Hospital and order of Aubrac, Medieval hospital complex in Saint-Chély-d'Aubrac, France
The Hospital and Order of Aubrac is a Romanesque institutional complex built in stone with rounded arches and a central courtyard that served as both medical facility and spiritual center. The site includes the Château des Bourines and the Église Notre-Dame-des-Pauvres, which together form the main structures where care and worship took place.
Founded in 1120, the organization was established to protect and provide medical care to pilgrims on the Way of Saint James. Over time it became a crucial stopping point that offered both physical aid and spiritual support to travelers.
The order merged medical care with spiritual service, and the buildings still show how priests, knights, lay brothers, and sisters shared the same spaces to tend to travelers and residents. Walking through the rooms gives a sense of how this diverse community lived and worked together.
The site is partially open to visitors, with guided tours available to walk through the medieval structures. It helps to allow enough time to explore the different rooms and chapels at a leisurely pace so you can take in the stonework and spatial arrangement.
The order operated a network of secondary stations called commanderies in other towns such as Bozouls, Milhau, Najac, and Rodez to extend medical care across a wider region. This reveals how a medieval institution distributed its services across multiple locations.
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