HOSPICE, the name frequently given to the guest-houses established for the reception of pilgrims and travellers within the precincts or upon the property of religious houses. It is specially associated with the hospices of the Great and Little St. Bernard Passes in the Alps ; but the word hospitium, as used in the middle ages, had no exclusively religious connotation, and was applied to any kind of lodging or inn, not only to houses of public enter tainment, but to the "inns" or mansions of noblemen, prelates and bodies of lawyers in London and on its outskirts.