This book is about children and young people, boys and girls, rich and poor, disabled and healthy, in different contexts in pre-modern societies. It is a result of two interwoven research projects, the first Religion and Child – hood. Socialisation in the Pre-Modern Europe from the Roman Empire to the Christian World (2009-2012) funded by the Academy of Finland, and the other Childhood and Socialisation by the Institutum Romanum Finlandiae in Rome (2009-2013), both directed by Katariina Mustakallio. The main concern of both projects was the role and agency of children, an attempt to find out the extent to which we are able to reach and realise the agency of children and young people in different circumstances in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.