It must be borne in mind that hospitality in the Middle Ages was obligatory; each monastery, therefore, had its eleemosynary organisation, which included special buildings for the accommodation of monks whose business it was to tend the sick and to distribute alms to them and other travellers and pilgrims. [Illustration: 205. ABBEY OF OURSCAMPS (OISE, THIRTEENTH CENTURY). HOSPITAL. AS RESTORED BY A. VERDIER] We learn from Viollet-le-Duc that so early as the Carlovingian period taxes were levied in aid of the poor, the sick, and pilgrims. Charlemagne had enjoined hospitality in his ordinances and capitularies, and it was forbidden to refuse shelter, fire, and water to any suppliant. [Illustration: 206. LAZAR-HOUSE AT TORTOIR (AISNE, FOURTEENTH CENTURY). FROM DRAWINGS BY A. VERDIER] The communes vied with kings, nobles, abbots, and citizens in the discharge of such duties. Hospices and hospitals were founded on every hand, either in deserted buildings, or in specially constructed edifices. Refuges were also built on roads much frequented by pilgrims to shelter belated travellers, and hospices were constructed outside the walls and close to the city gates. Pilgrimages were much in vogue in the Middle Ages, especially throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The sanctuaries of St. Michael in Normandy, and of St. James of Compostella in Spain, were the most frequented. At the beginning of the thirteenth century a hospice was founded outside Paris, near the Porte St. Denis, which was dedicated to St. James. This hospice, with its chapel, was served by the confraternity of _St. Jacques aux Pèlerins_ (St. James of Pilgrims), and offered gratuitous shelter each night to pilgrims bound for Paris. Its buildings covered two acres; they included a great hall of stone, vaulted on intersecting arches, and measuring some 132 feet by 36, for the accommodation of the sick. In a file of accounts of the fifteenth century, concluding with an appeal for funds, it is stated that, for the convenience of pilgrims--_y a lieu pour ce faire XVIIJ liz qui depuis le premier jour d'aoust MCCCLXVIIJ jusques au jour de Mons. S. Jacques et Christofle ensuivant on estés logés et hebergés en l'hospital de céans_ XV^m VI^c IIII^{xx}X _pèlerins qui aloient et venoient au Mont Saint Michel et austres pèlerins. Et encore sont logés continuellement chascune nuict de XXXVI à XL povres pèlerins et austres povres, pourquoy le povre hospital est moult chargé et en grant nécessité de liz, de couvertures et de draps._[69]