Economical aspects of nosokomeia in early Byzantium

In the 4th century, an époque of intensive Christianisation of the Roman Empire, a new form of providing aid to fellow neighbours appeared, namely charity organizations. Although there were several types of them, in practice the differences between them were quite seamless. Depending on needs, hospital functions were carried  by ksenodochia (inns for Christian pilgrims and other travellers), ptochotrophia (shelters for the poor), gerokomia (homes for the elderly) and most of all nosokomia specialised in treating the sick. Also, the Church legislator of the time (synods and councils) and the secular lawmaker (the emperor) did not differentiate the scope of activities of the aforementioned institutions. Since the sick, the poor or pilgrims (or any other exhausted travellers), no matter their age, were able to find shelter or help in each of those institutions, they were commonly perceived as identical. The sources we have, however, do not provide an answer to the question of how this issue was regulated in practice, if only due to the prevention against spreading various diseases (separating the contagiously ill, including most of all lepers, from less severe cases). The sources we know do not also provide an explicit answer to another important question, namely whether in such types of Christian charitable institutions also pagans, Jews or even „heretics” were able to find treatment.
Information on the subject of early Byzantine hospitality are found mainly in hagiographic, papyrus or normative texts of the time (mainly in the legislature of emperor Justinian). The geographical range of Christian charitable institutions in the period of our interest is considerably well known, yet it is a different case in terms of attempts to estimate their numbers and size. In that matter, if we were to count individual foundations mentioned in the sources as well as those known from field research, it would turn out that in the whole Eastern Roman Empire only several dozens of such institutions had been functioning since the beginning of the 7th century; numbers, which undoubtedly are considerably underestimated. We already find them since the 20s of the 4th century in Egypt and later on in Asia Minor, in Syria, Palestine and obviously in the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople. In greatest numbers the Christian charitable institutions were established most of all in large cities or in the case of specialised medical centres such as leprosoria (homes for lepers), in their nearby areas. They were run mostly by the local clergy (presbyterians or deacons) or monks, who would also take care of financing them. Money (as well as other goods) needed for their functioning were collected by means of small contributions and most of all through sizeable donations and last will testaments made by affluent founders.

The location of infirmaries in Teutonic Order castles topography in late Medieval Prussia

In the primary Rule of the Teutonic Order, written in the middle of the 13th century, maintaining hospitals by the organisation is in its content, yet the generality of the normative provisions contained in that source bears a number of questions which are difficult to answer in a satisfactory way. From the main paragraphs referring to that issue it is impossible to conclude whether those hospitals/infirmaries were intended for secular persons or the brother friars of the Order. Detailed regulations on the subject were additionally provided in Statutes written around the same time. In accordance with those provisions, if a friar knight fell ill, then he should stay in bed for a few days. In case of prolongation of this state, he was to be moved to a common chamber for the sick – the infirmary. Only the Grand Master and his deputy had the right to be treated in their own chambers. However, it must be remembered that those regulations were formulated mostly in reference to the main convent of the Teutonic Order in the Holy Land. This institution was subordinate to the Great Commander and it was him who provided for medical care and medicines for the sick through his appointed subordinate official (“firmariemeister”). From the 13th century normative sources it cannot be concluded where the infirmaries were supposed to be located in the castle grounds.
What does this issue look like in reference to the state of the Teutonic Order in Prussia in the 14th and 15th centuries? Unfortunately, in the current literature of the subject it has been attempted to identify the locations of castle infirmaries exclusively on the basis of architectural data of preserved commander castles (still  enerally sparse). Meanwhile, the problem is that limiting only to that sort of sources when examining the issue does not provide any evidential basis to indicate the location of infirmaries in the spatial configuration of the Teutonic strongholds. Only the analysis of written sources of the époque (starting with the end of the 14th century) allows to state that nearly all infirmaries of commander castles of the time in Prussia intended both for the members of the Teutonic Order (brothers, priests) and secular servants‑dieners were locate within the bailey. Sparse exceptions from that rule would only apply to the capital castle in Malbork, where one of the infirmaries might have been located in the area of the proper convent of the high castle and to the one in Konigsberg, where the infirmary for servant‑dieners of the Order was located outside the defensive walls of the bailey.

