The Mediæval Hospitals of England
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Title: The Mediæval Hospitals of England
Author: Rotha Mary Clay
Author of introduction, etc.: G. F. Browne
Editor: J. Charles Cox
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEDIÆVAL HOSPITALS OF ENGLAND ***
THE MEDIÆVAL HOSPITALS OF ENGLAND,
BY ROTHA MARY CLAY;
A PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK.
THE ANTIQUARY’S BOOKS
GENERAL EDITOR: J. CHARLES COX, LL.D., F.S.A.
THE MEDIÆVAL HOSPITALS OF ENGLAND
[Illustration: _THE SOUTH-EAST VIEW OF THE HOSPITAL OR
MAISON-DIEU AT DOVER._
ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL, DOVER]
THE
MEDIÆVAL HOSPITALS
OF ENGLAND
BY
ROTHA MARY CLAY
WITH A PREFACE BY
THE LORD BISHOP OF BRISTOL
WITH 78 ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1909_
DEDICATED TO
FRANCES ARNOLD-FORSTER
WITH GRATEFUL AFFECTION
PREFACE
When the able author of this book asked me to write a Preface to a work
on Hospitals, I replied that I must first see the sheets in proof.
This was not due to any doubt of the ability of the writer, it was
due to some doubt as to the adequacy of the material at her disposal.
This doubt has been much more than removed. The mass of the material
collected is remarkable. Still more remarkable is the evidence of the
very large part played by Hospitals—in the widest senses of the word—in
the social life of the people of this land in the earlier Middle Ages.
For the fuller understanding of the social life of our ancestors, this
book contributes information of the most luminous character. It will
serve also as an example and pattern for young and earnest students
of real history, the history of ordinary human beings rather than of
generals and of kings. And it must be added that, although the division
into numerous headings leads to frequent repetitions of the names and
characters of institutions of the nature of Hospitals, it has the
great advantage of reducing to order a mass of material which might
under less careful treatment have had a chaotic appearance. As a book
of reference for readers and writers, this treatise on the Mediæval
Hospitals of England ought to hold a distinguished place.
G. F. BRISTOL
_July, 1909._
CONTENTS
Preface by the Lord Bishop of Bristol . . . vii
Introduction . . . xvii
PART I
CHAPTER I
Hospitals for Wayfarers and the Sick . . . 1
CHAPTER II
Homes for the Feeble and Destitute . . . 15
CHAPTER III
Homes for the Insane . . . 31
CHAPTER IV
The Lazar-House . . . 35
CHAPTER V
The Leper in England . . . 48
CHAPTER VI
Founders and Benefactors . . . 70
CHAPTER VII
Hospital Inmates . . . 91
CHAPTER VIII
Hospital Dwellings . . . 106
CHAPTER IX
The Constitution . . . 126
CHAPTER X
The Household and its Members . . . 143
CHAPTER XI
Care of the Soul . . . 158
CHAPTER XII
Care of the Body . . . 167
CHAPTER XIII
Hospital Funds . . . 178
CHAPTER XIV
Relations with Church and State . . . 194
CHAPTER XV
Decline of the Hospitals . . . 212
CHAPTER XVI
The Dissolution of Religious Houses and its Effect
upon Hospitals . . . 226
PART II
Hospital Patron-Saints . . . 244
APPENDIX A
Office at the Seclusion of a Leper . . . 273
APPENDIX B
Tabulated List of Foundations . . . 278
Bibliography . . . 339
General Index . . . 343
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
* Asterisk denotes that buildings remain in much the same condition as
shown.
The seals are copied mainly from impressions in the British Museum.
1. St. John’s Hospital, Oxford . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 1
[After M. Paris, B.M. Roy. 14 C. vii. f. 221.]
2. A Pilgrim . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 6
[B.M. 17 C. xxxviii. f. 39, xiv. cent.]
3. Domus Conversorum, London . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 20
[Idem.] Home for Jews, founded 1232. Site
occupied by Rolls Chapel, Chancery Lane.
4. *Poor Priests’ Hospital, Canterbury . . . B. C. Boulter . . . 23
[From _Ancient Cities_ Series.]
5. *The Bede-House, Stamford . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 29
6. Seal of the Lazar-House, Mile End . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 47
7. The Leper and the Physician . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 59
[Trin. Coll. Camb. O.I. 20, by permission of the
Librarian.]
Represents, perhaps, the examination of a
suspected person.
8. Elias, a Leper-monk . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 64
[Notes on Painted Glass in Canterbury Cathedral;
from window in the Trinity Chapel, partly new,
partly fragments of old glass.]
9. A Leper . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 68
[Exeter Pontifical, B.M. Lands. 451 f. 127; xiv.
cent. MS., marginal sketch possibly xv. cent.]
