Institutionalization of the care for the poor and the needed by the Christian church of the transition from ancient times to the Middle Ages (I–IX century)

Abstract

This study examines the historical processes associated with the institutionalization of care for the poor and needy of the church during the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The various stages and forms of social protection, which the church regulated in the period of early Christianity until the beginning of the IX century, are presented. The individual directions in the institutional care are traced – from supporting the poor and needy (diaconiae, xenodochia, ξενοδοχεῖα), through health and social care (hospitalia), to their overall regulation, through the activity of the monasteries (monasteriа). Both the universal social forms of social protection applied by the various Christian denominations (until their split in 1054, into Eastern Byzantine Orthodoxy and Western Roman Catholicism) and the specific distinctions through which it managed to establish itself as a major carrier of social services in the early Middle Ages are considered. 

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