Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Just Another Day in the Neighborhood: Collective Female Donation Practices at the Hospital of Saint John in Brussels

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400

Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages ((TNMA))

  • 1547 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter examines female donations given to the thirteenth-century hospital of Saint John in Brussels that help to reveal the greater transitive nature of female pious gifts in the high Middle Ages. Practices, such as the alienation of property to religious institutions, which were once available to only noblewomen, were adopted by women living in urban centers. Some of the urban women donors occupied an elite status, i.e., wife of the castellan, alderman, or knights, while others came from the more common ranks. The donations at the hospital of Saint John provide a reassessment of traditional male and female spaces within the city structure. They demonstrate that female donors were as typical and as powerful as their male counterparts.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Paul Bonenfant, D’Histoire des Hôpitaux (Brussels: Annales de la Société Belge, 1965), 19–20. See also C. Dickstein-Bernard, “Activité économique et développement urbain à Bruxelles (XIIIe-XVe siècles),” in Cahiers Bruxellois, 1979, 56.

  2. 2.

    Bonenfant, D’Histoire des Hôpitaux, 20. Bonenfant explains that when the group of the Holy Spirit (Saint-Esprit) changed its name to Saint John, it was probably (san doute) in the imitation of Saint John’s Hospital of Jerusalem. See Bonenfant, D’Histoire des Hôpitaux, 20. See also, Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean de Bruxelles (Actes des XIIeet XIIIeSiècles), ed. Paul Bonenfant (Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1953), XI–XII.

  3. 3.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 10, 19–25. The original is lost.

  4. 4.

    Saint John’s Hospital was, at least in the thirteenth century, one of the largest and most important hospitals in Europe at this time. Contemporary Jacques de Vitry ranked it along with the Hotels-Dieu of Paris, Noyon, Provins, Tournai, and Liège; John Frederick Hinnebusch, The Historia Occidentalis of Jacques de Vitry: A Critical Edition (Fribourg: The University Press, 1972), 150–151. See also Rawlins Cherryhomes, “Charity in Brussels: The Hospital Saint John (1186–1300)” (Unpublished Master’s Thesis: University of Texas, 1963), 71. For the importance of the hospital, see Tiffany A. Ziegler, Medieval Healthcare and Charitable Institutions: The History of the Municipal Hospital (Palgrave Pivot, November 2018).

  5. 5.

    See, primarily, Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean de Bruxelles, introduction, Paul Evrard, Formation, organization, generale et état du domaine rural de l’hôpital Saint Jean au Moyen-Age (Unpublished Master’s Thesis: Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1965), and Rawlins Cherryhomes, Charity in Brussels: The Hospital Saint John (1186–1300). Of the 138 lay donations documented after 1254 (the year in which the rebuilding of the hospital, encouraged through an indulgence campaign, began), fifty-one were issued by women—widows, daughters, mothers, wives, and sisters. In some instances, the women are named along with male counterpart, but there are also instances of women acting alone. See below for more information.

  6. 6.

    Henri LeFebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Malden: Blackwell, 1991), 31. LeFebvre further argues that “[…] (social) space is a (social) product.” Regarding the Middle Ages, LeFebvre asserted there is no “doubt that medieval society […] created its own space. Medieval space built upon the space constituted in the preceding period, and preserved that space as a substrate and prop for its symbols; […] Manors, monasteries, cathedrals—these were the strong points occupying the network of lanes and main roads to a landscape transformed by peasant communities.” See LeFebvre, The Production of Space, 26, 53.

  7. 7.

    Martha C. Howell, “The Spaces of Late Medieval Urbanity,” in Shaping Urban Identity in Late Medieval Europe, ed. Marc Boone and Peter Stabel (Leuven-Apeldoorn: Garant, 2000), 5.

  8. 8.

    Megan Cassidy-Welch, “Space and Place in Medieval Contexts,” Parergon 27:2 (2010): 1.

  9. 9.

