In 1343, Archbishop Heinrich of Mainz sent a letter in response to a request from the sizable Cistercian house of Eberbach. The suggestion that the monks would be freer to devote themselves to spiritual service at the feet of the Virgin if they were liberated from anxieties concerning temporal matters may have been taken from their petition, which no longer survives. The archbishop granted Eberbach rights over the revenues of two parish churches, specifically so that the brothers might expand the services of their hospital and encourage works of charity in the diocese. In doing so, he echoed the language of the late twelfth-century papal decretal “Inter opera caritatis,” and used formulae common to hospital documents. “Inter opera caritatis” is quoted and alluded to in documents created by and for hospitals and other religious houses throughout Europe. Within the archdiocese of Mainz, the civic hospital of Speyer, the hospital managed by the monks of Eberbach, and the hospital sisters of St. Agnes in Mainz all preserve records which draw on this influential text. All hospitals were, like the one under the oversight of Eberbach, sites for the performance of the biblical works of mercy, providing shelter and food, clothing and care, to the most vulnerable of society, the poor of Christ. Many hospitals, moreover, were independent houses. These, while not affiliated with any order, were acknowledged as religious institutions, and integrated in the canon law and religious networks of medieval Europe. From the late twelfth century onwards, works of charity were not only a cultural and spiritual imperative, but were increasingly given legal definition.