The Creation of a Charitable Landscape
This chapter examines the role of the counts and countesses in the provision of charity. While the counts' patronage of religious institutions has been studied, far less attention has been paid to their patronage of hospitals. Did they regard hospitals as simply another religious institution in need of support, or were there distinctive elements in their relationship to these charitable institutions, a number of which the counts had founded and which remained under their jurisdiction? The same question can be asked of Champagne's aristocracy, known for its benefaction of monastic houses, but which also showed a “compulsion for provisioning the poor and sick.” Champagne's increasingly influential urban bourgeoisie also played a prominent role in bequests to hospitals and in other economic transactions with these institutions. The chapter then looks at the relationship between Champagne's hospitals and other ecclesiastical institutions, such as monasteries, chapters, and cathedrals. Given that the county was such an important center for monastic life, particularly reformed monasticism, there is a need to consider the impact that monasteries may have had in supporting or eclipsing the provision of charity in hospitals. Scholars of medieval religious institutions have not examined the central role that these charitable institutions played, both in the larger religious and institutional landscape and in the urban economy.