"The eleven articles by leading historians included in this collection engage with a variety of topics and microhistories that touch on some of the most important aspects of pre-modern Italian life (1400-1700): charity, finance, inheritance, sociability, dowries and family strategies, public performance, and illness and its cures. The book is divided into four sections: charity and economy, culture and society, family and inheritance, and medicine and health. All of the articles are firmly grounded in original archival research while, at the same time, engaging with the rich and complex array of secondary scholarship in the area."--

This is the first book in English to provide a comprehensive examination of the hospital movement that arose and prospered in northern Italy between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Throughout this flourishing urbanised area hundreds of independent semi-religious facilities appeared, offering care for the ill, the poor and pilgrims en route to holy sites in Rome and the eastern Mediterranean. Over three centuries they became mechanisms for the appropriation of civic authority and political influence in the communities they served, and created innovative experiments in healthcare and poor relief which are the precursors to modern social welfare systems. Will appeal to students and lecturers in medieval, social, religious, and urban history and includes a detailed appendix that will assist researchers in the field.

Medieval Healthcare and the Rise of Charitable Institutions: The History of the Municipal Hospital examines the development of medieval institutions of care, beginning with a survey of the earliest known hospitals in ancient times to the classical period, to the early Middle Ages, and finally to the explosion of hospitals in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For Western Christian medieval societies, institutional charity was a necessity set forth by the religion’s dictums—care for the needy and sick was a tenant of the faith, leading to a unique partnership between Christianity and institutional care that would expand into the fledging hospitals of the early Modern period. In this study, the hospital of Saint John in Brussels serves as an example of the developments. The institution followed the pattern of the establishment of medieval charitable institutions in the high Middle Ages, but diverged to become an archetype for later Christian hospitals.

This book discusses the ways in which early modern hagiographic sources can be used to study lived religion and everyday life from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. For several decades, saints’ lives, other spiritual biographies, miracle narratives, canonisation processes, iconography, and dramas, have been widely utilised in studies on medieval religious practices and social history. This fruitful material has however been overlooked in studies of the early modern period, despite the fact that it witnessed an unprecedented growth in the volume of hagiographic material. The contributors to this volume address this, and illuminate how early modern hagiographic material can be used for the study of topics such as religious life, the social history of medicine, survival strategies, domestic violence, and the religious experience of slaves.

How did people of the past explain and deal with illness? This pioneering new book explores the wide range of healers and forms of healing in the southern half of the Italian peninsula that was the kingdom of Naples between 1600 and 1800. Drawing on numerous sources, the book uncovers religious and popular ideas about disease and its causation and cures--and uncovers new territory in the history of medicine.

The first monograph on the history of Islamic hospitals, this volume focuses on the under-examined Egyptian and Levantine institutions of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. By the twelfth century, hospitals serving the sick and the poor could be found in nearly every Islamic city. Ahmed Ragab traces the varying origins and development of these institutions, locating them in their urban environments and linking them to charity networks and patrons' political projects. Following the paths of patients inside hospital wards, he investigates who they were and what kinds of experiences they had. The Medieval Islamic Hospital explores the medical networks surrounding early hospitals and sheds light on the particular brand of practice-oriented medicine they helped to develop. Providing a detailed picture of the effect of religion on medieval medicine, it will be essential reading for those interested in history of medicine, history of Islamic sciences, or history of the Mediterranean.

An exploration of the relations between medical and religious discourse and practice in medieval culture, focussing on how they are affected by gender.