10. “The Memorial of Matilda the Queen” . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 71
[After Matthew Paris, _Hist. Major_, Corp. Chr.
Coll. Camb., MS. xvi, xxvi, by permission of the
Librarian.]
_Memoriale Matildis reginæ scilicet hospitale
Sancti Egidii quod est Londoniæ._
11. *Tomb of Rahere in St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield . . . J. Charles
Wall . . . 76
12. Memorial Brass of John Barstaple . . . — . . . 84
[By kind permission of Mr. J. W. Arrowsmith.]
13. *St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Bristol . . . S. J. Loxton . . . 89
[By kind permission of the Proprietor of the
_Western Daily Press_.]
14. Seal of St. Bartholomew’s, London . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 93
15. Seal of Knightsbridge Hospital . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 103
Depicts Blessed Virgin and Child with St. Leonard.
Inscribed: _Sigillum: ospici sci: lenarde (?):
kynght brigge_.
16. Seal of St. Alexis, Exeter . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 107
17. Seal of St. John’s, Exeter . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 107
18. Seal of St. John’s, Stafford . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 108
19. Plan of St. Mary’s, Chichester . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 112
[Dollman’s Domestic Architecture.]
20. Plan of St. Nicholas’, Salisbury . . . — . . . 113
Drawn by Mr. J. Arthur Reeve, architect. By kind
permission of Canon Wordsworth.
21. Sherburn Hospital, near Durham . . . — . . . 118
[Hutchinson’s Durham, 1787.]
The gateway and chapel remain.
22. Plan of St. Mary Magdalene’s, Winchester . . . J. Charles Wall
. . . 119
[After Schnebbelie.]
23. *Chapel of Abbot Beere’s Almshouse, Glastonbury . . . J. Charles
Wall . . . 124
24. Seal of the leper-women of Westminster . . . J. Charles Wall
. . . 147
25. *Ancient Hospital Altar at Glastonbury . . . — . . . 165
[By kind permission of Mr. George Gregory, Bath,
from Rev. C. L. Marson’s _Glastonbury_.]
In the chapel of the almshouse founded or
re-founded by Abbot Beere.
26. A Leper with clapper and dish . . . — . . . 177
[After a Miniature in the Bibl. de l’Arsenal,
Paris, MS. 5060; xiii. cent.; from La Vie Privée
d’Autrefois, “L’Hygiène,” A. Franklin, 1890.]
27. Document and Seal of Holy Innocents’, Lincoln . . . J. Charles
Wall . . . 180
[B.M. Harl. ch. 44 A. 29.]
28. Alms-box, Harbledown Hospital . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 192
Erasmus dropped a coin into it on his visit to
Harbledown.
29. *Bell-turret of St. Mary Magdalene’s, Glastonbury . . . E. H. New
. . . 198
[From _Ancient Cities_ Series.]
30. Seal of St. Anthony’s, London . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 208
[_Gent. Mag._ 1784 ii.]
31. *Gateway of St. John’s, Canterbury . . . B. C. Boulter . . . 241
[From _Ancient Cities_ Series.]
32. Seal of St. Mary Magdalene’s, Bristol . . . J. Charles Wall
. . . 252
33. Seal of St. Mark’s, Bristol . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 254
34. Seal of St. Clement’s, Hoddesdon . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 256
35. Seal of St. Katherine’s, Bristol . . . J. Charles Wall . . . 260
36. A Pilgrim’s Sign . . . — . . . 265
[_Collectanea Antiqua._]
Canterbury souvenir found at York.
37. Seal of St. Bartholomew’s, Rochester . . . J. Charles Wall
. . . 271
LIST OF PLATES
*Maison Dieu, Dover . . . _Frontispiece_
[Buck’s engraving, 1735.]
S.E. view of St. Mary’s Hospital. The restored
buildings form part of the Town Hall; the chapel
on the N.E. is used as a police-court.
I. Refreshment for Wayfarers . . . 5
[“The Pilgrim.” B.M. Tib. A. vii. f. 90, xv.
cent.]
II. *Pilgrims’ Hospital, Canterbury . . . 8
[Drawn by J. Raymond, engraved by Cook.]
N. view of St. Thomas’, Eastbridge. The windows
are those of the chapel, rebuilt _circa_ 1363.
III. *St. John’s, Canterbury . . . 15
[Idem.] The chapel exists, but altered. The hall
contains charters, alms-box, account-books, etc.
IV. *Cloister of St. Giles’, Norwich . . . 24
[Photograph, London and Co. Photo Press.]
V. *Harbledown Hospital . . . 35
[Drawn by Nelson, 1766, engraved by Cook.]
Church remains, dwellings rebuilt; hall contains
ancient utensils, etc.
