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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
The different ways in which the three medieval societies of Byzantium, Latin Christendom, and Islam institutionalized the charitable impulse present in their respective faiths reflected the fundamentally different religious values which motivated these civilizations as well as their different levels of material and intellectual development. All three societies exalted the relief of human suffering, especially the care of the sick, as a religiously sanctioned gesture; and all three invented or adopted institutional means for attaining this pious objective. The various medieval counterparts of the modern “hospital”—the Byzantine nosocomeion or xenodocheion, the European hospitale, and the Islamic maristan—differed significantly, however, with respect to their organization and operation, the clientele which they served, and the ultimate intent of their charitable efforts. Accordingly, a comparison of these social welfare institutions reveals the contrasting ways in which the two Christendoms and Islam defined and applied the ideals of “piety” and “charity” during the middle ages.
1 William R. Jones, "Pious Endowments in Medieval Christianity and Islam," Diogenes, No. 109, 1981, pp. 23-36.
2 E.D. Phillips, Aspects of Greek Medicine, New York, 1973, pp. 197-201; John Scarborough, Roman Medicine, Ithaca, New York, 1969, pp. 66-79; A.R. Hands, Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome, Ithaca, New York, 1968, p. 132.
3 George E. Gask and John Todd, "The Origin of Hospitals," Science, Medicine and History: Essays in the Evolution of Scientific Thought and Med ical Practice written in honour of Charles Singer, ed. E. Ashworth Underwood, London-New York-Toronto, 1953, I, pp. 121-30; Demetrios J. Constantelos, Byzantine Philanthropy and Social Welfare, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1968, pp. 152-84; A. Philipsborn, "Der Fortschritt in der Entwicklung des Byzantinischen Krankenhauswesens," Byzantinische Zeitschrift, LIV, 1961, pp. 338-65; Karl Sudhoff, "Aus der Geschichte des Krankenhauswesens im früheren Mittelalter im Morgenland und Abendland," Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, XXI, 1929, pp. 164-203; Jean Imbert, Les hôpitaux en droit canonique, L'Église et L'État au Moyen Age, t. VIII, ed. H.-X. Arquillière, Paris, 1947, pp. 1-15; George Rosen, "The Hospital: Historical Sociology of a Community Institution," From Medical Police to Social Medicine, New York, 1974, pp. 274-77.
4 Constantelos, op. cit., p. 154.
5 Pan S. Codellas, "The Pantocrator, The Imperial Byzantine Medical Center of XIIth Century A.D. in Constantinople," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, XII, 1942, pp. 392-410; P. Gautier, "Le Typicon du Christ Sauveur Pantocrator," Revue des Études Byzantines, XXXII, 1974, pp. 1-145.
6 Owsei Temkin, "Byzantine Medicine: Tradition and Empiricism," The Double Face of Janus and Other Essays in the History of Medicine, Baltimore-London, 1977, pp. 202-22; idem, Galenism: Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy, Ithaca-London, 1973.
7 Note the statement of the Greek theologian, Symeon of Thessalonica, quoted by Constantelos, op. cit., p. 25: "Through memorial services and prayers and the Holy Eucharist and by means of philanthropia to the poor, forgiveness of sins is granted to those who, while they sinned on earth, yet died in repen tance. "
8 Sami Hamarneh, "Medical Education ad Practice in Medieval Islam," The History of Medical Education, ed. C.D. O'Malley, UCLA Forum in Medical Education, No. 12, Los Angeles, 1970, pp. 39-71; idem, "Development of Hospitals in Islam," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, XVII, 1962, pp. 366-84; Ahmed Issa Bey, Histoire des bimaristans (hôpitaux) à l'epoque islamique, Cairo, 1928; "Maristan," Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers, Ithaca, New York, 1965, pp. 326-27; Hakim Mohammed Said, "Early Hospitals in Turkey," Medical Times, Society for the Promotion of Eastern Medicine, XVI, 1981, pp. 8-14.
9 Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, Leiden, 1970; Edward G. Browne, Arabian Medicine, Cambridge, 1921; Donald Campbell, Arabian Me dicine and Its Influence on the Middle Ages, London, 1926.
10 "Waqf," Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, pp. 624-28; George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West, Edin burgh, 1981, pp. 35-74.
11 "Waqf," Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 626a.
12 See the works of Gask and Todd, Sudhoff, and Imbert cited in n. 3 above, also W. Schönfeld, "Die Xenodochien in Italien und Frankreich im frühen Mittelalter," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, XLIII, Kanonistische Abteilung, t. 12, 1922, pp. 1-54.
13 Walter Ullmann, "Public Welfare and Social Legislation in the Early Medieval Councils," Councils and Assemblies, ed. G.J. Cuming and Derek Baker, Studies in Church History, VII, Cambridge, 1971, pp. 10-11.
14 Rosen, op. cit., p. 278.
15 William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, Garden City, New York, 1976, pp. 69ff.
16 For general discussions of the medieval European hospital, see Rosen, op. cit., Imbert, op. cit.; Stanley Rubin, Medieval English Medicine, Newton Abbot-New York, 1974, pp. 172-88; Rotha Mary Clay, The Mediaeval Hospitals of England, London, 1909; Edward J. Kealey, Medieval Medicus: A Social History of Anglo-Norman Medicine, Baltimore-London, 1981, pp. 82-106; S. Reicke, Das deutsche Spital und sein Recht im Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1932.
