The Council of Vienne (1311/2) and Late Medieval Hospitals

Abstract

Abstract Clement V’s council of Vienne (1311/2) in its canon, Quia contingit (1317), offered the only substantial statement in canon law to address the management of welfare houses, which it defined as xenodochia, leprosaria, almshouses, and hospitals. The canon has long confused and disappointed historians, not least for its absence of any detail as to how a hospital should be arranged. The chapter explores possible sources for the council’s act and elucidates the choices made and procedures followed by the council, when drafting the canon. It provides a new reading of the canon, as the culmination of a long relationship between canon law and welfare houses. As had Carolingian councils, and Urban III’s Ad haec, Quia contingit legislated for hospitals as structures for the administration of gifts (alms) to the tasks of human welfare to which they had been assigned. What the canon did now was articulate a right by which bishops might act to ensure that, if failing, managers or patrons fulfil these obligations.