The Rise of the Medieval Hospital and the Formation of a Charitable Society in 12th- and 13th-Century Champagne, France

FAIN: FB-56852-13

Adam Jeffrey Davis
Denison University (Granville, OH 43023-1100)

Beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries, hundreds of hospitals were founded to provide for Europe's poor and sick. My study of hospitals in Champagne will examine how the medieval charitable revolution, heretofore largely neglected by scholars, gave rise to this new institution. In particular, this project seeks to explain the connection between Champagne's robust profit economy and the flowering of new charitable institutions. In elucidating the reasons for the emergence of a medieval "charitable imperative," I also link the diverse medieval images of the sick poor, including the sanctification of charity, to "charity in practice." By analyzing the complex and overlapping motives that led women and men to support hospitals, my study will probe what giving meant to medieval people and will provide a window into a pivotal moment in European history when care for the sick and poor became popularized and institutionalized.