care of citizens in sixteenth and seventeenth-century bruges Hilde De Bruyne
from the beginning: a survey The rise of the Flemish cities in the twelfth century prompted a population increase that intensified social divisions. The first care initiatives for the needy – preferably their own impoverished fellow townspeople – were taken by the burgher class and the civic authorities. Hospitals – hospitalen, gasthuizen or godshuizen – were founded, the earliest known example in Bruges being Sint-Janshospitaal. This first offered shelter to the sick – but above all to the needy, travellers and pilgrims – around 1150. Wealthy burghers could even opt for lifelong admission as pensioners in return for their possessions. For the most part, however, poverty was the driver. The Heilige Geesthuis certainly existed in 1231, but is likely to have been caring for the poor in their homes even earlier than that. Leprosy was considered contagious and incurable and so sufferers had to be removed from the community. The Magdalenaleprozerie is first
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recorded in 1227, but had been caring for lepers (Fig. 9) for years by then. The patients admitted to the Magdalena were well-off burghers. Poor lepers, who were also citizens of Bruges, formed a guild. They lived beyond the city walls but still within its legal jurisdiction. The authorities ordered them to move in the fifteenth century to four plots of land, also outside the city, earning them the name Akkerzieken (‘field sick’). They were permitted to beg. The Hospitaal Onze Lieve Vrouw ter Potterie was in operation by 1276 and, like Sint-Janshospitaal, took in verweecten (the weak), travellers and sick people. It merged with the Heilige Geesthuis in 1300. Additional institutions began to arise in the fourteenth century for specific target groups, including passantenhuizen for pilgrims, pedlars and travellers, though they were more likely to house the homeless. They were all provided with a night’s free accommodation, sometimes accompanied by a meal. Houses of this kind were mostly located on the outskirts of the
city, on one of the main roads. The Sint-Juliaan house was founded in 1305 by order of the civic authorities and represented the merger of the Guild of St Julian and the Filles-Dieu. The latter was a house dating from 1290 founded as a refuge for former prostitutes in an effort to rein in the sex trade. Sint-Juliaan could accommodate hundred ‘travellers’ in this period. The rules governing passantenhuizen were tightened in response to the growing number of homeless people. Their raison d’être was sharply reduced therefore by the end of the sixteenth century. Several former hospitals, including the Sint-Joosgodshuis, evolved into passantenhuizen. Travellers continued to be received by major institutions until the end of the French period. In the early fifteenth century, the Hospitaal Onze Lieve Vrouw ter Potterie developed into an old people’s home for both men and women in need of care. Eighteen elderly women lived there in 1671 and the institution continues to fulfil its ancient function today. The Sint-Hubrechts
