The Records of Canonical Inspections as a Source for the Investigation into the Hospital Management of the Poznan Diocese in the Pre-partite Period

Abstract

The records of Church inspections are a versatile historical source which contains a lot valuable information on various domains. They are also a basic source of the history of hospitals, parochial poor-houses and the so-called hospital provostries which, as a rule, occuredin towns. The records make it possible to assess the exact number of hospitals and the density of their network. Examining the number of hospitals in the Poznan diocese in the 17th and 18th cent. one has to say that the opportunity to get a reliable image of this phenomenon is different for both centuries. The 17th-century inspections do not give much opportunity to render the state of hospitals for the whole diocesis at one time. Quite numerous inspections in that century concern only particular decanates or archdecanates. The 18th-century inspection books give almost complete material for comparison for the whole diocese in the period of: 1724-1728, 1737-1744 and 1777-1787. In view of reliability, the usefulness of the records of inspection for the research on hospitals should also be valued highly, which is particularly true in the case of the18th century.