Inputs to the history of hospitals in medieval Gdańsk

The network of hospital in the three‑strand urban settlement unit of Gdańsk (Main Town, Old Town and Young Town) was shaped in the 14th and the start of the 15th century in accordance with a certain rule known also in other towns of the Teutonic Prussia, namely of establishing care homes intended for specific social groups. On the other hand, hospitality in Gdańsk also shows certain specificity resulting from the position of Gdańsk as the most important city in Prussia.
The group of main or general hospitals included two facilities. The Hospital of the Holy Spirit established and opulently benefited by the Teutonic Order (before 1333) was given to the Main Town in 1382. It was directly controlled by the city council, which appointed hospital providers from among its ranks. Arguably, from that moment on its character began to change; gradually, among its residents the role of prebendaries –persons who had purchased a place in the home, would increase (at the beginning of the 15th century the fee amounted to 100–200 grzywna). It seems that the financial situation of the hospital in the first half of the 15th century was good and perhaps already then its extension occurred. The hospital of St. Elisabeth was of different character, also founded and opulently benefited by the Order in 1394 and run by it until 1454, previously a mansion for strangers, meaning people travelling. The sick were looked after here, as well as pilgrims and children, whereas prebendaries were not received. Its financial situation was good, incomes would systematically increase, also thanks to rich donations, such as those from Małgorzata Winterfeld. Running the facility gave the Teutonic Order the possibility to influence the society of Gdańsk, yet at the same time it created a field for conflicts due to the Order taking over financial resources of the city inhabitants.
A separate group consisted of facilities for lepers of St. George (in the Main and the Young Town) and of Corpus Christi (the Old Town), as well as shelters intended for „strangers”: St. Gertrude hospital in the western suburb of the Main Town, initially the mansion of St. Elisabeth and probably the home of All God’s Angels in the Young Town. The home of St. James in New Dyke (Nowa Grobla – Łagiewniki Street), subordinate to the Teutonic Order was intended for sailors and was most probably the only „professional” shelter in the vicinity of the settlement system of Gdańsk. St. Roch hospital, as well as St. Barbara hospital in Long Gardens (Długie Ogrody) perhaps, should be excluded from the network of medieval hospitals in Gdańsk.
Little is known on the subject of the genesis of hospitals for lepers and newcomers. It is likely they were established as initiatives of brotherhoods or private persons and approved by the Church and the Teutonic Order. Such facilities, except for St. Elisabeth hospital and St James hospital in New Dyke, quickly came under financial and personal control of city authorities, who appointed from among their own ranks or the ranks of burghers people who would exercise a direct control over the homes, which were under current management of hospitallers.
The social position of shelter residents varied. Some of them had purchased a place in the facility and depending on the character of the emolument enjoyed lower or higher privileges. It must be highlighted that the process of buying out places also included homes which had initially been intended for those suffering from leprosy.
There is no more complete information on the subject of some hospital chapels’ staff. In accordance with the privilege of Wilhelm of Modena from 1242, the right to present candidates was reserved for the Teutonic Order, whereas the institution to the bishop of Wrocław, yet there is no source information that would confirm that practice.

