medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: Terrill Heaps <[log in to unmask]>
> In English, to apply the meaning of the word "hospital" soley to a place
for the sick is a later development of the use of the term.
likewise (i assume), in French a "Hotel Dieu" is not a place for traveling
gods, but what we would call a "hospital," i.e., a place reserved exclusively
for the treatment of the sick.
that's why i was/am interested in the meaning of the term as we find it in the
middlevil sources.
it is *assumed* that the _xenodochium_ of the 11th c. necrology of Chartres
was the institution that was rebuilt in the early 13th c. and, until the
mid-19th c., stood across the street from the cathedral.
and Jim assumes that that place/institution served a dual purpose, as (in
modren parlance) a "hospital" and as a "pilgrims' hostel," but i see those two
as being somewhat incongruous, within the same physical space.
of course, that "space" might have been quite large.
this reconstruction is based upon the size of the God Hotel as it existed in
the 1850s:
http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/AFvVR__JWjCDpXPJKupaEI28lfIInr41SI_7nnSC-ZT1xsh7dFDhalKSNdXKjlHQ2mgkhXHNMa-cAdZUhR07/Prache/prache_hotel_dieu.jpg
by that time --and presumably in centuries before-- it appears to have been a
large, complex of quite a few buildings (i believe that the large,
church-looking structure was the actual "Hospital" (in the modren sense); one
(or more) of those ancillary buildings could have served as a "hostel," as
well as serving as dwellings and service buildings (dormitory, kitchen,
storage, administrative offices) for the clerics and others who staffed both.
> Remember Anthony Trollope's "The Warden"?
no.
>Hiram's Hospital was not a place for the sick.
and i assume that the "hospital" of the Hospitalers was also not a hospital,
in the modren sense.
c
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