Health And Medicine - medieval hospitals

WHEN IS A HOSPITAL NOT A HOSPITAL?

One of the most important contributions made by the Church was ‘that sick and weak people should be admitted kindly and mercifully, except for pregnant women, lepers, the wounded, cripples and the insane.’ This statement comes from the rules of the medieval hospital of St John in Cambridge.

There were about 1200 hospitals run by the Church in England and Wales, all of which were founded after 1100. There were almost as many hospitals as there were monasteries. The name hospital comes from the Latin hospes, which means guest, stranger or foreigner. Hospitals in the middle ages were not places where people went to be cured. They provided shelter for travellers, the elderly and the sick. Usually they were run by monks or nuns and would offer some general nursing skills. There were no doctors in medieval hospitals until after the Black Death.

Some hospitals specialised. Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, founded a hospital for the sufferers of leprosy at Harbledown, just outside Canterbury. Here over one hundred lepers lived in a scatter of wooden buildings. Evidence from documents from other leper hospitals show that treatment included medicinal waters, fresh food and isolation from centres of population.

There were no cures available. The eating of rotten meat and fish is believed to have encouraged the development of the disease, so the provision of fresh food was sensible, effective and probably the result of the observation that a good diet halted the disease.

The other aspect of hospitals was the salvation it offered to the souls of those who visited them. People in hospitals were expected to pray for the souls of others. The support by the rich was also a means of helping them to get to heaven more quickly, so the names of those who gave money to hospitals is often recorded. Later in the Middle Ages the monastic hospitals were replaced by smaller buildings, alms houses. This change can be seen in the list of hospitals and alms houses in Kent.

There are a number of hospitals and alms houses that have survived in Kent. Many are to found next to the main roads.

Hospitals and Alms houses in Kent.

Aylesford:	Trinity Hospital 1605	Dover:	St Mary 1221
Canterbury:	Jesus Hospital 1599	Milton:	St Mary 1155
	Manwood’s Hospital 1570	Ospringe:	St Mary 1230
	St John the Baptist 1170’s or 80’s	Cobham:	Cobham College 1362
	Poor Priests 1220	Harbeldown:	St Nicholas 1084
	St Nicholas and St Katherine 1200	Sandwich:	St Bartholomew 1190
	St Thomas a Becket 1180		St Thomas 1392
Chatham:	St Bartholomew 1180	Strood:	St Mary 1192
Sutton at Hone:	Alms houses 1596	Sutton valance:	Alm houses 1574

St John’s Hospital, Canterbury
St John’s Hospital has been continuously in use since it was built in 1184 for thirty poor men and thirty poor women. It is the oldest hospital in the country. The building itself was divided into two, with half for the men and half for the women. Behind the accommodation is the reredorter, a very fine example of a Norman toilet that has been in use for over 850 years.

Plan of St John's Hospital (Canterbury Archaeological Trust)

A perspective view of St John’s Hospital as it looked during the time of Lanfranc.
Drawn by John Bowen (Canterbury Archaeological Trust)

Activities
1.	Make a list of all those who were allowed into a medieval hospital.
2.	Explain why those who were seriously ill were not allowed in.
3.	Why were there no doctors in medieval hospitals?
4.	How important a factor was the Church in: i. stopping progress in medicine? ii. providing health care?