The Radunia Canal – a source of water for Gdańsk dwellers

Gdańsk development relied heavily on possibilities to ensure potable water supplies to its dwellers and flowing water by which business facilities could be located. The first Radunia canal was built in 1338. Its location changed twice, in 1571–1572 for the last time. Only this route is known – most of it survived till now. 
Probably Gdańsk dwellers used water delivered by pipelines from the Radunia Canal already in the 1340s. Water was supplied to public sumps situated in the main streets of the city. The Old Town and the Old Suburb might have had similar systems, although probably of a smaller range. Access to water determined the development of the city and the location of hospitals, plants, and workshops.
Researchers are divided in their opinions on the location of the first canals. It is probably true that so called small Radunia canal shown by Keyser in the Old Town is the older one of them. It seems, however, that at city foreland it was located nearer the Main Town. The location of the next canal indicated by Kloeppel seems to be the most probable. Speculations formulated by Köhler and Keyser that both canals still existed at the beginning of the 16th c. are erroneous. In 1535 a pump station (Wasserkunst) constructed over the new canal made it possible to pump water to a separate water supply system in the Main Town. Since 1539the system was enriched with water delivered to Gdańsk by pipelines from Krzyżowniki intake. Ensuring adequate water flow in canals and proper water quality was an issue of special concern for Gdańsk authorities, as „das Wasser ein publicum bonum civitatis [sei]”. Orders were issued to reduce water pollution and the tax system and adequate regulations of law made it possible to care for the state of canal embankments and formworks and to make repairs of water intakes, Wasserkunst, the water supply system and sumps.

Beggar badges of Gdańsk

In Gdańsk of the 16th century, due to the failure of medieval forms of aiding the poor based on Church institutions, the growing number of people seeking support in a port town which was quickly getting rich and under the influence of ideas spread by Martin Luther, the policy concerning beggars and people seeking aid changed. It was demonstrated by passing the first beggar ordinance in 1525, which introduced the supervision of the city council over the system of social welfare based on the existing hospitals in town. Special badges with the crest of Gdańsk had been known since the middle of the 16th century, which entitled their wearers to beg in the vicinity of the city as well as to receive aid from public funds. Those artefacts were cast from lead and apart from the crest also had a depiction of a beggar and a date specifying the annual validity of the symbol. They would most often be sawn to clothes or worn around the neck. There are four beggar categories known to us: 1) for the inhabitants of Gdańsk unfit for work and their children thus entitled to basic education; 2) badges for the poorest group of citizens having trouble making a living, which included their personal data and address; 3) badges for city visitors who needed aid and had not been admitted to hospitals, which entitled them to beg temporarily; 4) badges for the patients of the City Hospital (the Lazaret), which since the 17th century had become the main centre of medical care for the poorest. Artefacts registering those entitled to permanent or temporary hospital care are known dating even from the middle of the 18th century. With the popularisation of written documentation in the hospital, at the end of the 18th century artefacts of that kind became obsolete.

Gdańsk hospitals of the 16th to 18th century and the protestant spirituality

Hospitals of the Middle Ages and the Modern era adopted the rule of helping people in need as their basis of operations, especially in the scope of social care over orphans, the poor, widows, the crippled and the elderly. This article aims at sketching the phenomenon of changes undergoing in the sphere of spiritual life in protestant hospitals with the hospital foundations in Gdańsk of the 16th to the 18th century as example.
In the Modern era, hospital foundations in Gdańsk constituted a continuation of basic moral values propagated in the hospitals of the 14th and the 15th centuries. Similarly to the Medieval period, the resident of a protestant hospital should be pious, humble and not incite strife. Basic instruments serving the creation of proper models included: community prayer and pastoral service. Providers managing the hospitals were depicted as persons looking after their mentees as well as executing obedience to the rules of hospital laws from the residents.
Significant changes in the spiritual life comprised a withdrawal from the importance of prayers said by the poor hospital residents on behalf of the donors, following the notion of negating the participation of good deeds in the act of salvation of humans. It was accompanied by the phenomenon of desacralisation of poverty, which from then on did not constitute any value in itself. The effect of it was the sacralisation of work presented as one of the most important moral precepts.
Preachers serving in hospitals did not occupy any prominent positions in the structures of protestant Gdańsk, although working in hospitals would sometimes become a starting point for further career. It seems that a person of beliefs guaranteeing the nurture of orthodox protestant teachings would rather be chosen for the position of a hospital priest. It may be indicated, for instance, by the opposition of a number of hospital preachers against pietistic novelties in the 18th century. It is also important to note the fact that in certain cases (the House of Charity and Orphans or the Institute of the Poor) both the protestant and catholic care existed there.
The hospital community was characterised by certain conservatism, which indicated, among others, by preserving pre‑reformation relics in terms of hospital shrines decor.
A new decorum, in the reformed spirit, would often be adopted by those churches only after significant devastation resulting from random events (wars, fires). In such cases, the iconography focused on the figure of Christ and biblical scenes known from the lecture of the Holy Script during church services. It indicates the role of paintings in hospital churches, which constituted a visual foundation for sermons enriching the residents spiritually. However, works thematically referring to the virtue of compassion were sparse. It probably resulted from the didactic functions of the art of hospital shrines, which was directed mostly towards the residents and not the potential donors. Influence of the reformation was also indicated by reorienting the shrine space, due to which the pulpit became the place focusing the attention of believers, just like in other protestant churches. Field pulpits established outside were distinctive elements of hospital shrines (at the churches of: the Lazaret, All God’s Angels and Corpus Christi).
Intervention of the secular factor (the city council) in hospital life resulted from the sense of responsibility of the city authorities for propagating the model of a good Christian. More broadly speaking, the expectations of hospital community members were identical with those of the city council towards urban community members. The rhetoric used in hospital ordinances was therefore the same as the rhetoric of hospital ordinances issued for the whole of Gdańsk by the city council. Still, the need to constantly call for the authorities to participate in church services and the permanent detailed mentioning the forbidden acts in hospital ordinances constitutes the basis for the assumption that hospital communities did not fully follow the propagated moral precepts. Similarly, maintaining remuneration for as long as to the 19th century (admitting to hospitals for money), steeply criticised in the reformation period as a manifestation of particular pathology of hospital functions, demonstrates the discord between protestant ideals and the realistic possibility of implementing them.