17 Kealey, op. cit., pp. 83-84; Marvin B. Becker, Medieval Italy: Constraints and Creativity, Bloomington, Indiana, 1981, pp. 38, 101-02, 109.
18 Timothy S. Miller, "The Knights of St. John and the Hospitals of the Latin West," Speculum, LIII, 1978, pp. 709-33.
19 E. Delaruelle, E. R. Labande, and Paul Ourliac, "L'Église au temps du Grand Schisme et de la Crise Conciliare (1378-1449)," Histoire de l'Église depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours, t. XIV, ed. A. Fliche and V. Martin, Paris, 1964, II pp. 675-77; Becker, op. cit., pp. 101, 109.
20 Rubin, op. cit., pp. 150-71; note the foundation charters collected and edited by Léon Le Grand, Statuts d'Hotels-Dieu et de Léproseries: Recueil de Textes du XIIe au XIVe Siècle, Paris, 1901.
21 Delaruelle, op. cit., p. 676; also Clay, op. cit., pp. xvii-xviii, who likewise emphasized the "medical" character of the medieval hospital, explaining that it "was for care rather than cure: for the relief of the body, when possible, but preeminently for the refreshment of the soul." For an opposing view, see Kealey, op.cit., p. 83.
22 Although he fails to appreciate their implications, see Kealey, op. cit., pp. 107-16.
23 This point was made by Pope Clement V in his bull of 1309: "Qui pauperes recipit et reficit, hospitatur et pascit Dominum Jesum Christum," quoted by John Hine Mundy, "Hospitals and Leprosaries in Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Century Toulouse," Essays in Medieval Life and Thought Presented in Honor of Austin Patterson Evans, ed. John H. Mundy et al., New York, 1955, p. 203.
24 See the floorplans of the hospitals of St. Mary's, Chichester (thirteenth century), Notre Dame des Fontenilles, Tonnerre (thirteenth century), and the Hospital Real de Dementes, Granada (early sixteenth century) in John D. Thompson and Grace Goldin, The Hospital: A Social and Architectural History, New Haven-London, 1975, pp. 23, 25, 37, 44.
25 Cissie C. Fairchilds, Poverty and Charity in Aix-en-Provence, 1640-1789, Baltimore-London, 1976, pp. 18-37; Brian Pullen, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971, pp. 197-215; Robert M. Kingdon, "Social Welfare in Calvin's Geneva," American Historical Review, LXXVI, 1971, pp. 50-69. Also note the quotation from Spenser's Faerie Queene in Rosen, op. cit., p. 281.
26 Nancy G. Siraisi, Arts and Sciences at Padua, Toronto, 1973, pp. 153-54; for general accounts of medieval and Renaissance medical education, see the essays by C.H. Talbot and O'Malley in O'Malley, op. cit., pp. 73-102.
27 Rosen, op. cit., p. 287.
28 N.G. Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti and His Pupils, Princeton, New Jersey, 1981, pp. 269-304.
29 Luke E. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon: Professor and Practi tioner, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts, LI, Tor onto, 1980, pp. 29-30; Carlo M. Cipolla, Public Health and the Medical Pro fession in the Renaissance, Cambridge, 1976, pp. 4, 102.
30 See O'Malley's article on Renaissance medical education in O'Malley, op. cit., p. 95, and in the same volume, Erna Lesky, "The Development of Bedside Teaching at the Vienna Medical School from Scholastic Times to Special Clinics," p. 218. But cf. John M. Riddle, "Theory and Practice in Medieval Medicine," Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, V, 1974, pp. 157-84.
31 O'Malley, op. cit., pp. 95, 106.
32 G.A. Lindeboom, "Medical Education in the Netherlands, 1575-1750," O'Malley, op. cit., pp. 201-16.
33 Naissance de la clinique: une archéologie du regard médical, 2d ed., Paris, 1972, translated by A.M. Sheridan Smith, New York, 1973, under the English title, The Birth of the Clinic. Note the observation of Alexander von Humboldt, "The Arabs have an apt and striking saying, that the best description is one in which the ear is transformed into an eye … in which the words perceived by the ear become transformed into an image perceived by the eye," quoted by Albert Dietrich, "Islamic Sciences and the Medieval West," Islam and the Medieval West: Aspects of Intercultural Relations, ed. Khalil I. Semaan, Albany, New York, 1980, p. 63.
34 Hamarneh in O'Malley, op. cit., pp. 50-51; W.R. Jones, "Waqf, Mari stan and the Clinical Observation of Disease," Proceeding of the First Inter national Conference on Islamic Medicine, Bulletin of Islamic Medicine, I, 1981, pp. 230-33.
35 M. Meyerhof, "Thirty-three Clinical Observations by Rhazes (circa 900 A.D.)," Isis, XXIII, 1935, pp. 321-72.
36 Translated into English by William A. Greenhill as A Treatise on the Small-Pox and Measles, by Abú Becr Mohammed Ibn Zacaríyá Ar-Rází, Sydenham Society, London, 1847.
37 Owsei Temkin, "A Medieval Translation of Rhazes' Clinical Observa tions," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, XII, 1942, pp. 102-17. The popularity of his medical textbook in medieval Europe is indicated by its citation under the title, "liber Almansorem," in a late medieval English monastic library catalog; W.R. Jones, "Franciscan Education and Monastic Libraries: Some Documents," Traditio, XXX, 1974, p. 440, n. 21.
