0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

258
THE MIDDLE AGES.
of Christendom; but only a century later Pope CLEMENT
VI complained that the distinguished Knights of the Order
took more pleasure in beautiful horses and dogs, in banquets,
fine clothes, gold and silver vessels and valuables of all
kinds, and generally in the accumulation of riches than in
the care of the sick and the giving of alms*
The German Order also, having erected a large number
of hospitals, disregarded, after the 14th century, more and
more the care of the sick and preferred gaining political
power by conquests in war.
The Order of the Lazarists, which arose in Palestine and
undertook the task of attending to the wants of lepers,
founded a multitude of leper-houses.t When leprosy, as
the result of improvements in hygiene and a more correct,
diagnosis of the various ailments which people had up to
that time included under the name, gradually diminished
and become wholly extinct in certain countries- as early as
the 16th century, the Knights of St. Lazarus felt themselves
excused from their duty of nursing the sick.
The civil societies for the care of the sick attached themselves
more loyally to this task, even if some of these too
degenerated at a later period.
The Order of the Holy Ghost was a creation of Pope
INNOCENT III., who had formed it as an instrument for -fl
enabling him to bestow upon sick-nursing an organization j
embracing the whole of Christendom.% As VlRCHOW says, it ,
must needs impress us favourably and may help, at the same |
time, to reconcile us to " this strong man who humbled the |
Emperor and deposed kings; the unappeasable persecutor ;
of the Albigenses," to note that he " yet looked mercifully
upon the poor and the sick, and sought out the helpless ,
and miserable." § The Order of the Holy Ghost is first
* J. TAAFFE: The history of the holy military sovereign order of St. JOHN
of Jerusalem, London 1852, ad ann. 1343.
•j- F. v. RAUMER op. cit. vi, 534.
t HURTER: Geschichte des Pabstes InnocenzIII., Hamburg 1842.
§ VIRCHOW : Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Berlin 1879, ii, S. 24.'