Social disciplining in Elbing hospitals in the 17th century

The article undertakes the problematics of rules and range of social disciplining and forming a proper model of behaviour attempted by the city authorities in the instance of urban hospitals in Elbing (Elbląg) of the 17th century.
The following ordinances for the 17th century Elblag hospitals have been analysed in that respect: St. Elisabeth’s from 1617, 1625 and 1651, the Holy Spirit’s from 1631 and 1651 (including the project from around the half of the 17th century), Corpus Christi’s from 1651 and St. George’s from 1657, as well as the ordinance of an orphanage established at St Elisabeth hospital (Kinder‑Haus) from 1698 and two memorial statements of the Hospital Office (Spital‑Amt) dated around the half of the 17th century containing postulates referring to the necessity of introducing changes in the current hospital ordinances.
In effect, various forms of disciplining as well as mechanisms of maintaining social control have been discussed, which comprise the following aspects: 1. forming religious attitudes conforming with the spirit of Lutheran orthodoxy (doctrinal assumptions, religious education basics); 2. disciplining through compulsory religious practices; 3. disciplining through social hierarchy consolidation (prayers in the intention of the City Council, respect for principal authorities, ban on cursing on the authorities or reprimanding alms, complaining about hospital food); 4. disciplining through enforced work; 5. disciplining abnormal moral behaviour (drunkenness, fornication, theft, fraud, gambling); 6. controlling verbal, symbolic or physical aggression; 7. time rationing (strictly normalised day schedules) and space rationing (ban on leaving the hospital, maintaining cleanness in the occupied quarters); 8. shaping expected features of character (godliness, obedience, the ability of coexisting in a group); 9. disciplining verbal behaviour (ban on swearing, making noise, gossiping, disturbing religious practices by talking) and behavioural patterns (ban on dancing and binges).
Also, the system of penalty sanctions issued by hospital authorities against people breaking the ordinance rules has been analysed; moreover, an attempt to reconstruct the hierarchy of social harmfulness of misdemeanours depending on the type of penalties has been undertaken.

