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At the Hotel Dieu the sick and poor were cared for by gracious nuns.
Behind each immaculate bed there was a locker and bench toilets.
A detail of the "saved" from the Flemish masters Jehan Wisecrere and
Rogier van der Weyden's Last Judgement polyptich.
The polyptich hangs in the hospital's chapel.
Homeopathic medications were concocted from garden herbs at the hospital's
in-house pharmacy .
A spring driven spinning spit works in the hospital's kitchen.
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EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNAL September
15, 1999
Montbard
Hotel-Dieu, Beaune
On the third Sunday in November an annual charity auction in the city of Beaune is the
centrepiece of three days of festivities known as Les Trois Glorieuses. Wine
yielded from 53 hectares of vineyards owned by the local hospitals is auctioned, the
prices setting the benchmark for the entire vintage. The oldest hospital and founder of
the charity auction is the Hotel-Dieu, or the Hospices de Beaune – an intact medieval
treasure, snug in the heart of the city’s encircling ramparts. After the Hundred
Year’s War many of the region’s inhabitants suffered the effects of poverty and
famine. To remedy this, the chancellor, Nicholas Rolin, and his wife founded a hospice in
the city in 1443. The architecture of this "hospital for the poor" was inspired
by the designs of the Valenciennes hospital with colorful, geometric glazed roof tiles, a
wide, central courtyard flanked by a wooden gallery and a huge bed hall with a carved and
painted roof, twenty-eight four-poster beds, pristine, polished wooden furniture and
pewter dishes and utensils. Enlisting the talent of the greatest artists and architects of
Burgundy, the chancellor and his wife commissioned Flemish masters Jehan Wisecrere and
Rogier van der Weyden for the plans and a Last Judgement polyptich for the
hospital’s chapel. The Rolins supplied an annual grant as well as the vineyards and a
saltworks for hospital’s income. The medieval hospice was a place of refuge, medical
support and contemplation for the down and out all the way up until 1971, when a modern
hospital was finally built in Beaune and the crisp beds of the Hotel-Dieu were made for
the last time – when it became a museum. |
The ceiling of the patient room is painted with images of salvations and
decorative items. 
The courtyard of the Hotel Dieu featured a covered walkway for nurses to
travel between rooms.
detail of damned
detail of tile work on Hotel Dieu
28 four-poster beds are in two rows in the main patient room.
The patient room roof is designed in the shape of a ship's hull.
Each patient was cared for with a private bunk and pewter instruments.
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