The seminar "Practices and resistances of a polyphonic institution. Poverty, Charity and Assistance in the Hospital of Santa Creu. Barcelona, XVth Century" by RESISTANC E's researcher Ximena Illanes (PUC) took place on July 30, at MPIeR.

In April of the year 1401, the Hospital de la Santa Creu was inaugurated in Barcelona. The ecclesiastical and civil authorities saw with pride the realization of this project, since it had been for a while that this was considered a "public" and urgent need for the city. The Papacy and Martin de Aragón supported the initiative, offering various privileges for the institution in order to increase resources. The particularity of this institution is that it combined all the existing hospitals, configuring itself as the only one in the city, where there were different sections for the sick, poor, abandoned children, mad people, among others. The hospital
then was configured as an autonomous and mixed entity. It was organized between the councillors of the city and the canons of the cathedral.

The aim of this presentation was to measure the polyphony of the first general hospital in the Iberian Peninsula. The peculiarity of this study is that this institution is configured as a microcosm of the city itself and also as an open window to understand the complex concepts of poverty, charity and assistance. More specifically, the documentary wealth preserved in the Archive of the Hospital of Santa Creu and Sant Pau and the Historical Archive of the Library of Catalonia makes it possible to understand the practices and resistances of the population residing in the hospital, adapting to the norms or establishing alternative and solidary strategies.