Article: Miquel de Giginta and the Houses of Mercy ("and the houses of mercy")

Digital - PT and FR

The Houses of Mercy would be establishments where everything was organized to assist and help the poorest, the sick, and the disabled. They should not be workshops with merely economic purposes, nor hospitals intended only to contain the spread of epidemics: they were to be conceived as places to live, aimed at helping, reintegrating, instructing, and purifying.
The houses of mercy would be establishments where everything would be organized to assist and educate the poor, the sick, and the infirm. They should neither be truly workshops with an economic purpose, nor truly hospitals intended to contain the spread of epidemics: they were designed as places of life aimed at helping them, reintegrating them, instructing them, and purifying them.
Text by Alexandre Pagès
[PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FRANCHE-COMTÉ]
[LECTURER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FRANCHE-COMTÉ]

Source: Solidarity City Magazine no. 31
Edition: SCML, 2014