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Most people would agree that the hospital functions as one of the 'first duties of an organized society' as a public service for those members of the community who are in need. In the thirteenth century, hospitals represented a nexus of exchange between church officials, the community, the needy, and the pious or ambitious individual. This book presents a survey that offers an overview of the role of the hospital in affairs of the urban community, suggesting how changes within that community were reflected in the activities of the hospital. It locates the rise of the hospital movement in northern Italy within the context of the changing religious, social, and political environment of the city-states. The book introduces the hospital's central function in the distribution and administration of charity. It illustrates how the hospital and other charitable organizations played a role in the appropriation of power and influence by urban citizens. A comprehensive investigation of twelfth and thirteenth century hospitals' foundational charters follows. The book then delves into a detailed description of the physical plant of the hospital, the daily life of individuals, and rules and statutes followed by its members. It considers the social composition of donors, workers, and recipients of hospital services. Jurisdictional disputes among the city leaders, the community, individual religious orders, ecclesiastical authorities, and larger political forces. Finally, the book explores the process of consolidation and bureaucratization of hospitals in the fifteenth century and the emergence of state control over social services.
original archival and manuscript sources. St Euphemia’s medieval library and archives were destroyed in an earthquake in 1638. 11 The sole surviving document, albeit only through later copies, none earlier than the first half of the sixteenth century, is the abbey’s foundation charter (1062). 12 Due to its significance, the charter’s text is given here in translation: In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity. I, Robert Guiscard, by God’s grace duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, for the redemption of my own soul and those of my father and mother, as well as
monasticism is the critical question. According to the original foundation charter for Vézelay and Pothières, both religious houses were donated to Saints Peter and Paul in Rome, so that the apostolic see could ‘rule them, command them, and administer them’. 2 Desiring a ‘lasting guardian and protector of their order and their religion’, 3 the count and his wife pursued a more permanent bond of paternal authority and governance from Rome that was relatively unknown to French monasteries before the ninth century. At their bidding, Pope Nicholas I granted a landmark
. There is also a very specific difference between urban and rural hospitals that reflects the particular needs of that population. Rural hospitals reflected an older, ecclesiastical model of charity and religious life. Urban hospitals were more lay oriented and communal. Individuals, families, and community groups founded the earliest hospitals of this period. Foundational charters and bequests give great insight into the motives behind this institutionalization of charity and religious life. This lay initiative must be viewed as part of a
property. At the height of these controversies, and indicating the contemporary reach and resonance of these historical documents, Thomas Wheeler, a leading Manchester lawyer and son of the printer of Wheeler’s Manchester Chronicle , published his translation of the Foundation Charter of Christ’s College Manchester, granted by King Charles the first (and dated 2 October 1635 ) (1847). 36 The Caroline charter was of particular note since it was hard to see a copy of the original in the early nineteenth century, and
original (now in the Vatican Library), 21 is shown by its physical form: it was written in golden ink on purple parchment, one of only two surviving diplomas of King Roger to have been accorded such treatment. (The other was the foundation charter for the Palatine Chapel in Palermo from April 1140.) The model for this, and for the use of the gold bull as a
be adjudicated by an ecclesiastical representative. 32 The OPC's foundational charter, illuminates the pressing needs felt by the citizen's at the time: How can things go well in this most miserable Milan, full of the poor, famished and pestilent who wander through the city showing spots and sores while so great and even adequate provisions are cruelly embezzled? The souls of the benefactors are being damned, for no one prays for them any longer, no one gives charity any longer and
There is a plethora of notarial documentation from cities in the Lombard region that gives evidence for the foundation of hospitals in the area. These include indirect references to the actual origins of hospitals from subsequent relevant documents and a fair number of foundational charters or foundational testaments for specific hospitals directly noting their institutional inception. Although they were generally consolidated into larger institutions in the fifteenth century, it is still possible to trace evidence of independent hospitals in their earlier
organizations played a role in the appropriation of power and influence by urban citizens. Chapters 2 to 6 delve into the dynamics, internal workings, and social and political contexts of specific hospitals in northern Italy. Chapter 2 examines the phenomenon of the rapid growth of the foundation of hospitals in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. A comprehensive investigation of these hospitals’ foundational charters provides insight into the location, purpose, need, and political context of the origins of the hospital movement. Chapter 3
When Margaret Craufurd established an anniversary in 1508 at her parish church of St Nicholas, Aberdeen, she began her foundation charter with a clear statement of individual spiritual responsibility. ‘We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of our Lord Jesus Christ to receive according as we have done in the body whether it be good or whether it be evil’, the charter