
On Hospitals
Welfare, Law, and Christianity in Western Europe, 400-1320
Sethina Watson(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 23. July 2020
Book
Hardback
396 pages
978-0-19-884753-3 (ISBN)
Description
This ground-breaking study explores welfare institutions in western law in the middle ages and establishes, for the first time, a legal model for the hospital. On Hospitals takes us beyond canon law, Carolingian capitularies, and Justinian's Code and Novels, to late Roman testamentary law, identifying new legislation and legal initiatives in every period. In challenging long established orthodoxies, a new history of the hospital emerges, one that is fundamentally a European history.
To the history of law, it offers an unusual lens through which to explore canon law. What this monograph identifies for the first time is that the absence of law is the key. This is a study of what happened when there was no legal inheritance, nor even an authority through which to act. Here, at the fringes of law, pioneers worked, and forgers played. Their efforts shed light on councils, both familiar and forgotten, and on major figures, including Abbot Ansegis of Saint Wandrille, Abbot Wala of Corbie, the Pseudo-Isidorian forgers, Pope Alexander III, Bernard of Pavia, and Robert de Courson.
Finally On Hospitals offers a new picture of welfare at the heart of Christianity. The place of welfare houses, at the edge of law, has for too long encouraged an assumption that welfare itself was peripheral to popes and canonists and so, by implication, to those who designed the priorities of the Church. This study reveals the central place for them all, across a thousand years, of Christian caritas. We discover a Christian foundation that could belong not to the Church, but to the whole society of the faithful.
To the history of law, it offers an unusual lens through which to explore canon law. What this monograph identifies for the first time is that the absence of law is the key. This is a study of what happened when there was no legal inheritance, nor even an authority through which to act. Here, at the fringes of law, pioneers worked, and forgers played. Their efforts shed light on councils, both familiar and forgotten, and on major figures, including Abbot Ansegis of Saint Wandrille, Abbot Wala of Corbie, the Pseudo-Isidorian forgers, Pope Alexander III, Bernard of Pavia, and Robert de Courson.
Finally On Hospitals offers a new picture of welfare at the heart of Christianity. The place of welfare houses, at the edge of law, has for too long encouraged an assumption that welfare itself was peripheral to popes and canonists and so, by implication, to those who designed the priorities of the Church. This study reveals the central place for them all, across a thousand years, of Christian caritas. We discover a Christian foundation that could belong not to the Church, but to the whole society of the faithful.
Reviews / Votes
The scholarship is impressive, the arguments complex, and only those with an interest in medieval law will appreciate this book. * R.T. Ingoglia, St. Thomas Aquinas College, CHOICE * This is an impressive book, successfully challenging many long-held assumptions about the history ofmedievalwelfare institutions. Watson's results differ fromthose of previous scholars, simply because she is a better historian. * Anders Winroth, Speculum *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
757 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-884753-3 (9780198847533)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
07/2020
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€67.49
Available for download

E-Book
07/2020
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€74.99
Available for download
Person
Sethina Watson is a Senior Lecturer at the University of York. Her research interests range widely across the social and institutional history of medieval Christianity.
Author
Senior Lecturer in Medieval HistorySenior Lecturer in Medieval History, University of York
Content
Canon Law and the 'Revolution in Charity' (c.1150-c.1250)
1: Introduction: The Sheep and the Goats
2: Reading around the edges: Welfare houses and the general councils, 1139-1215
A Western Model (c.400-c.900)
3: The Question of Francia (c.400-817)
4: Carolingian Lombardy (c.780-c.860)
5: Roman Law and the Western Tradition
6: Claims and Innovations
Stalking the Borderlands (1100 -1320)
7: Canonists and Commentators, at the edges of canon law (1100-1260)
8: Robert de Courson and the Council of Reims (1213)
9: The Council of Vienne and Late Medieval Hospitals (1312)
Conclusion
Appendix A: Ad Petitionem: A lost decretal of Alexander III
Appendix B: Robert de Courson's Hospital Decree (1213)
1: Introduction: The Sheep and the Goats
2: Reading around the edges: Welfare houses and the general councils, 1139-1215
A Western Model (c.400-c.900)
3: The Question of Francia (c.400-817)
4: Carolingian Lombardy (c.780-c.860)
5: Roman Law and the Western Tradition
6: Claims and Innovations
Stalking the Borderlands (1100 -1320)
7: Canonists and Commentators, at the edges of canon law (1100-1260)
8: Robert de Courson and the Council of Reims (1213)
9: The Council of Vienne and Late Medieval Hospitals (1312)
Conclusion
Appendix A: Ad Petitionem: A lost decretal of Alexander III
Appendix B: Robert de Courson's Hospital Decree (1213)