306 HOSPITALS, INFIRMARIES , &C.

“ in quo segrotantes colligeret de plateis, et consumta“ languoribus atque inedia miserorum membra foveret.”

The frequency of pilgrimages to holy places, denominatedby mistaken zeal as a part of duty, and often to very distantcountries, came to be considered as an essential part ofreligion ; as this increased, tlie number of receptacles forpilgrims kept a proportionate ratio, of course. The ma-jority of people travelling upon these expeditions went with-out money, expecting to find gratuitous assistance. Theclergy found it their interest to increase the number ofpilgrimages; hence the absolute necessity of their providingfor these devotees must appear. However, to suppose thata change in habit, nutriment, and other causes, with thefatigue of travelling, should not produce occasional sicknessamong those pilgrims, would be to conjecture what couldnot have been, in the nature of things, the case.

But as the longest and most dangerous pilgrimageswere to the place of nativity, and to the holy sepulchre;these lying beyond the European boundaries, where nocountrymen, nor even Christians inhabited, those poor tra-vellers must of necessity have perished, had not the prieststaken care to provide those receptacles on the road thither.Accordingly Jerome built an hospital at Bethlehem, andhis friend Paula caused several to be erected on the roadto that place, in order, as she says, that those devout idlersmight fare better than the mother of God , who on herjourney could find no inn. In a similar manner, we are told,the Scotch and Irish erected hospitals in France , for theircountrymen, on their journey to Home, in passing throughthat kingdom.

But hospitals were discovered to have been most neces-sary in barren and wild countries, in extensive forests, andon the banks of large rivers, where were no bridges, andwhere it is probable they collected in such numbers thatit first gave occasion to the origin of villages upon them,still discovered in similar situations.

Charlemagne was advised by Pope Adrian I. to noticebn the hospitals built on the Alps ; and in 855, Louis II.caused those situated on the mountains of France to bevisited and repaired, the ruins of many of which still exist.

Towards the close of the eleventh century, brotherhoodswere formed, whose societies undertook to provide for sickpilgrims on their way to and from the holy land. Numerousopulent persons, when d\ing, were prevailed on, either frommotives of personal feeling, or from the cajolement of thereligious about them, of that eventful period, to bequeath