We will begin with the problem of studying institutions which, for the most part, vanished from the landscape in the years following the Reformation and will discover, with specific examples, how a wide range of interdisciplinary evidence can be used to regain some sense of their importance. The spiritual health of donors and patrons, as well as patients, was of overriding concern in an age when life was short and fear of the pains of purgatory overwhelming. In this respect Christ’s teaching about the Seven Comfortable Works exercised enormous influence, as did the salutary parable of Dives and Lazarus. But other factors, such as communal pride and a desire to follow fashions set by the crown and aristocracy also led medieval men and women to invest in hospitals.
What sort of care might patients expect and who might be admitted? Hospital historians used to denigrate the treatment on offer in medieval hospitals because it seemed to be so ‘unscientific’, but recent research suggests that larger hospitals, at least, adopted a holistic approach. Cleanliness, a nourishing diet, absence of stress, confession and a constant round of prayer (often accompanied by music) aimed to treat body and soul in tandem. This revisionist approach is particularly apparent in the study of leper hospitals, which were once seen in Victorian terms as places for the forcible segregation of social pariahs. Over 340 were founded in medieval England for largely positive reasons that reflect the complexity of medieval responses to disease and a widespread belief that the leper’s sufferings were akin to those of Christ. After the Black Death (from the 1350s onwards) many leper hospitals were converted into alms houses, as care for the elderly became an increasing priority. Men and women who survived the plague enjoyed a higher standard of living than ever before, but often had no young relatives to care for them. We conclude by investigating the late medieval equivalent of sheltered accommodation, which could be used to reward the ‘deserving poor’ while discriminating against those who behaved badly.
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