The Church and the Sick in the Latin West (4th - 8th Centuries)

From the mid-4th century monks and bishops founded hospitals with professional doctors and trained nurses in the Eastern Roman Empire. In the West, on the other hand, equivalent institutions at first barely featured, although the Church took charitable action in the form of alms and, increasingly, poor-houses. This book outlines developments in the East, before going on to investigate monastic institutions in the West, as well as the foundation of xenodochies and other charitable practices. It also investigates the limited adoption of Greek medicine in Latin in order to explain why there was no ‛culture-transfer’ from Byzantine hospitals to the West at the end of Late Antiquity.