfers of children to host families, whether arranged by charity hospices or by individuals, probably rarely satisfied the juridical definition of “adoption.” Thus, legal scholars could declare that the institution of adoption was extinct in early modern Castile; but the informal Castilian adoptions and quasi-adoptions were not only real, they seem to have functioned quite effectively despite their legal deficiencies.