VI. (_a_) St. Bartholomew’s, Gloucester . . . 73
[From Lysons’ _Antiquities_.]
S.E. view. Hospital rebuilt _temp._ Henry III.
(_b_) *St. Mary’s, Chichester . . . 73
[S.H. Grimm, B.M. Add. Burrell.]
VII. *God’s House, Southampton . . . 78
[Woodward and Wilks, Hampshire.]
St. Julian’s Chapel and God’s House Gate.
VIII. *Hospital of St. Cross . . . 81
[From Guide, J. Wilkes, 1780.]
The southern wing has disappeared.
IX. The Death of Richard Whittington . . . 82
[Life of John Carpenter, by T. Brewer, p. 26;
original in Mercers’ Hall.]
X. *Hall of St. Cross, Winchester . . . 110
[Woodward.]
XI. *St. Mary Magdalene’s, Glastonbury . . . 115
(_a_) View from the West. [Drawn by E. H. New.]
(_b_) Ground-plan. [Drawn by J. Charles Wall.]
XII. St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London . . . 117
[From a map about 1566, B.M. Crace Collection.]
(_a_) Plan of the Leper Hospital. (_b_) Church of
St. Giles.
XIII. *Ford’s Hospital, Coventry . . . 121
[Photograph by Frith.]
XIV. The Savoy Hospital, London . . . 122
[G.V. 1736, Vetusta Monumenta.]
XV. *Hospital of St. Nicholas, Salisbury . . . 129
[Original drawings by J. Buckler, B.M. K. xliii.]
(_a_) S.E. view; the present chapel is shown, and
to the right a former chapel, now a kitchen.
(_b_) W. view; the weathering of the original
porch is seen.
XVI. (a) The Warden’s House, Sherburn . . . 143
[Original drawing by Grimm, B.M.]
This residence was destroyed in 1833.
(b) *Gateway, Kepier . . . 143 [Surtees’ Durham.]
This fine gateway (1333–45) has a groined ceiling
with beautiful bosses.
XVII. *The Almshouse, Ewelme . . . 151
[Photograph by Taunt.]
“The Pratie Hospitale of poore Men” with its
“very fair Welle” was visited by Leland.
XVIII. *St. Mary’s, Chichester . . . 158
[Photograph by Valentine.]
XIX. St. Bartholomew’s, Sandwich . . . 160
[Drawn by G. Maxwell, engraved in W. Boys’
_Collections_, 1787.]
(_a_) Chapel. (_b_) Gateway.
XX. The Beggars’ Dole . . . 170
[_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1793, from stained
glass.]
Food distributed to the hungry; one cripple uses
a “stool” or support.
XXI. St. Mary Magdalene’s, Winchester . . . 179
[J. Schnebbelie, 1788, Vetusta Monumenta.]
(_a_) Master’s House and Chapel. (_b_) Chapel
from West.
A Norman doorway from this destroyed chapel was
removed to St. Peter’s Street.
XXII. *St. Bartholomew’s, Oxford . . . 191
[Drawn by Hollis, _Gent. Mag._, 1833, i.]
The chapel and buildings remain at Bartlemas
Farm, Cowley Road.
XXIII. *St. John’s, Wilton . . . 205
[Original drawings by J. Buckler, B.M.]
(_a_) S.E. view. (_b_) N. view.
The “Priory” is still picturesque and ivy-clad.
The walls are of flints, with large quoins; the
original buttresses and windows remain. The
chapel (_a_) is in use.
XXIV. *St. Leonard’s, York (ambulatory) . . . 227
XXV. *St. Leonard’s, York (chapel) . . . 232
XXVI. *The Almshouse, Abingdon . . . 235
[Photograph by Taunt]
Now called Christ’s Hospital.
XXVII. St. Mary’s, Newcastle . . . 247
[After lithograph, J. Storey, 1844; reproduced
by permission of the Society of Antiquaries,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, from Transactions, 1892.]
XXVIII. (_a_) St. Petronilla’s, Bury St. Edmunds . . . 256
(_b_) *Lepers’ Chapel, Dunwich . . . 256
XXIX. The Hospitality of St. Julian . . . 259
[By Cristofano Allori, Palazzo Pitti, Florence,
photograph by Brogi.]
XXX. (_a_) Spital-on-the-Street . . . 264
[S.H. Grimm, B.M.]
(_b_) *St. Edmund’s, Gateshead . . . 264
[Idem.] The chapel was built _circa_ 1247, and
restored 1837; now Holy Trinity Church, High
Street.
INTRODUCTION
_“And to relief of lazars and weak age,_
_Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,_
_A hundred almshouses, right well supplied.”_
(Shakespeare: Henry V., i. 1.)
