The emergence of a municipal hospital policy. Barcelona and the development of the hospital of Pere Desvilar during the late Middle Ages

Abstract

This paper describes the deployment of a first municipal hospital policy in Barcelona during the late Middle Ages. To this end, the growing authority of the local government will be linked to the transformations experienced by the hospital founded in 1308 by Pere Desvilar. This hospital was ceded to the local government and became its main welfare institution during the fourteenth century. A special emphasis will be placed on the government promoted reform that, in decade of the seventies of the fourteenth century, split the institution into two separate centres, one dedicated to the distribution of alms to the deserving poor and the other to the caring of the poor sick. The coexistence of these two institutions, both associated with the city government, would last until 1401, with the creation of the hospital of the Holy Cross. While the hospital for the poor sick would be integrated into the new general hospital, the hospital-almshouse instituted by Pere Desvilar would survive until the nineteenth century.