- [medieval hospitals]
- bloodletting
- Burton Abbey and its monks
- St Modwen
- the Manor House
medieval hospitals
Until the development of the hospital from the 1st century AD, sick people were cared for at home if this were possible; if not, they died in the street. All this altered with a change in the idea of charity. Previously it had been narrowly limited to particular groups, usually male. The Jews and the Christians broadened this idea to take in all their fellow believers and, for the Christians, all who may be in need, for they were potential believers.
By AD 60, the Jews had built hostels for people coming on pilgrimage to the Temple at Jerusalem, and medical assistance was available in at least one of these. By AD 400, Christian hostels were common in Asia Minor and the Holy Land, and 50 years later, they had spread to Italy, North Africa and southern France. Church laws specified that each of these had to set aside one room for looking after those in need.
Most of these 'hospitals' were small, but the ones in Jerusalem and Constantinople contained 200-plus beds. They cared for many different groups -- the sick, the old, the poor and strangers -- sometimes together, sometimes not. Medical assistance was provided in the biggest of these new institutions, but most usually gave only 'care' -- food, warmth and shelter. Some were part of religious houses, established by pious bequest under the rule of regular religious orders.
From the 12th century, the provision of hospitals expanded as population, trade and towns all grew. Virtually all of them were associated with a church or monastery and life within them was governed by the religious offices, it being considered more important to ensure that patients died in a state of grace rather than to provide heroic treatments to keep them here on Earth.
By 1225, about 19,000 leper asylums -- called 'lazarettos' after the biblical Lazarus -- had been built throughout Europe, each consisting of a group of small huts surrounded by a high wall. As the spread of leprosy contracted, many of these were used to house people with infectious diseases -- especially the plague, when they acquired a new name: 'pesthouse' -- as well as the insane and the indigent. Some eventually became fully fledged hospitals -- for instance, the Hopital des Petits Maisons, near the monastery of St Germain des Pres outside Paris, and St Giles in the Fields, west of the walls of the City of London.
By the end of the 14th century, there were about 470 hospitals in England, but most were tiny -- with an average of 10 inmates -- and barely medical. Only in London were there hospitals of any significance: St Bartholomew's (founded 1123), St Thomas's (c. 1215), Christ's Hospital and Bethlem (both 13th century).
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