Archive material for St. Jørgen’s Hospital

St. Jørgen’s Hospital was in operation from the early 15th century until 1946. The hospital burned down in two of Bergen’s many city fires, most recently in 1702. Most of the older archive material has been lost, probably in these fires. There are some preserved documents from the 17th century, but most date from 1702 or later.

The largest part of the hospital’s archive is kept in the Bergen City Archives. Part of it is kept in the Regional State Archives in Bergen, and a record that was kept by the hospital’s chaplain exists in the Special Collections at the University of Bergen Library. The hospital’s accounting records are also found in the county governor’s archives at the Regional State Archives in Bergen, since that is where the hospital’s accounts were sent.

The archive contains documentation about most aspects of the running of the hospital. A large part of the archive consists of accounting documents that date from the early 18th century to the 1960s. Documentation about correspondence can be found in journals, copybooks and case files, and includes correspondence sent from and received by the hospital, the inspection authority and the superintendent. The hospital owned a number of properties from which it received much of its income, and this is also well documented in the archives, including in the hospital’s accounts. There are also separate records for this, such as the cadastres or land registers. The archives also contain documents that relate to the hospital’s sources of income. These include an overview of contributions from the local authorities based on the number of inhabitants in the district based on the census, church tithes and rent for church pews.

Information about the residents can be found in separate admission records, and there is also a great deal of such documentation in the accounts and the correspondence in the case files. There is also an autopsy record. Information from certain years is missing from the accounting records, correspondence and other sources.

The archive contains material from the inspection authority and superintendent, such as minutes books, copybooks and similar. There is also some archival material from Luster sanatorium. From the late 19th century, at a time when there were fewer people with leprosy and the hospital no longer took in new residents, the St. Jørgen’s hospital foundation devoted its resources to the fighting tuberculosis and built Luster sanatorium in Sogn, which opened in 1902. The material from the 20th century is therefore largely about the sanatorium.