4 - The charitable gift

Summary

Some of the most distinctive types of informal giving practised over the course of the period took the form of testamentary bequests and private donations to the poor. Medieval women and men had long engaged in these types of gift offering in their lifetime or at their death; prompted by conceptions of the merit of good works and by a rigorous system of intercession for the souls of the dead, they bequeathed gifts to the parochial poor and to public institutions – hospitals, leper-houses, almshouses – that could occasionally reach beyond their immediate circle of family or parish of abode, embracing more distant acquaintances and anonymous beneficiaries. By 1500, hundreds of hospitals and almshouses that administered the care to the sick and the elderly, and provided shelter for the traveller or homes for the aged and the physically incapacitated had been founded. In their wills, testators left money to support annual distributions of bread and grains, providing small sums and foodstuff for the ailing and for the maintenance of prisoners. Doorstep alms and face-to-face giving to the poor were part of the routine of monastic life, while distributions of food and alms were organized on obits and feast days of patron saints, at funerals and on the anniversaries of abbots, priors and benefactors of monasteries and hospitals. Almsgiving was also an integral part of annual feasting in the houses of nobles and the gentry, where places for the hungry were reserved at the table and scraps from meals were offered at the gate.