Caritative

Since that time, both Catholicism and the Protestant denominations have seen an enormous outpouring of caritative agencies. Nuns and monks made teaching and care for the underprivileged a central part of their vocation; devout men and women have founded and devoted their lives to institutions as far removed as Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity and the Salvation Army.

Initially guilds were founded founded for benevolent and caritative reasons; however, in time guilds developed into a major economic force within the towns in which they operated.

The failure of the Fourth Lateran Council to take up Robert of Courson's reform agenda, despite Pope Innocent III's personal advocacy of religious charity and his patronage of the hospitaller movement, meant that the initiative to visit and correct caritative institutions would remain with individual bishops.