To help and to cure. An input to the establishment of the Institute for the Poor (Armeninstitut) in Gdańsk and initial years of its operations (until 1795)

The article is a form of input complementing a gap concerning the Institute for the Poor (Armeninstitut) in its initial years of operation, namely until the year 1795. On the basis of handwritten and printed sources, the focus lies on presenting the genesis, circumstances of its creation, organisation and functioning of this charitable institution. Institute for the Poor was established in October 1788 as a result of extraordinary efforts of a merchant and official Caspar David Selck. The institution was supposed to help the poor who owned their own flats. One form of the Institute’s operations was to hand over social benefits to those in need directly and on a weekly basis either in cash or in kind. The support also comprised free physician or surgeon care as well as the possibility to conduct work at home, mainly in the form of spinning wool and linen. At first, the institution occupied one chamber in the House of Charity (Spend‑und Waisenhaus) located in Sieroca Street (Am Spendhaus), from where it was later moved to a nearby building located in the same street, which had been bought specifically for that purpose. In 1823 it was relocated to the Correction House (Zuchthaus).

Hospitals in Krakow voivodship in the period of Great Sejm 1788–1792

Looking after the sick, the elderly, the disabled, the poor and the homeless has been a difficult social problem to solve for ages. Since the beginning of the Middle Ages, organising charity belonged to the domain of the Church and one form of providing those who needed it with aid was through establishing institutions appointed especially for that reason: hospitals. Until the end of the 18th century in towns and since the beginning of the 20th century in rural centres the hospital did not serve as a healing centre but mainly as a place which nowadays we could call a shelter. Due to the deteriorating condition of hospital institutions in the 18th century, it was commonly realised that there was the need to get the issue of shelters in order. The first attempt to conduct a reform of hospitals was undertaken in 1775 at the partition sejm, when two hospital committees were created: the Crown and the Lithuanian one. The five‑year existence of the hospital committees would not improve the situation of shelters in the country. Eventually, they were dismissed by the decision of sejm in 1780 and the supervision over hospitals in royal towns was given to boni ordinis committees and the Department of Police. Another attempt to conduct a hospital reform was undertaken by the Great Sejm, which commissioned the supervision of hospitals and the control over funds of the pious to field administration: the civil/military law enforcement committees, which took over the duties in towns, which in that regard were commissioned to the boni ordinis committees in 1768. Those magistrates worked in all of the Commonwealth, downsized by means of the first partition, except for Gdańsk. The legal framework of the committees’ functioning in the Crown were established in the sejm constitution Komisje Porządkowe cywilno‑wojskowe województw, ziem i powiatów w Koronie. The civil/military law enforcement committees were subordinate to appropriate central institutions, the Military Committee of Both Nations or the Crown Treasury Committee, among others. In the case of Krakow voivodship two Civil/Military Committees were appointed: one for the districts of Krakow and Proszowice located in the former city, while the other for the districts of Książ and Lelów located in the latter town at first and later in Szczekociny. Both committees operated in the years 1790–1792. Initially, the new institutions ordered the hospital managers to send the descriptions of their facilities, including the list of funds and donors, as well as information on the facility managers themselves. Then, the commissioners conducted hospital visitations themselves. In the documentation of the institutes information on pious funds were noted down (what it was written on, under whose management), incomes (from villages, cultivated fields, gardens, meadows, propinations, lists of donors), expenses, renovations, debts, the number of the poor and the physical state of the hospital building (wooden, mortared, number of floors and rooms).

There issue of Psychiatry in Vilnius is unexplored field especially in a terms of its social aspects. Most of the former papers devoted to psychiatry in Vilnius were written in descriptive manner or they were uncritical case studies of one or another hospital. One of the first successful studies that was constructed by using modern methodology was a monograph of Dr. Tomas Vaisėta that described a social features of Vilnius psychiatry. However, the study is devoted to a late period – Soviet psychiatry only. Therefore the modern analysis of earlier periods and other Vilnius hospitals was still missing. In our article, we set us a goal, namely, to find the most important features, the so‑called paradigm fractures in the social history of Vilnius psychiatry.
The main tendency which should be emphasized was uneven development of Vilnius psychiatry, especially in a terms of attitude towards the patient. In most cases that could be interpreted in a light of a broader Global context. In Vilnius hospitals just like in other countries mentally ill were discriminated because of their unclear social and economic status. In the earliest period the mentally ill as an outcast of society is being locked in a jail‑like mental hospitals or fall into complete favor of the monastery hospices. The 19th century positivism at least theoretically brought humane paradigm to Lithuanian psychiatry. However, because of the limited medical measures as well as economic reasons the later period was marked by the realism or even negativism of semi‑modern interwar psychiatry. Mentally ill again falls into a status of outcast or a burden to the society. The question of responsibility towards mentally ill is avoided by the community as well as by state.
Nevertheless, some original solutions were found in Vilnius district. The mentally ill were employed in local farms that at‑least partly solved the issues of economic burden. Moreover, there were some more tendencies that do not fit in the global narrative. Despite the technical advance in treatment that gradually enabled the psychiatrists to help the patient, in the Soviet period we observe the opposite tendency that was to restrain and harm the mentally ill patient. In many cases even totally healthy people were misdiagnosed to be mentally ill and received harsh chemical treatment and isolation because of their personal criticism towards totalitarian Soviet system.

