Szpitale gdańskie XVI–XVIII w. a duchowość protestancka
Authors: Szarszewski Adam 
Published: April 2021

Gdańsk hospitals of the 16th to 18th century and the protestant spirituality

Hospitals of the Middle Ages and the Modern era adopted the rule of helping people in need as their basis of operations, especially in the scope of social care over orphans, the poor, widows, the crippled and the elderly. This article aims at sketching the phenomenon of changes undergoing in the sphere of spiritual life in protestant hospitals with the hospital foundations in Gdańsk of the 16th to the 18th century as example.
In the Modern era, hospital foundations in Gdańsk constituted a continuation of basic moral values propagated in the hospitals of the 14th and the 15th centuries. Similarly to the Medieval period, the resident of a protestant hospital should be pious, humble and not incite strife. Basic instruments serving the creation of proper models included: community prayer and pastoral service. Providers managing the hospitals were depicted as persons looking after their mentees as well as executing obedience to the rules of hospital laws from the residents.
Significant changes in the spiritual life comprised a withdrawal from the importance of prayers said by the poor hospital residents on behalf of the donors, following the notion of negating the participation of good deeds in the act of salvation of humans. It was accompanied by the phenomenon of desacralisation of poverty, which from then on did not constitute any value in itself. The effect of it was the sacralisation of work presented as one of the most important moral precepts.
Preachers serving in hospitals did not occupy any prominent positions in the structures of protestant Gdańsk, although working in hospitals would sometimes become a starting point for further career. It seems that a person of beliefs guaranteeing the nurture of orthodox protestant teachings would rather be chosen for the position of a hospital priest. It may be indicated, for instance, by the opposition of a number of hospital preachers against pietistic novelties in the 18th century. It is also important to note the fact that in certain cases (the House of Charity and Orphans or the Institute of the Poor) both the protestant and catholic care existed there.
The hospital community was characterised by certain conservatism, which indicated, among others, by preserving pre‑reformation relics in terms of hospital shrines decor.
A new decorum, in the reformed spirit, would often be adopted by those churches only after significant devastation resulting from random events (wars, fires). In such cases, the iconography focused on the figure of Christ and biblical scenes known from the lecture of the Holy Script during church services. It indicates the role of paintings in hospital churches, which constituted a visual foundation for sermons enriching the residents spiritually. However, works thematically referring to the virtue of compassion were sparse. It probably resulted from the didactic functions of the art of hospital shrines, which was directed mostly towards the residents and not the potential donors. Influence of the reformation was also indicated by reorienting the shrine space, due to which the pulpit became the place focusing the attention of believers, just like in other protestant churches. Field pulpits established outside were distinctive elements of hospital shrines (at the churches of: the Lazaret, All God’s Angels and Corpus Christi).
Intervention of the secular factor (the city council) in hospital life resulted from the sense of responsibility of the city authorities for propagating the model of a good Christian. More broadly speaking, the expectations of hospital community members were identical with those of the city council towards urban community members. The rhetoric used in hospital ordinances was therefore the same as the rhetoric of hospital ordinances issued for the whole of Gdańsk by the city council. Still, the need to constantly call for the authorities to participate in church services and the permanent detailed mentioning the forbidden acts in hospital ordinances constitutes the basis for the assumption that hospital communities did not fully follow the propagated moral precepts. Similarly, maintaining remuneration for as long as to the 19th century (admitting to hospitals for money), steeply criticised in the reformation period as a manifestation of particular pathology of hospital functions, demonstrates the discord between protestant ideals and the realistic possibility of implementing them.