Local Hospitals in Ancient Regime France: Rationalization, Resistance, Renewal 1530-1789 (Mcgill-Queen's/Hannah Institute Studies in the History of Medicine, Health, and Society, 5)

Providing a look at retrenchment strategies in local hospitals in "ancien regime" France, this study explores two opposing campaigns to reform poor relief and aid to the sick: attempts by the French Crown to centralize social services by eliminating local institutions; and initiatives taken by the local population to revitalize those same institutions. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the French Crown, supposedly acting in the name of efficiency, better management, and elimination of duplicate services, closed down thousands of local hospices, maladreries and small hospitals that had been refuges for the sick and poor. This work argues that its true motive, was to expropriate their revenues and holdings. It demonstrates how, in spite of government efforts, a countermovement emerged that to some degree foiled the Crown's attempts to suppress local hospitals.