While we are justly proud of our institutions for the amelioration of
the lot of the infirm and destitute, we are apt to forget that they are
not the outcome of any modern philanthropic movement, but are rather
England’s inheritance for above a thousand years.
Much has been written of the regular monastic houses. These are
situated, as it were, upon the high-roads of ecclesiastical history;
but comparatively little attention has been paid to the existence and
development of the foundations known as “Hospitals.” Although it is
with some trepidation that we tread the less-frequented by-paths of
history, an attempt will be made in this volume to illustrate the place
of the hospital in pre-Reformation times, and by this means to secure a
fuller recognition of the widespread activity of the Church of England
in former days. Hospitals played an important part in the social life
of the Middle Ages, and from the study of them much may be learnt of
the habits of a distant past.
At the outset it will be well to make clear what the hospital was,
and what it was not. It was an ecclesiastical, not a medical,
institution. It was for care rather than cure: for the relief of the
body, when possible, but pre-eminently for the refreshment of the
soul. By manifold religious observances, the staff sought to elevate
and discipline character. They endeavoured, as the body decayed, to
strengthen the soul and prepare it for the future life. Faith and love
were more predominant features in hospital life than were skill and
science.
It will surprise many to learn that—apart from actual monasteries and
friaries—there existed upwards of 750 such charitable institutions
in Mediæval England.[1] To appreciate the relative magnitude of this
number, it must be remembered that the total population was smaller
than that of London at the present day. The fact proves that clergy and
laity were battling bravely with social problems. There existed a sense
of responsibility, causing real charitable effort, although mediæval
methods may appear mistaken in the light of modern scientific and
economic principles.
The study of these ancient charities calls attention to the following
points. The first is the extent of leprosy in England. There are,
indeed, conflicting opinions concerning the prevalence of the disease,
but it is certain that the figure mentioned above includes over 200
hospitals occupied at one time by lepers. Secondly, a number of the
early foundations were in the main houses of hospitality for strangers;
and this testifies to the widespread practice of pilgrimage. There were
also general hospitals in which temporary and permanent relief was
given to needy persons of all sorts and conditions. Some were very
small institutions, mere cottage-hospitals. It is often impossible to
ascertain the character of an ancient charity. As long ago as 1594,
it was reported concerning St. Edmund’s, Gateshead: “the poor . . .
are and have been indifferently of both kindes as men and women; but
whether sicke or wholl, lepers or way fairinge, so they be poore,
needie, and indigente, is note respected.” On the other hand, in the
case of large towns, hospitals were often differentiated. Situated
in the main street, perhaps, was an infirmary-almshouse for the sick
and helpless; near a frequented gate stood a hostel for passing
pilgrims and others; outside the walls there would be at least one
leper-hospital.
It is not possible to be precise in chronology, or even to give
approximate dates. In Chantry Surveys there is often a memorandum that
no foundation can be shown, this being lost in obscurity, and the house
founded “before time of memory.” Probably the earliest authentic fact
relating to charitable houses other than monasteries is that concerning
the Saxon hospital at York, for although, in the words of Canon Raine,
“its beginning is enveloped in an atmosphere of historical romance,”
the munificence of Athelstan enables us to date its origin about the
year 937.
The year 1547 serves as a useful limit to our period, and may well
for the purposes of this book denote the close of the Middle Ages in
England. Its selection in no way implies a lack of continuity in the
Church with which every hospital was intimately associated,—yet it
marks a time of transition. Charity was crippled for a time by the
confiscations of endowments designed for the relief of the destitute,
until a new generation of philanthropists arose and endeavoured to
replace them. Thomas Fuller truly says, “the reformed Religion in
England hath been the Mother of many brave Foundations.” To support
this he instances certain famous hospitals, as that at Warwick, built
by the Earl of Leicester (1571); Croydon, by Archbishop Whitgift
(1596); Guildford, by Archbishop Abbot (before 1617), and Sutton’s
Charterhouse (1611). There is, indeed, no fundamental difference
between the earlier and later almshouses of the sixteenth century. The
author of _A History of English Philanthropy_ gives two reasons for
using the period of the dissolution of monasteries as a starting-point.
“It was then,” he says, “that modern problems began to formulate
themselves with great precision; and charity was then ceasing to be
under the immediate direction and tutelage of the Church.” For the
same reasons, the year 1547 is here used to conclude the earlier
philanthropic era.
A tabulated list of hospitals will be found in Appendix B. Additions
and corrections are earnestly invited by the author, as local and
particular knowledge is required to make it accurate and exhaustive.
