page_title: History of hospitals
section_title: Late medieval European hospitals
hierarchical_section_title: History of hospitals / 5th to the 15th century / Late medieval European hospitals
caption_attribution_description: Remains of St Leonards Hospital, York
context_page_description: The history of hospitals began in antiquity with hospitals in Greece, the Roman Empire and on the Indian subcontinent as well, starting with precursors in the Ascelpian temples in ancient Greece and then the military hospitals in ancient Rome. No civilian hospital existed until the Christian period. Towards the end of the 4th century, the "second medical revolution" took place with the founding of the first Christian hospital in the eastern Byzantine Empire by Basil of Caesarea, and within a few decades, such hospitals had become ubiquitous in Byzantine society. The hospital would undergo development and progress throughout Byzantine, medieval European and Islamic societies from the 5th to the 15th century. In the early modern era care and healing would transition into a secular affair.
context_section_description: The Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, founded in 1099 (The Knights of Malta) itself has - as its raison d’être - the founding of a hospital for pilgrims to the Holy Land. In Europe, Spanish hospitals are particularly noteworthy examples of Christian virtue as expressed through care for the sick, and were usually attached to a monastery in a ward-chapel configuration, most often erected in the shape of a cross. This style reached a high point during the hospital building campaign of Portuguese St. John of God in the sixteenth-century, the founder of the Hospitaller Order of the Brothers of John of God.
  Soon many monasteries were founded throughout Europe, and everywhere there were hospitals like in Monte Cassino. By the 11th century, some monasteries were training their own physicians. Ideally, such physicians would uphold the Christianized ideal of the healer who offered mercy and charity towards all patients and soldiers, whatever their status and prognosis might be. In the 6th–12th centuries the Benedictines established lots of monk communities of this type. And later, in the 12th–13th centuries the Benedictines order built a network of independent hospitals, initially to provide general care to the sick and wounded and then for treatment of syphilis and isolation of patients with communicable disease. The hospital movement spread through Europe in the subsequent centuries, with a 225-bed hospital being built at York in 1287 and even larger facilities established at Florence, Paris, Milan, Siena, and other medieval big European cities.
  In the North during the late Saxon period, monasteries, nunneries, and hospitals functioned mainly as a site of charity to the poor. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, hospitals are found to be autonomous, freestanding institutions. They dispensed alms and some medicine, and were generously endowed by the nobility and gentry who counted on them for spiritual rewards after death. In time, hospitals became popular charitable houses that were distinct from both English monasteries and French hospitals.
  The primary function of medieval hospitals was to worship to God. Most hospitals contained one chapel, at least one clergyman, and inmates that were expected to help with prayer. Worship was often a higher priority than care and was a large part of hospital life until and long after the Reformation. Worship in medieval hospitals served as a way of alleviating ailments of the sick and insuring their salvation when relief from sickness could not be achieved.
  The secondary function of medieval hospitals was charity to the poor, sick, and travellers. Charity provided by hospitals surfaced in different ways, including long-term maintenance of the infirm, medium-term care of the sick, short-term hospitality to travellers, and regular distribution of alms to the poor. Though these were general acts of charity among medieval hospitals, the degree of charity was variable. For example, some institutions that perceived themselves mainly as a religious house or place of hospitality turned away the sick or dying in fear that difficult healthcare will distract from worship. Others, however, such as St. James of Northallerton, St. Giles Hospital of Norwich, and St. Leonard's Hospital of York, contained specific ordinances stating they must cater to the sick and that "all who entered with ill health should be allowed to stay until they recovered or died". The study of these three hospitals provides insight into the diet, medical care, cleanliness and daily life in a medieval hospital of Europe.
  The tertiary function of medieval hospitals was to support education and learning. Originally, hospitals educated chaplains and priestly brothers in literacy and history; however, by the 13th century, some hospitals became involved in the education of impoverished boys and young adults. Soon after, hospitals began to provide food and shelter for scholars within the hospital in return for helping with chapel worship.
caption: Ruins of St Leonard's Hospital.
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