    In this study, I seek to emphasize the equality—or at least as much as can be expected in a male-dominated world—of men and women involved with the hospital of Saint John. Previous studies champion the brothers of the hospital and the later city aldermen who were intimately involved in the hospital’s management. This is not to say that the women have been ignored completely: Some studies on the hospital sisters exist, but they focus on the later periods of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and are in Dutch. See Jaak Ockeley, De gasthuiszusters en hun ziekenzorg in het aartsbisdom Mechelen in de 17de en de 18de eeuw: deel 1 (Brussel: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 1992), and Jaak Ockeley, “Ziekenzorg te Brussel van de 12de tot de 19de eeuw, inzonderheid in het Sint-Jansgasthuisop-de-Poel,” in Momenten uit de geschiedenis van Brussel (Centrum Brabantse Geschiedenis: Brussels, 2000), especially 143–146.

  10. 10.

    Adriaan Verhulst, The Rise of Cities in North-West Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 111.

  11. 11.

    Lisa M. Bitel, Women in Early Medieval Europe 400–1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 214.

  12. 12.

    Paul Charruadas, “The Cradle of the City: The Environmental Imprint of Brussels and Its Hinterland in the High Middle Ages,” Regional Environmental Change 12 (2012): 259.

  13. 13.

    André de Vries, Brussels: A Cultural and Literary History (Oxford: Signal Books, 2003), 29.

  14. 14.

    Coudenberg, or “cold hill,” was chosen for its natural defenses. The later Dukes located themselves on the hill. See Jean-Luc Petit, Brussels in the Middle Ages (Musées de la Ville de Bruxelles: Bruxelles, n.d.), 17.

  15. 15.

    Paul Bonenfant, “Les premiers remparts de Bruxelles,” Annales de la Société royale d’archéologie de Bruxelles 40 (1936): 46.

  16. 16.

    Howell, “The Spaces of Late Medieval Urbanity,” 5.

  17. 17.

    For more on the aldermen, see Alphonse Wauters, “Les Plus Anciens Échevins de la ville de Bruxelles,” Annales de la Société d’Archéologie de Bruxelles: Mémoires, Rapports et Documents 8 (1894): 1–54. A number of the aldermen throughout the thirteenth century held the title of knight.

  18. 18.

    The dukes and patricians were allied through the privileges and distinctions afforded to their upper-class status. The two groups continued to get along, and only in the latter part of the thirteenth century and through the fourteenth century did issues of class again arise, which pitted the patricians against the craftsmen. See The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. 2: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, ed. M. M. Postan and Edward Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952, 1987), 666. See also Paul F. State, Historical Dictionary of Brussels (New York: Rowman and Littlefield), 6.

  19. 19.

    Howell, “The Spaces of Late Medieval Urbanity,” 9–11. This seems to be a more problematic argument, especially in the case of the Low Countries where there was a high number of independent women. See Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 1–12.

  20. 20.

    Jo Ann McNamara and Suzanne Wemple, “The Power of Women Through the Family in Medieval Europe: 500–1100,” Feminist Studies 1:3/4 (1973): 126. Although the women discussed by McNamara and Wemple predate the women in the hospital’s charters at St John, the premise remains the same. See, for example, Erin Jordan, “Female Founders: Exercising Authority in Thirteenth-Century Flanders and Hainaut,” Church History and Religious Culture 88:4 (2008): 535–561.

  21. 21.

    McNamara and Wemple, “The Power of Women,” 135.

  22. 22.

    Bitel, Women in Early Medieval, 123. For more on gift giving and the important relationships it creates, see Barbara H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the EarlyMiddle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006); Stephen D. White, Custom, Kinship, and Gifts to Saints: The Laudatio Parentum in Western France, 1050–1150 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988); and Tiffany A. Ziegler, “Considering Charity: Family Traditions, Female Donation Practices, and the Hospital of Saint John in Brussels,” Medieval Prosopography 29 (2015): 51–74.

