30,000 or 40,000. This
number of celibates was a standing protest against the moral
sufficiency of the family life. On the other hand, amongst them were
the brothers and sisters who visited the poor and nursed the sick in
hospitals; and many who now succumb physically or mentally to the
pressure of life, and are cared for in institutions, may then have
found maintenance and a retreat in the monasteries. (2) Bound together
by no common controlling organization, the monasteries were but so
many miscellaneous centres of relief, chiefly casual relief. They were
mostly "magnificent hostelries." (3) They stood outside the parish,
and they weakened its organization and hampered its development.

_The Hospitals._--The revival of piety in the 11th century led to a
large increase in the number of hospitals and hospital orders. To show
how far they covered the field in England two instances may be quoted.
At Canterbury (Creighton, _Epidemics_, p. 87) there were four for
different purposes, two endowed by Lanfranc (1084), one for poor,
infirm, lame and blind men and women, and one outside the town for
lepers. These hospitals were put under the charge of a priory, and
endowed out of tithes payable to the secular clergy. Later (Henry
II.), a hospital for leprous sisters was established, and afterwards a
hospital for leprous monks and poor relations of the monks of St
Augustine's. In a less populous parish, Luton (Cobbe, _Luton Church_),
there were a hospital for the poor, an almshouse, and two hospitals,
one for the sick and one for the leprous. The word "leper," it is
evident, was used very loosely, and was applied to many diseases other
than leprosy. There were hospitals for the infirm and the leprous; the
disease was not considered contagious. The hospital in its modern
sense was but slowly created. Thus St Bartholomew's in London was
founded (1123) for a master, brethren and sisters, and for the
entertainment of poor diseased persons till they got well; of
distressed women big with child till they were able to go abroad; and
for the maintenance, until the age of seven, of all such children
whose mothers died in the house. St Thomas's (rebuilt 1228) had a
master and brethren and three lay sisters, and 40 beds for poor,
infirm and impotent people, who had also victual and firing. There
were hospitals for many special purposes--as for the blind, for
instance. T