From this list are excluded such infirmaries as formed an integral
part of a monastic house; but in cases where some abbey maintained a
separate institution outside its gates (with distinct constitution,
separate dedication-name, and sometimes a separate seal), the
foundation is set down as a hospital. The institutions known as
Colleges have no place unless, indeed, they maintained bedemen. The
“House of Converts” does, however, rightly belong to our subject, for
it was an almshouse and industrial home. “Hospitals” of the Orders of
the Temple and St. John of Jerusalem are excluded, because they differ
in character, although the work they carried on was partly the same.
Moreover, as they formed part of great societies, famous in and beyond
Europe, they have their own historians. Houses of the Knights of St.
Lazarus must, however, consistency notwithstanding, find a place,
because any account of relief provided for lepers would be incomplete
if that comparatively small Order were passed over. “Hospital” was
a wide-embracing term, and the occasional application of the word
to religious foundations of one kind or another has not always been
accounted a reason for their inclusion.
The history of many houses is obscure, limited in some cases to a
single reference. The great scholars Bishop Tanner and Sir William
Dugdale reaped harvests, which are garnered in their Monasticons;
yet even a humble student may now glean after them by means of the
invaluable printed Calendars of the Public Record Office. The labours
of the Historical Manuscripts Commission are likewise fruitful. Wills
are useful as showing the period up to which these institutions had
popular support. Although Appendix B was mainly compiled before the
issue of the Victoria County History, certain shires have received
several additions from that great work, the forthcoming volumes
of which will doubtless supplement the present list. Episcopal
archives throw light upon hospital-life, as upon every department of
ecclesiastical history; fresh information and confirmatory evidence
about which will be forthcoming when, by means of the Canterbury
and York Society and other Record Societies, more Registers become
accessible. It is much to be desired that local Archæological Societies
should take up and develop the history of particular houses. It is
difficult to ascertain which ancient charities still continue, but an
attempt has been made to record approximately in the appended table
such endowments as now exist.
Grateful thanks are due to those who have assisted the writer in her
task. And first, to the Lord Bishop of Bristol, whose kind offer to
contribute the Preface to this volume is only the latest proof of the
ever-helpful interest he has taken in the whole work. Mention must
also be made of Mr. R. C. Fowler, of the Public Record Office, who,
after personally examining the List of Foundations, gave hints for
its improvement. The Rev. C. S. Taylor, F.S.A. and the Rev. Canon
Wordsworth have given invaluable assistance, particularly by the
translation of the Office found in Appendix A. In various ways help has
been rendered by Miss Arnold-Forster, Professor G. H. Leonard, Mr. W.
F. Rawnsley, and by friends and correspondents too numerous to mention.
Lastly, it remains for the writer to acknowledge her indebtedness to
the Rev. Dr. Cox, General Editor of the Series, without whose kindly
encouragement she would never have ventured to go beyond a private
study of the subject in hand.
* * * * *
The Spyttell hous.[2]
¶ Copland.
¶ Syr, I pray you, who hath of you relefe?
¶ Porter.
¶ Forsoth they that be at suche myschefe
That for theyr lyuyng can do no labour
And haue no frendes to do them socour
As old people seke and impotent
Poore women in chyldbed haue here easement
Weyke men sore wounded by great vyolence
And sore men eaten with pockes and pestylence
And honest folke fallen in great pouerte
By mischaunce or other infyrmyte
Way faryng men and maymed souldyours
Haue theyr relyef in this poore hous of ours
And all other which we seme good and playne
Haue here lodgyng for a nyght or twayne
Bedred folke, and suche as can not craue
In these places moost relyef they haue
And yf they hap within our place to dye
Than are they buryed well and honestly
But not euery unseke stoborne knaue
For than we shold ouer many haue.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nearly 800 are set down in the appended list, but some are
uncertain.
[2] From _The hye way to the Spyttell hous_ (circa 1536), in which
Robert Copland speaks with the Porter of a London hospital, probably
St. Bartholomew’s.
[p001]
MEDIÆVAL HOSPITALS OF ENGLAND
PART ONE
CHAPTER I
HOSPITALS FOR WAYFARERS AND THE SICK
“_Founded for the maintenance of poor pilgrims and other infirm
persons resorting thither to remain until they are healed of their
infirmities._”
“_For the poor, for persons going to Rome, for others coming to
Canterbury and needing shelter, and for lying-in women._” (St.
Thomas’, Canterbury.)
[Illustration: 1. ST. JOHN’S HOSPITAL, OXFORD]
The earliest charitable institutions of England were houses of
hospitality. In sketching the development of these guest-houses we must
bear in mind that the hospital (derived from _hospes_, a host or guest)
was a wayside shelter for all comers.
