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This paper provides an analysis of 67 corrody contracts from 1476-1538. By purchasing such a contract, the elderly acquired lifelong lodging and care in an institution - in this case the hospital of Sint-Pieter in Amsterdam. Most customers paid in kind, by handing over real estate and financial instruments to the hospital, or promising to do manual labour. Customers spent the equivalent of 250-400 day's wages of a skilled labourer: late-medieval retirement was relatively inexpensive and this brought corrodies within reach of middling groups. This result is discussed in terms of the decline of family ties in the late Middle Ages: the rise of retirement homes was a reaction to changing social structures in the late-medieval Low Countries. Hospitals providing relatively inexpensive pensions - such as Sint-Pieter - were of crucial importance for those individual looking for a dignified old age, but unable or unwilling to turn to family and friends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]