Fosterage, the practice of a family bringing up a child not their own, differs from adoption

Adoption

Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...

 in that the child's parents, not the foster-parents, remain the acknowledged parents. In many modern western societies foster care

Foster care

Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent"....

 can be organised by the state to care for children with troubled family backgrounds, usually on a temporary basis. In many pre-modern societies fosterage was a form of patronage

Patronage

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

, whereby influential families cemented political relationships by bringing up each other's children, similar to arranged marriage

Arranged marriage

An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...

s, also based on dynastic or alliance calculations.

Fosterage in the Hebrides

In his A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland (1775), writer Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

 described the fosterage custom as he saw it practised.

Further reading

Medieval Ireland and Wales:

• Anderson, Katharine. "Urth Noe e Tat. The Question of Fosterage in High Medieval Wales." North American Journal of Welsh Studies 4:1 (2004): 1-11.
• Charles-Edwards, Thomas. Early Irish and Welsh Kinship. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
• Davies, Sir Robert Rees. "Buchedd a moes y Cymry. The manners and morals of the Welsh." Welsh History Review 12 (1984): 155-79.
• Fitzsimons, Fiona. "Fosterage and Gossiprid in late medieval Ireland. Some new evidence." In Gaelic Ireland, c.1250-c.1650. Land, lordship and settlement, ed. by Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick. Dublin: Four Courts, 2001. 138-49.
• Jaski, Bart. "Cú Chulainn
  Cú Chulainn
  Cú Chulainn or Cúchulainn , and sometimes known in English as Cuhullin , is an Irish mythological hero who appears in the stories of the Ulster Cycle, as well as in Scottish and Manx folklore...
  
  , gormac and dalta of the Ulstermen." Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 37 (1999): 1-31.
• McAll, C. "The normal paradigms of a woman's life in the Irish and Welsh texts." In The Welsh law of women, ed. by Dafydd Jenkins and Morfydd E. Owen. Cardiff, 1980. 7-22.
• Ní Chonaill, Bronagh. "Fosterage. Child-rearing in medieval Ireland." History Ireland 5:1 (1997): 28-31.
• Parkes, Peter. "Celtic Fosterage: Adoptive Kinship and Clientage in Northwest Europe." Society for Comparative Study of Society and History 48.2 (2006): 359-95. PDF available online.
• Smith, Llinos Beverley. "Fosterage, adoption and God-parenthood. Ritual and fictive kinship in medieval Wales." Welsh History Review 16:1 (1992): 1-35.

Miscellaneous

• Parkes, Peter. "Alternative Social Structures and Foster Relations in the Hindu Kush. Milk Kinship Allegiance in Former Mountain Kingdoms of Northern Pakistan." Comparative Studies in Society and History 43:4 (2001): 36.
• Parkes, Peter. "Fostering Fealty. A Comparative Analysis of Tributary Allegiances of Adoptive Kinship." Comparative Studies in Society and History 45 (2003): 741–82.
• Parkes, Peter. "Fosterage, Kinship, and Legend: When Milk was Thicker than Blood?" Comparative Studies in Society and History 46 (2004): 587–615.
• Parkes, Peter. "Milk Kinship in Southeast Europe. Alternative Social Structures and Foster Relations in the Caucasus and the Balkans." Social Anthropology 12 (2004): 341–58.
• McCutcheon, James, 2010. "Historical Analysis and Contemporary Assessment of Foster Care in Texas: Perceptions of Social Workers in a Private, Non-Profit Foster Care Agency". Applied Research Projects. Texas State University Paper 332. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/332

Anglo-Saxon England

• Crawford, Sally. Childhood in Anglo-Saxon England. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999. Especially pp. 122–38.