FIRST PERIOD (_circa_ 925–1170)
Travellers were exposed to peril by the rudeness of the times, but in
those early days hospitality was regarded as a solemn obligation. To
receive any stranger was a [p002] duty: to welcome the passing pilgrim
was a sacred privilege. Although the private entertainment of guests
was widely practised, some public institutions were required. Tradition
tells of at least two “hospitals” or hospices founded in the tenth
century (925–940). Both were in Yorkshire,[3] one being in the distant
country parts, the other in the populous town. At Flixton in Holderness
was a house of refuge “to preserve travellers from being devoured by
the wolves and other voracious forest beasts.”[4] The city of York,
on the other hand, was so great a place of thoroughfare that it was
impossible to entertain all who came. Athelstan, recognizing that the
Canons of the Minster were men of holy life, active in helping the
needy who flocked to them, assisted them in their hospitality by the
foundation of St. Peter’s hospital.
Two other early houses of charity are ascribed to the Saxon bishops
Oswald and Wulstan of Worcester. In the eleventh century at least we
emerge from tradition, for it seems clear that St. Wulstan founded that
hospital near his cathedral city which afterwards bore his name. It
will be remembered that bishops were especially bound by their vows at
consecration to be given to hospitality. In pre-Norman days, the solemn
question was in substance what is asked to-day: “Wilt thou shew mercy
and kindness, for the name of the Lord, to the poor, the stranger, and
all in want?” (_pauperibus et peregrinis omnibusque indigentibus_). To
this the elected bishop [p003] replied, “I will.” This formula occurs
in the Exeter Pontifical, compiled about nine hundred years ago, and is
repeated in Osmund’s Sarum Use.
There were, of course, pilgrims among those who sojourned in early
hostels. Englishmen have always loved travel. Not only did our Saxon
forefathers journey to Rome (receiving shelter by the way in hospitals
of English foundation), but they constantly visited their national
shrines. Probably a fresh impetus was given to pilgrimage by the
coming of the Normans. Monastic life was strengthened, and this was
a guarantee of hospitality. “Guests are to be received as if they
were Christ Himself,” said the rule of St. Benedict. In the century
after the Conquest, as in those which preceded it, the chief works of
mercy were done in the monastery. There was the _hospitium_ within
the abbey-gate, as at St. Mary’s, York; and the “Strangers’ Hall” at
Winchester. Then followed the shelter outside the walls, as at Battle,
referred to (_circa_ 1076) as “the house of the pilgrims which is
called the hospital.” During the twelfth century more independent
foundations became common. All sorts and conditions of men were
lodged—wayfarers, invalids, and even lepers.
About the year 1148, St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, was the resort of
sick pilgrims, of whom “many and innumerable were schewid tokynnys of
myracles.” The patients who flocked to the famous shrine and hospital
were “langwissyng men greuyd with uariant sorys”; one sought “remedie
of his akynge hede,” another suffered from “bleriednes of yen” (eyes),
and yet another from “ryngyng of his erys.” Victims of the falling
sickness [p004] (epilepsy), paralysis, dropsy, fevers, insanity, found
relief; deaf and dumb were healed; a child born blind received sight
from “the heuenly leche.”
Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, about 1141, invited help for “the
hospital house of Dover, which two brethren, Osbern and Godwin, are
diligently building for the reception of the poor and strangers.” This
hospital of St. Bartholomew (Buckland) was also used for lepers. The
need of further provision for travellers was felt, and a benefactor
made extensive grants on condition that a house was provided for
the reception of needy people disembarking from ships: before 1163
reference is made to the _hospitium_ for strangers. It was doubtless
frequented by voyagers returning from the Crusades; but before long
an event occurred which brought multitudes to Dover, and then the old
hospital proving insufficient, became chiefly the resort of lepers, and
a new Maison Dieu was built near the quay. (See Frontispiece.)
SECOND PERIOD (_circa_ 1170–1270)
The year 1170 marks an epoch, ushering in the great pilgrimage within
and towards England. When the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury became
the goal of pious wayfarers it was necessary to find accommodation for
them. The hospitals of Canterbury and Southwark bearing the martyr’s
name were among the earliest. Within a few years such houses (often
called _Domus Dei_) were founded in most of the southern ports and
along the Pilgrims’ Way, as at Dover, Ospringe, and Maidstone. At
Strood “the poor, weak, infirm and impotent, as well neighbouring
inhabitants as travellers from distant [p005] places,” were cared for
“until they die or depart healed.” Norfolk, like Kent, was studded with
houses of charity, especially near the highway to Walsingham. Thirteen
pilgrims were lodged at Bec, near Billingford. At Thetford there was
a hospital near the passage of the river. Among other early hostels
we may enumerate those of Newcastle, Hexham, Ripon, Stamford, Aynho,
London (St. Mary’s), Bridgwater, and Ledbury.
