### q3 families gave kids to monasteries > Cerling explains, offering a child was not only a way for nobles to avoid the problem of a landless younger son, but to create a relationship with an institution and ensure prayers and Masses for their salvation and that of their relatives. Child oblation was not the only way that families could associate themselves with monasteries - Cerling also writes about monastic confraternities - but the point here is that families offered children not only out of self-interested desire for prayers on their behalf, but as part of broad strategies to strengthen the social ties between themselves and monasteries. Child oblation here is symbolic - *sacramental*, even, if I can be cheeky - of the relationship between monasteries and their surrounding communities. > > even though oblation used children as currency in an exchange between a religious institution and a family, these children often went on to achieve success, learning, and status unavailable to most of their peers. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fk6zqe2bkkwhdr8stdcwjzfm) - [[How Monasteries in the Middle Ages Recruited New Members#q3 families gave kids to monasteries|View in Vault]]