Ze studiów nad historią i architekturą średniowiecznych szpitali Krakowa

The work is a historical and architectural study of medieval hospitals of Kraków. Their individual spatial expression is analysed as well as their architectural details that were used. It comprises the hospitals built from about the 12th to about the 16th centuries, the ways of managing them, typical localisation and internal structure. The building of the first Polish hospitals ran in a way similar to originating this type of centres all over Europe at that time. In those times under the term hospital what was understood was not solely institutions as we call them today. Only in the 19th century the term hospital was consolidated, to describe public institutions aiming at trating the sick. The exact number of medieval Kraków hospitals is not known, presumably there were little more than ten of them. Medieval Krakow hospitals were often ordinary shelters providing the place to stay to poor travelers, orphans and foundlings, the infirm, elderly and sick. The notion of today's hospitals as curative institutions was true only in reference to medieval institutions aimed for the pregnant women, infectiously and mentally ill. Till our times none of the medieval Krakow hospitals have been preserved. This was due to: undurable building materials, unsatisfactory conservation of the buildings, frequent changes of their purpose, various calamities and decisions of municipal authorities. Hospitals, especially those of the shelter character, were usually foundations of celical or lay magnates they remained to some extent under the management of convents, constituting in a way church institutions. The entrance to the hospital usually led through the church or chapel, onto which overlooked the windows of the sick people's rooms, which made it easier for them to take part in religious ceremonies. The hospitals themselves often constituted a group of buildings, alongside with the church or chapel, which was dedicated to one of the saints.