ABSTRACT
The influential monastic Rule of St Benedict had included reminders to abbots of their obligation to maintain high standards of care in the infirmary. Mendicant regulations charged the priors and guardians with a similar duty and, as the Rule of St Augustine also required, the Dominican Constitution instructed that the prelates must not neglect the sick. Unlike some outside hospitals that could limit the categories they were willing to admit, the convent infirmarer had to take whatever came his way in the shape of illness, accident and disease affecting the brothers. The problem of providing satisfactory care for sick friars was made clear in the specific wording of a number of bequests in which patrons left money to the convent in the knowledge that some friars were poor and could not afford adequate help and treatment when they fell ill.