  23. 23.

    Cherryhomes, “Charity in Brussels,” 81–82. Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 4, 8–10. The original is lost. The hospital inherited the retirees’ estates in exchange for the exemption.

  24. 24.

    “…Presenti igitur imprimendum duximus memoriali quod nos affectu pietatis et misericordie, communi consensus et voluntate concordi, pauperum, quibus in hospitali beati Johannis in Bruxella servitur, respicientes indigentiam, curtile quoddam quod eidem domui propinquum ad nostrum spectat allodium, prefato hospitali et fidelibus in eo Deo servientibus sub annua pensione sex solidorum jure perpetuo contulimus, usui ipsorum profuturum…”Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 8, 16–17. CPAS, SJ 31, fol. 27.

  25. 25.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 47, 73. CPAS SJ 33.

  26. 26.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 47, 73, n 1. CPAS SJ 33.

  27. 27.

    The area around Coudenberg had a poverty rating of about 8%, whereas other areas of the town, such as those around Notre-Dame de la Chapelle and Saint-Gery saw higher percentages: 15 and 14%. The area near the chapel of Saint Catherine was the area with the highest poverty: 21%, due greatly to the flooding of the Senne and the rise of various epidemics. Dickstein-Bernard, “Activité économique et développement urbain à Bruxelles,” 62.

  28. 28.

    Between Brussels and Malines.

  29. 29.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 48, 74. The original is lost.

  30. 30.

    A small province and city in Brabant.

  31. 31.

    “Godefridus de Lovanio, dominus de Levis, et Maria, uxor ejus.” Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 80, 116. CPAS SJ 40.

  32. 32.

    “Universis presens scriptum inspecturis, Godefridus de Lovanio, dominus de Levis, et Maria, uxor ejus, salute et congnoscere veritatem. Noveritiis quod nos ob remedium et salutem animarium nostrarum antecessorumque nostrorum contulimus in elemosinam hospitali sancti Johannis in Bruxella ad sustentationem pauperum ibidem deconbentium decem solidos Bruxellensium annuatim, de censu nostro apud Leve ad Natale Domini eidem hospitali solvendos in perpetuum, sub testimonio scabinorum nostrorum de Levis…” Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 80, 116. CPAS SJ 40.

  33. 33.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 98, 137. The original is lost.

  34. 34.

    For more on communal property and the rights of women, Shennan Hutton, “Married Women and Legal Capability in Ghent,” in Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe, ed. Cordelia Beattie and Matthew Frank Stevens, Gender in the Middle Ages 8 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2013), 155–172. See also Monique Vleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, “Separation and Marital Property in Late Medieval England and the Franco-Belgian Region,” in Regional Variations in Matrimonial Law and Custom, ed. Mia Korpiola, Medieval Law and Its Practice 12 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 77–98.

  35. 35.

    See, for example, Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld, Do ut des: Gift Giving, Memoria, and Conflict Management in the Medieval Low Countries (Hilversum: Verloren, 2007), 195.

  36. 36.

    “…Godefridus, dictus Bruxellensis castellanus, una cum uxore mea Heylewige, de consensu et voluntate liberorum nostrorum Leonii et Godefridi et ceterorum, octo bonaria terre, que apud Bigardis fratres et sorores hospitalis beati Johannis in Bruxella a nobis jure tenent hereditario, ab omni exactione et inquietudine qua nobis tenebantur, tam ipsa quam mansionarios in ipsis commorantes vel ipsa colentes, preter servos nostros et ancillas nostras, intuitu divine retributionis in perpetuum libera esse concessimus et exempta…”Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 7, 15. The original is lost.

  37. 37.

    The role of the castellan declined in the early and mid-thirteenth century; the town aldermen assumed his previous role. Mina Martens, Histoire de Bruxelles (Brussels: Privat, 1976), 63.

  38. 38.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 83, 120–121. CPAS SJ 36. Because her grandfather held the land originally, Lionnet’s seal was affixed to the document.

