Medieval Healthcare and the Rise of Charitable Institutions

Medieval Healthcare and the Rise of Charitable Institutions: The History of the Municipal Hospital examines the development of medievalinstitutions of care, beginning with a survey of the earliest known hospitalsin ancient times to the classical period, to the early Middle Ages, and finally to the explosion of hospitals in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For Western Christian medievalsocieties, institutional charity was a necessity set forth by the religion's dictums-care for the needy and sick was a tenant of the faith, leading to a unique partnership between Christianityand institutional care that would expand into the fledging hospitalsof the early Modern period. In this study, the hospitalof SaintJohn in Brusselsserves as an example of the developments. The institutionfollowed the pattern of the establishment of medieval charitable institutions in the high Middle Ages, but diverged to become anarchetype for later Christian hospitals.