CHAPTER II HOMES FOR THE FEEBLE AND DESTITUTE
“Hospitals in cities, boroughs and divers other places . . . to sustain blind men and women . . . and people who have lost their goods and are fallen into great misfortune.”[13]
THE majority of hospitals were for the support of infirm and aged people. Such a home was called indiscriminately “hospital,” “Maison Dieu,” “almshouse” or “bedehouse.” It was, as in the case of Kingston-upon-Hull, “God’s House . . . to provide a habitation for thirteen poor men and women broken by age, misfortune or toil, who cannot gain their own livelihood.” It occupied the place now filled by almshouses, union workhouses, and homes for chronic invalids or incurables.