  39. 39.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 89, 127. The original is lost.

  40. 40.

    It is not clear if Gertrude and Elisabeth were sisters by the same women or if that woman was Ideloïe or another woman. For more on the women and their family names, see Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 73, 104–105, notes 1–2.

  41. 41.

    Sophie of Coudenberg, the original home of the dukes of Brabant and the castellans. The document does not provide the details of the case, but rather that the case was heard and that the hospital won its case. The witness list included was extensive, as many were called to testify on the case. Some witnesses were of the alderman’s court or had ties to it while one was even a town castellan: “…Henricus, filius quondam Beatricis, Stephanus, dictus Ludo, Walterus de Berghen, dictus Longus, Henricus de Mere de Stertbeke, Ingelbertus de Speculo, Juvenalis de A et Adam de Wolue, scabini de Hucclo, Henricus de Campenhout, Gosuinus, presbyter, capellanus dicti hosptialis, Gilbertus, Johannes de Linkenbeke, Johannes de Foresto, Gerardus Ekart, Hugo Moor, Adam de Obbruxella, Johannes, dictus van den Vorde, et Willelmus de Cutcenghem et plures alii…”Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 73, 104–105. It should be noted that the charter included Gertrude’s seal.

  42. 42.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 109, 149. CPAS, SJ 44, fol. 2.

  43. 43.

    “…videlicet [quod] dicta m[ulie]r [ha]be[ret] annuatim, quamdiu ipsa viveret et dicto placeret [hospitali, de bonario p]rati, siti ante [Nov]um molendinum versus Ob[bruxellam ab opposito, tres libras Br]uxellensium…”Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 111, 151–152. CPAS, SJ 44, fol. 3. Henricus Beatricis and Johannes Clive[re] both witnessed the act.

  44. 44.

    This is an incredibly long agreement between the two parties, and it lists out exactly what portion went to whom. See Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 112, 153–154. Later, on June 10, 1266, Gertrude would recognize that the hospital of Saint John had sold to her certain holdings that produced incomes, which were part of her inheritance: “… Noveritis quod Gertrudis, quondam Godefridi, coram nobis constituta, recognovit hospitale beati Johannis in Bruxella erga ipsam emisse de bonis, que cesserunt eidem Gertrudi in portionem s[ua]m, hec bona…”Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 124, 167. CPAS, SJ 44, fol. 5.

  45. 45.

    “Notum sit universis quod Gertrudis dicta Scaillinne contulit cum debita resignatione fratri Godescalco, magistro hospitalis sancti Johannis in Bruxella, ad opus dicti hospitalis omne jus suum quod habuit in jornali terre jacentis prope Forum Pecorum, retro Willelmum dictum Lose, pro allodio, promittendo ei ad opus dicti hospitalis rectam warandiam…” Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 259, 313–314. The original is lost.

  46. 46.

    Bitel, Women in Early, 230.

  47. 47.

    Bitel, Women in Early, 231.

  48. 48.

    Voluntary or non-contentious jurisdiction—in this case the voluntary alienation of property for the hospital. Cherryhomes, “Charity in Brussels,” 82.

  49. 49.

    Lands passed on to children after the wife’s death; “in the tenth and eleventh centuries, fewer deeds gave the wife outright ownership and even the usufruct was generally restricted to the use of the husband and wife jointly, not to the wife exclusively. […] That type of agreement was replaced in the twelfth century by the dower arrangement, which gave a widow the usufruct of a portion, usually one-third, of her husband’s patrimony.” McNamara and Wemple, “The Power of Women,” 137. All named instances in Table 8.1 are taken from Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean and include the following charters and CPAS folios: SJ 87, 98, 143, 144, 208, 219, 238, 246, 256. CPAS SJ 37 and 46.

  50. 50.

    “Relicta,” in A Latin Dictionary, ed. Charlton Lewis and Charles Short (The Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1962), available at www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=relicta&la=latin.

  51. 51.