The Seaside Clinic in Gdynia as an example of hospital private initiative in the interwar period. Case study

The article introduces the short history of a private clinic operating in Gdynia of the interwar amid the broader grounds of the health care system of the time.
Starting with the definition of a clinic – a facility limited in its care range to a selected group of diseases, the text describes the circumstances of establishing such a mini hospital in the growing town of Gdynia. This Baltic shore village had become a place of significant investment since 1920 – the construction of a port serving the reborn country. In a short period of time subsequent harbours were built: naval, fishing and trade with a thriving and modern city alongside them. The scale of transformations as well as the social processes involved, including a massive flow of population meant that the administration at various levels did not keep up with the construction of necessary infrastructure. Shortages in terms of health care and treatment, housing development or education were covered by private initiatives. There was prosperity for such undertakings in Gdynia. Two visiting doctors had also decided to take advantage of it, namely Miron Mikiciński and Stanisław Bobkowski, who having observed the necessities of the city established there in 1929 a clinic for surgical, gynaecological and midwifery cases.
It was in a rented villa close to the very centre of the town where a facility with 36 beds was established, whose financial maintenance was supported by local authorities. The undertaken public and private venture was indispensable for securing immediate surgical cases, while at the same time giving the inhabitants the possibility of having their children delivered in proper conditions, among others. The clinic would quickly take over the „market” in the scope of female health and pregnancy pathology. Still, they treated patients insured in the public Health Maintenance organisation (Kasa Chorych), which constituted a source of additional income. It would trigger controversies, since the chief medical doctor of the insurance institution was at the same time an investor of the clinic. Thus, despite its broad range of activities, operations of the facility would raise doubts or even were critically judged. In nearly three years after its opening, facing an absence of agreement while striking a new deal with local authorities, the owners closed down the clinic. Its equipment was then bought by the city authorities and ended up in two hospitals in Gdynia, the doctors – owners and employees, with one exception, remained in Gdynia, successfully continuing their practice. After Zbigniew Tustanowski, the one doctor who had left the city, an extraordinary legacy remained, namely an album with photographs of the personnel, patients, the interiors and the inventory of the facility. From it, we learn of the everyday life of the hospital and of the backstage of functioning of that interesting place in the medical history of Gdynia.

Between the classic and the avant‑garde. The Maritime Hospital in Oksywie designed by Marian Lalewicz

