L’œuvre hospitalière et charitable des chanoines augustins en Normandie au XIIIe siècle

Abstract

In Normandy, the canonical movement and the hospitaller developed in parallel. The Augustinian regular canons counted for the majority of houses in the archdiocese of Rouen, with some fifty houses, of which about a dozen were hospitals and leper houses. We have some very detailed information about six of these houses, thanks to the entries in the register of Archbishop Eudes Riguad, based on his pastoral visitation undertaken between 1248 and 1269. In his entries, the bishop listed members of staff, described the material condition, and even worried about the prevailing discipline in these houses. Despite occasional deficiencies, the picture arising suggests that the Augustinian canons participated fully in the ‘charity revolution’ of the twelfth and thirteenth century, in that region as elsewhere.