    See Marriage, Family and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies, ed. Michael M. Sheehan and James K. Farge (Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 20; F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1911), I 329–349, II 308–311; and S. Painter, “The Family and the Feudal System in Twelfth-Century England,” Speculum 35 (1960): 11–12.

  52. 52.

    See Patricia Skinner, Medieval Amalfi and Its Diaspora, 800–1250 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 169. All named instances are taken from Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean and include the following charters and CPAS folios: SJ 89, 124, 144, 150, 152, 183, 202, 204, 216, 219, 227, 229, 233, and 268. CPAS SJ 29, 32, 34, 37, 41, 42, 46.

  53. 53.

    All named instances are taken from Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean and include the following charters and CPAS folios: 168, 202, 219, 249, 253, 254, 272, and 278. CPAS SJ 29, 32, 37, 42.

  54. 54.

    All named instances are taken from Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean and include the following charters and CPAS folios: SJ 107, 224, 241, 254. CPAS SJ 38, 41, 42. Elisabeth and Alix of Alsemberg may have been sisters—there is reference to a donation made on July 22, 1289 by Pierre Keiser of a house in Eysinghen, perhaps of their father.

  55. 55.

    All named instances are taken from Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean and include the following charters: SJ 147, 160, 232.

  56. 56.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 249, 303–304. The original is lost.

  57. 57.

    Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean, SJ 272, 327–328. The original is lost.

  58. 58.

    All named instances are taken from Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean and include the following charters and CPAS folios: SJ 121, 125, 136, 156, 165, 178, 187, 203, 209, 210, 237, 259, 260, 261, and 263. CPAS SJ 33, 36, 42, 44.

  59. 59.

    P. H. Reaney, A Dictionary of British Surnames (London: Routledge and Keagen Paul, 1958), xxxviii; W. F. H. Nicolaisen, “Tension and Extension: Thoughts on Scottish Surnames and Medieval Popular Culture,” in Popular Culture in the Middle Ages, ed. Josie P. Campbell (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1986), 95. Three other categories of naming also existed: “surnames of relationship originally,” “local surnames” and “nicknames.”

Bibliography

Primary Sources

  • Cartulaire de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean de Bruxelles (Actes des XIIeet XIIIeSiècles). Edited by Paul Bonenfant. Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1953.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brussels, Centre Public d’Action Sociale de Bruxelles (CPAS): SJ 29, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 44 (folios 2, 3, 5, and 6), and 46.