[Illustration: _PLATE I._ REFRESHMENT FOR WAYFARERS]
The hospital was a guest-house and infirmary in one. That on
the outskirts of Oxford was called in a charter (_circa_ 1194)
_Herebergeria Hospitalis S. Joh. Bapt._; in 1233 this was refounded
(Fig. 1) “that therein infirm people and strangers might receive
remedy of their health and necessity.” The inmates of St. Nicholas’,
Salisbury, are described as passengers (_transeuntes_) and as sick and
infirm (_egroti et infirmi_). The same two-fold work of charity was
carried on at Chichester, as shown by St. Mary’s statutes:—
“If anyone in infirm health and destitute of friends should seek
admission for a term, until he shall recover, let him be gladly
received and assigned a bed. . . . In regard to the poor people who
are received late at night, and go forth early in the morning, let
the warden take care that their feet are washed, and, as far as
possible, their necessities attended to.”
There is a MS. in the British Museum entitled _The Pilgrim_. It is an
allegorical poem in the manner of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and sets
forth the adventures of the traveller. The illustration (Pl. I) and
description were probably taken from experience of earthly pilgrimage.
“Charity” is seen welcoming strangers, [p006] at which work she was
always busy in mediæval England:—
“And I suppose for my beste
There to herborewe and to reste
On ther cam and preyed me
And her name was _Charite_
To pylgrymes in goodly wyse
Sche dyde moste trewely the seruyse
With chere benygne and glad uysage
She brought hem to ther herbergage.”[5]
Among shrines which the pious Englishman visited may be mentioned Bury
St. Edmunds, Westminster, Durham, Beverley, St. Albans, Waltham.[6]
THIRD PERIOD (1270–1470)
[Illustration: 2. A PILGRIM]
(a) _Pilgrimage and Vagrancy._—The greatest century of pilgrimage was
past, but vagrancy was an ever-increasing problem, and inasmuch as it
affected the social life of England, it affected hospitals, directly or
indirectly. In the Statute of Labourers, drawn up in 1350, an attempt
had been made to restrain desultory wandering, idleness, mendicancy
and indiscriminate almsgiving. This was followed by many ordinances,
local and general. By a proclamation in 1359 the municipal authorities
of London declared that such unworthy beggars “do waste divers alms,
which would otherwise be given to many poor folks, such as lepers,
blind, halt, [p007] and persons oppressed with old age and divers other
maladies.” In 1369 they issued a precept “for mendicants, vagrants and
pilgrims to leave the city.” The Statute of Westminster (1383) ordered
inquiry concerning vagabonds “wandering from place to place, running in
the country more abundantly than they were wont in times past.” The Act
of 1388 declared that those who “go in pilgrimage as beggars” when fit
for employment, should be dealt with according to the previous Statute.
It will be observed that these measures were framed from an economic
standpoint, not to check pilgrimage as such.
Although pilgrimage was declining, there were still many pilgrims.
Some of these were professional palmers, and hirelings fulfilling
vows by proxy; for there are numerous bequests in the fourteenth
century to persons undertaking journeys on the testator’s behalf
to Canterbury, Walsingham, and Bury St. Edmunds, as well as to St.
James of Compostella, Rome, or the Holy Land. The special “Jubilee”
at Canterbury in 1420 was attended by 100,000 persons, and in 1434
thousands set sail for Compostella.
(b) _Provision for temporary relief._—Existing houses of hospitality
were kept up, but a growing tendency to discriminate amongst applicants
may be noticed. In many cases more beds were reserved for chronic
invalids than for casual comers. St. Thomas’ hospital, Canterbury,
carried on its old work, but the renewed statutes of Archbishop
Stratford (1342) direct “that poor pilgrims in good health shall be
entertained only for one night . . . that greater regard shall be
had for the sick than for the well pilgrims.” With some diplomacy it
describes itself, in a petition to the Pope, as designed “for persons
going [p008] to Rome (_Romipete_), for others coming to Canterbury and
needing shelter,”[7] etc.
The chief building period was over, as far as this particular kind
of temporary provision is concerned, but one or two new foundations
must be mentioned. St. John’s, Winchester, was built about 1275 “for
the relief of sick and lame soldiers, poor pilgrims, and necessitous
wayfaring men, to have diet and lodging thereto fit and convenient for
one night or longer, as their abilities to travel gave leave.” In 1393,
the Bishop of Ely offered an indulgence to persons contributing to the
sustentation of a hospital at Brentford, which consisted of a chapel,
newly constructed, “with two houses built there, furnished with beds
and other necessaries for the entertainment of poor travellers.” The
old hospital at Brackley was reconstituted for the same purpose (1425).
It was, however, suppressed sixty years later, because hospitality was
being neglected.
One special form of temporary relief came to the front about this time.
