204. HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN AT ANGERS (TWELFTH CENTURY). GREAT HALL, AS RESTORED BY A. VERDIER
But many of the hospices or hospitals built from the end of the twelfth to the fourteenth century are magnificent buildings, in general arrangement much resembling the great halls of the abbeys.
It must be borne in mind that hospitality in the Middle Ages was obligatory; each monastery, therefore, had its eleemosynary organisation, which included special buildings for the accommodation of monks whose business it was to tend the sick and to distribute alms to them and other travellers and pilgrims.
205. ABBEY OF OURSCAMPS (OISE, THIRTEENTH CENTURY). HOSPITAL. AS RESTORED BY A. VERDIER
We learn from Viollet-le-Duc that so early as the Carlovingian period taxes were levied in aid of the poor, the sick, and pilgrims. Charlemagne had enjoined hospitality in his ordinances and capitularies, and it was forbidden to refuse shelter, fire, and water to any suppliant.
206. LAZAR-HOUSE AT TORTOIR (AISNE, FOURTEENTH CENTURY). FROM DRAWINGS BY A. VERDIER