La Orden Hospitalaria de San Ant??n en la di??cesis de Baza-Ja??n

Abstract

The health of the population in the Middle Ages is a
 very important problem because of the terrible epidemics
 which, during these years, attacked the human being. In
 order to resolve these problems, the Hospitable Orders
 appeeared, and, one of those was the so called Order of
 Saint Anton, born in the South of France at the end of the
 X century.
 Its aim was to attend to the poor and above all, to look
 after the patients who were affected by the "fire" of Saint
 Anthony, a certain kind of erysipelas which dried up the
 limbs. The money which allowed the order to do it came
 from the alms and inheritances of the faithful. The alms
 were obtained in different ways: either the brothers of the
 congregation used to go from door to door in villages and
 towns, or in Vienne, after the cult to the body of the Saint
 and his relics, or, finally, with the profits from cattle, especially
 porcine, which was gratuitously fed by the faithful
 (especially the "marranico" of Saint Anton, which was very
 well known in Spain during the Middle Ages).
 These requests for alms, the only means of income, were
 disminished by the existence of false quaestors, by the retention
 of a part of those alms by the secular clergy and, by
 the superiors of the different provinces or "Pr:eceptorias
 Generales", who did not pay the pensions or careful managements
 in the central building of Vienne.
 This Order came to Spain in the XII century and from
 the very first moment it had the royal protection, concreted
 in ample exemptions and privileges which were conceded by
 Henry II of Trastamara. It was administratively divided in
 two "Preceptorias Generales": that of Olite, which included
 the territories of the Crown of Aragon and the Realm of
 Navarra; and the other one was Castrojeriz which had the
 Realms of Castille and Leon. The "Encomienda of Baeza",
 which was founded on the XIII century like an enclave of
 the Order in the High Guadalquivir, belonged to the last
 one. The most of the reconquested territories of the Realm
 of Granada were belonging to its jurisdiction. The convent of the city had a church dedicated to the
 cult of the Saind and a hospital which was kept by the alms
 got in the whole region of the Encomienda, because of this
 a lot of problems appeared in the Bishopric an Cathedral
 chapter of Jaen. The presence of the Medieval Order helped
 the creation of a series of associations dedicated to the
 Saint, which even existed after the disappearance of the
 Order.