    Google Scholar 

Secondary Sources

  • Arnade, Peter, Martha C. Howell, and Walter Simons. “Fertile Spaces: The Productivity of Urban Space in Northern Europe.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32:4 (2002): 515–548.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bijsterveld, Arnoud-Jan A. Do ut des: Gift Giving, Memoria, and Conflict Management in the Medieval Low Countries. Hilversum: Verloren, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bitel, Lisa M. Women in Early Medieval Europe 400–1100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonenfant, Paul. “Les premiers remparts de Bruxelles.” Annales de la Société royale d’archéologie de Bruxelles 40 (1936): 426–441.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. D’Histoire des Hôpitaux. Brussels, Annales de la Société Belge, 1965.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassidy-Welch, Megan. “Space and Place in Medieval Contexts.” Parergon 27:2 (2010): 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charruadas, Paul. “The Cradle of the City: The Environmental Imprint of Brussels and Its Hinterland in the High Middle Ages.” Regional Environmental Change 12 (2012): 255–262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cherryhomes, Rawlins. “Charity in Brussels: The Hospital Saint John (1186–1300).” Unpublished Master’s Thesis: University of Texas, 1963.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickstein-Bernard, Claire. “Activité économique et développement urbain à Bruxelles (XIIIe-XVe siècles).” Cahiers Bruxellois 24 (1981): 52–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Vries, André. Brussels: A Cultural and Literary History. Oxford: Signal Books, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evrard, Paul. “Formation, organization generale et état du domaine rural de l’hôpital Saint Jean au Moyen-Age.” Unpublished Master’s Thesis: Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1965.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hinnebusch, John Frederick. The Historia Occidentalis of Jacques de Vitry: A Critical Edition. Fribourg: The University Press, 1972.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howell, Martha C. “The Spaces of Late Medieval Urbanity.” In Shaping Urban Identity in Late Medieval Europe, edited by Marc Boone and Peter Stabel, 3–24. Leuven-Apeldoorn: Garant, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutton, Shennan. “Married Women and Legal Capability in Ghent.” In Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe, edited by Cordelia Beattie and Matthew Frank Stevens, 155–172. Gender in the Middle Ages 8. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jordan, Erin. “Female Founders: Exercising Authority in Thirteenth-Century Flanders and Hainaut.” Church History and Religious Culture 88:4 (2008): 535–561.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • LeFebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Malden: Blackwell, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marriage, Family and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies. Edited by Michael M. Sheehan and James K. Farge. Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martens, Mina. Histoire de Bruxelles. Brussels: Privat, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNamara, Jo Ann, and Suzanne Wemple. “The Power of Women Through the Family in Medieval Europe: 500–1100.” Feminist Studies 1:3/4 (1973): 126–141.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicolaisen, W. F. H. “Tension and Extension: Thoughts on Scottish Surnames and Medieval Popular Culture.” In Popular Culture in the Middle Ages, edited by Josie P. Campbell, 88–99. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ockeley, Jaak. De gasthuiszusters en hun ziekenzorg in het aartsbisdom Mechelen in de 17de en de 18de eeuw: deel 1. Brussels: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. “Ziekenzorg te Brussel van de 12de tot de 19de eeuw, inzonderheid in het Sint-Jansgasthuisop-de-Poel.” Momenten uit de geschiedenis van Brussel. Centrum Brabantse Geschiedenis: Brussels: 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Painter, Sidney. “The Family and the Feudal System in Twelfth-Century England.” Speculum 35 (1960): 1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Petit, Jean-Luc. Brussels in the Middle Ages. Musées de la Ville de Bruxelles: Bruxelles, n.d.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollock, F., and F. W. Maitland. The History of English Law, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reaney, P. H. A Dictionary of British Surnames. London: Routledge and Keagen Paul, 1958.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenwein, Barbara H. Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simons, Walter. Cities of Ladies. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skinner, Patricia. Medieval Amalfi and Its Diaspora, 800–1250. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • State, Paul F. Historical Dictionary of Brussels. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. 2: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages. Edited by M. M. Postan and Edward Miller. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Verhulst, Adriaan. The Rise of Cities in North-West Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Vleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, Monique. “Separation and Marital Property in Late Medieval England and the Franco-Belgian Region.” In Regional Variations in Matrimonial Law and Custom, edited by Mia Korpiola, 77–98. Medieval Law and Its Practice 12. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wauters, Alphonse. “Les Plus Anciens Échevins de la ville de Bruxelles.” Annales de la Société d’Archéologie de Bruxelles: Mémoires, Rapports et Documents 8 (1894): 315–331.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, Stephen D. Custom, Kinship, and Gifts to Saints: The Laudatio Parentum in Western France, 1050–1150. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziegler, Tiffany A. “Considering Charity: Family Traditions, Female Donation Practices, and the Hospital of Saint John, Brussels.” Medieval Prosopography 29 (2015): 51–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. Medieval Healthcare and Charitable Institutions: The History of the Municipal Hospital. Palgrave Pivot, November 2018.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, TX, USA

    Tiffany A. Ziegler

Authors
  1. Tiffany A. Ziegler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Heather J. Tanner

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Ziegler, T.A. (2019). Just Another Day in the Neighborhood: Collective Female Donation Practices at the Hospital of Saint John in Brussels. In: Tanner, H.J. (eds) Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01346-2_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01346-2_8

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01345-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01346-2

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation