Abstract

The role of medieval hospitals as providers of care, also in regard to ageing, has been extensively studied. Despite this, the relationship between hospitals and old people in the middle ages has to be understood beyond the hospital/ patient dynamic. A diversity of contracts, such as corrodies, were part of the wide array of strategies that medieval women and men could employ to deal with the challenges of ageing. Another possibility was self-donation. In this paper, we will explore how self-donation could be a suitable option for obtaining adequate levels of care, both material and spiritual, in the donor’s final stages of life. These themes will be explored in the case of late medieval Barcelona, with a special focus on the agency of donors.