Describe care in hospitals in the medieval period.

In the Middle Ages there were very broadly four types of hospital: for lepers; for poor (and sick) pilgrims; for the poor and infirm; and almshouses or bedehouses. This last form of hospital often included the explicit instruction that the brothers and sisters (those who resided there as long-term inmates), should pray daily for the souls of the house’s founders and benefactors – the term ‘bede’ meaning prayer.

Poor pilgrims often just stayed overnight at a hospital, and while some medieval hospitals took in the sick, others seem to have cared only for the old and infirm. Indeed, professional medical care by physicians or doctors seems to have been rare. There are a few references relating to such provision at London hospitals in the late Middles Ages and in 1524, for example, Henry VII’s Savoy Hospital (founded by the king in 1505) was expected to have a doctor and surgeon.

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