ABSTRACT
In 1964, M. S. de Nuce de Lamothe published an article on piety and charity in Toulouse, giving special weight to the period from the late thirteenth through the early fifteenth centuries. The significance of depopulation and warfare in the late middle ages, moreover, is shown by the fact that, unlike the situation in the thirteenth century. Many fewer institutions lay outside the walls of the town, and that in spite of the fact that the walls had themselves been expanded, the suburb of Saint-Cyprien having been fortified some time during two campaigns of fortification of 1346–80 and 1415 on. Parenthetically, it is to be added that the corporate way neither was nor is necessarily the best way. Indeed, one guesses that oscillation between the poles of 'corporatizing' and 'individualizing' characterized the history of medieval as well as of modern institutions of charity.
