Medieval Healthcare and the Rise of Charitable Institutions by Tiffany A. Ziegler

Author:Tiffany A. Ziegler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030020569
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Conclusion77

The most important change in the evolution from monastery hospital to municipal hospital was in the care of the inmates themselves and in the administration of the institution. Religion remained a key component of the hospital care, but exactly who received care and how changed. Prior to the twelfth century, monks, rather than municipal authorities, were prominent in hospital care, primarily of their own members. Later, though, charity became linked to urban centers and their authorities. No longer was care of the sick and poor a concern of only monks. Now, aldermen, rectors, priests, and wardens joined into care for the less fortunate. This transition was possible as caritas through the vita apostolica activa moment became connected to local trustees.78 Thus, as transition occurred, public hospitals became connected to city centers and gained more prominence in urban landscapes. The municipal hospital still relied largely on regular canons, Augustinian brothers and sisters, and others for care, but increased lay involvement via donations made a significant contribution to the numbers and success of the high medieval hospital.

Urban hospitals relied principally on private aid in the form of gifts or donations from private patrons. Some gifts were in kind; others were in specie. Most of the donations came from annual rents raised on lands and property that were then provided to the hospital. Many hospitals also had endowments in kind, such as grants from royal forests,79 and even rights to the water dripping from the gutter between the houses.80 Hospitals also received money from bequests, participated in trade, and held fairs. They collected admission fees from people who were newly admitted members of the institutions, from the alms of pilgrims, and from involuntary funds, such as a Hospital Sunday Fund, or tolls on produce or other items. Voluntary donations came largely from fraternities who oversaw the maintenance of the charities.81 The increase in lay concern for the poor and ill prompted patrons from nearly every level in society to donate. The result was an affluence of hospitals in the high Middle Ages and the creation of the urban hospital most akin to today’s institution.

The public municipal hospital had made its debut. As an institution, it was unique to the urban centers of the high Middle Ages, yet still connected to its monastic brother of the past. While many would argue that the later hospitals of the Reformation became the basis for modern institutions, it was the high medieval urban hospital that deserves the title. The traditional monastic hospital after which the high medieval hospital was designed was supposed to be dedicated to the care of the poor and to the care of those who could not provide for themselves; yet, by the fourteenth century, “the tendency to differentiate among classes of the poor is evident […]. There were those whose condition, age, or status required services beyond mere asylum; some hospitals were reserved for specific classes of individuals, like aged fishermen, impoverished priests, or abandoned children.”82 Later, more specialized hospitals began to emerge, and societies began to create hospitals that were reserved for certain groups of people, i.

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