This system of rents and dues of all kinds was so much the basis of social
organization in the Middle Ages, that it sometimes happened that the lower
orders benefited by it.
Thus the bed of the Bishop of Paris belonged, after his death, to the poor
invalids of the Hotel Dieu. The canons were also bound to leave theirs to
that hospital, as an atonement for the sins which they had committed. The
Bishops of Paris were required to give two very sumptuous repasts to
their chapters at the feasts of St. Eloi and St. Paul. The holy men of
St. Martin were obliged, annually, on the 10th of November, to offer to
the first President of the Court of Parliament, two square caps, and to
the first usher, a writing-desk and a pair of gloves. The executioner too
received, from various monastic communities of the capital, bread,
bottles of wine, and pigs' heads; and even criminals who were taken to
Montfaucon to be hung had the right to claim bread and wine from the nuns
of St. Catherine and the Filles Dieux, as they passed those establishments
on their way to the gibbet.
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