The aim of the article is to present the architectural legacy of the Maritime Hospital in Gdynia, a military investment from the early 1930s, which was created in the office of a significant and renowned architect, Marian Lalewicz.
A distinguished designer, representative of academic classicism, he had in his portfolio, among others, several buildings in Gdynia so crucial for the Polish Navy. In 1930 he accepted an extraordinary challenge which was to build a military hospital of a wide spectrum of operations. It was to be the answer to the demands of the growing personnel and their families while at the same time constituting a form of medical security for the naval port.
The project, realised as the first modern hospital building in the developing port city, was modernistic and exceptionally functional. It was presented at an opinion‑forming national exhibition and in professional magazines, as it complimented the most important proposals in terms of construction and inventory of hospitals, taking into consideration the influence of nature on treatment and comfort quality improvement of patients. Generally, the hospital comprised two wards: surgical and internal diseases, with additional infectious diseases subdivision. Also, a dental clinic operated there, perhaps also a venereal clinic, an operating theatre, an X‑ray facility, physiotherapy surgery, a laboratory, a pharmacy, a dissection room and a mortuary. From the ground floor of the building there was an easy access to a terrace as well as to verandas, which were duplicated on the first floor. The loggias on two of the storeys were also exceptional. A good location of the hospital on a hillside, strong insolation and the fresh sea air were all elements of the processes of treatment and convalescence. The facility was manned with mixed personnel, both civilian and military.
The text broadly describes the architectural values of the structure, spatial arrangement and facade composition adjoining the function it served and juxtaposed with similar European realisations. Also, the architectural detail is brought to attention, both in the layer of the facade as in the interior of the building, which have been destroyed in the last few years due to renovations.
Opened in the spring of 1932, the building served its function until the outbreak of World War II and has remained a medical facility until today – currently it serves as a medical clinic. In itself, it is the proof of the timelessness of the project and its functional arrangement, after nearly 90 years of its completion.

An image of a psychiatric hospital in the light of contemporary Polish literary works

The article presents a few comments on the image of a psychiatric hospital in the light of selected contemporary Polish literary works. The presence of various types or variants of the psychiatric hospital in these texts, eloquently testifies to the power of artistic imagination. Most of the creators certainly would not like to „visit” the existing outlets of their own kind. Nevertheless, thanks to them, images of psychiatric fictions were created and created, to which the elements of historical and medico‑moral particulars permeate. It seems that these artistic creations generally confirm the stereotype of a mentally ill person functioning in the social consciousness, which should be isolated as soon as possible from the so‑called healthy environment and subjected to hospitalization in a specialist facility. In the texts cited, the thought did not appear that a psychiatrist should intervene only if he wants it or if it is a real threat to others. It is an eloquent contribution to the shape and the face of contemporary culture and mentality.

Source input to the history of St. Elisabeth hospital in The Old City of Gdańsk in the years 1429–1454

The subject of this edition are sources regarding the hospital of St. Elisabeth in the Old City of Gdańsk in the years 1429–1454 deposited in archives in Gdańsk and Berlin. They present various aspects of the institution’s operations in the first half of the 15th century. Alongside issues pertaining to the confirmation of its land estate border (no. 1), individual bestowals on its behalf conducted by assorted donors (no. 2, 5, 7, 8, 12) and the management of the hospital’s inventory (no. 4), it also contains documents confirming agreements of lifetime residencies in the hospital (no. 9, 10, 11). We also have here accounts created in reference to the foundation of vicarage in the hospital chapel (no. 3) and the matters of personnel working in the service of the hospital (no. 6). All of them show the complexity of issues the persons connected with the institution handled, most of all in the case of the hospitaler, and alongside him the commander of Gdańsk, who somewhat held a supervising function on behalf of the Teutonic Order. They also confirm the important role of women in terms of nurturing care provided by the hospital, including primarily the head of the female personnel, here referred to as the mother or the mother of the poor. On the other hand, they are also a testimony to the social significance of the institution in the city, presenting the circle of people closely connected to her at the time.

Gdańsk w okresie nowożytnym (Kultura, religia, polityka, społeczeństwo i stosunki międzynarodowe) / Danzig in der frühen Neuzeit (Kultur, Religion, Politik, Gesellschaft und internationale Beziehungen), Gdańsk, 30.05–01.06.2019 r. (Radosław Kubus) 327

Siódmy Światowy Kongres Studiów Polskich, Gdańsk 14–16.06.2019 r. (Anna Mazurkiewicz)  330

Origines et Mutationes VI pt.: Ołtarz i tron – religia a władza od wczesnego średniowiecza po wiek XIX, Pruszcz Gdański, 13–14.06.2019 r. (Aleksandra Girsztowt)  333

„Mądrość zbudowała sobie dom… Państwo krzyżackie w Prusach”, Muzeum Zamkowe w Malborku, 15–17 listopada 2019 r. (Sebastian Wysokowicz)   336