LAUSR

lay and clerical members,” when by definition these canons were ordained clerics who followed a rule. It cannot accurately be said that the regular canons reflected “the grassroots lay religious movement of the era,” nor that “these canons were not attached in the same way as the traditional monastic orders to the institutional church” (70). Despite these shortcomings, this book highlights the extent to which medieval hospitals were the products of a particular political and religious environment, in this case the highly urbanized, commercial, and independent city-states of northern Italy.