The assistance of women in childbirth was named in the Petition and
Statute of 1414 as part of the recognized aim and scope of hospital
charity. The heading to this chapter alludes to the work undertaken at
St. Thomas’, Canterbury, in 1363. The foundation deed of Holy Trinity,
Salisbury, sets forth that “lying-in women are cared for until they are
delivered, recovered and churched.” The Spital near Blyth was newly
constructed in 1446 for the lodging of strangers and distressed women.
[Illustration: _PLATE II._ HOSPITAL OF ST. THOMAS, CANTERBURY FOR
PILGRIMS]
It is recorded that the two London infirmaries of St. Mary without
Bishopsgate and St. Bartholomew [p009] undertook this work; in
both institutions the touching provision was made that if the mother
died, her child should be brought up there until the age of seven.[8]
In the year 1437 privileges were granted to the latter hospital “in
consideration of their great charges in receiving the poor, feeble
and infirm, keeping women in childbirth until their purification,
and sometimes feeding their infants until weaned.” William Gregory,
a citizen of London, describing in his commonplace book various
foundations, says of “Bartholomewe ys Spetylle”:—
“Hyt ys a place of grete comforte to pore men as for hyr loggyng, and
yn specyalle unto yong wymmen that have mysse done that ben whythe
chylde. There they ben delyueryde, and unto the tyme of puryfycacyon
they have mete and drynke of the placys coste, and fulle honestely
gydyd and kepte.”
General hospitals for the sick were thus in process of development.
St. Bartholomew’s was steadily fulfilling its founder’s vow to provide
a place for the “recreacion of poure men.” After three and a half
centuries of usefulness, a roll of 1464 records with approbation “works
done within the hospital in relief of poor pilgrims, soldiers, sailors
and others of all nations.”
FOURTH PERIOD (_circa_ 1470–1547)
(_a_) It is evident that pilgrimage was no longer an important factor
in the social life of the country. The daily resort to shrines had
practically ceased, but the special anniversaries were kept. Such
pious travellers as there were, lodged chiefly in inns. At Glastonbury
a Pilgrims’ Inn was built by Abbot John, about the year 1475, to
accommodate those visiting the holy places of [p010] St. Joseph of
Arimathæa and St. Dunstan. A later abbot, Richard Beere, writing to
Archbishop Warham to defend the genuineness of St. Dunstan’s relics,
stated that people had come from far and near to visit the new shrine,
especially upon St. Dunstan’s Day (1508).[9] Although the regular
stream of pilgrims to Canterbury was no longer seen day by day, the
great “Jubilee” celebrations were popular, the last one being kept in
1520. At that time the needs of visitors were met by special provision,
a post being set up in the main street with “letters expressing the
ordering of uitell and lodyng for pylgrymes.” Probably the bailiffs and
citizens made all arrangements for bed and board as they had done in
1420.
Vagrancy still constituted an increasingly grave problem. By “An Acte
agaynst vacabounds and beggers,” in 1495 (re-enacted 1503), previous
legislation was amended and “every vagabound heremyte or pilgryme,”
partially exempt hitherto, was henceforth compelled to fare like
wandering soldier, shipman or university clerk. In a letter from Henry
VIII to the Mayor of Grimsby it is observed that the relief of the
impotent is much diminished by the importunate begging of the sturdy
and idle, and it is required that measures be taken “that the weedes
over growe not the corne.”[10] The Statutes became increasingly stern,
and able-bodied beggars were scourged with the lash from town to town
by the Act of 1530–1. But “the greatest severities hitherto enacted
were mild in comparison with the severe provisions of the enactment”
of the first year of Edward VI (1547). If the young king’s father had
literally chastised beggars with whips, his own counsellors desired
that they should be chastised with [p011] scorpions. They might be
reduced to the condition of slaves: their owners might put a ring round
their necks or limbs, and force them to work by beating and chains,
whilst a runaway could be branded on the face with a hot iron.[11] This
brutal law was repealed two years later.
(_b_) Where towns were few and far between, the need of shelter for
strangers was especially felt. Extensive works of hospitality were
done by religious houses, particularly in the northern counties. That
fresh provision, although on a small scale, was still made for shelter,
indicates its necessity. When an almshouse was built at Northallerton
(1476), accommodation was made not only for thirteen pensioners, but
for two destitute and distressed travellers, who should stay a night
and no longer. A hostel solely for temporary shelter was founded at
Durham (1493). One Cuthbert Billingham directed the provision of eight
beds in a “massendeue or spittel,” where “all poore trauellyng people
ther herbery or logyng asking for the loue of Gode shall be herbered
and logide.” In Westmorland, a little hospital, with two beds for
passers-by, was built by John Brunskill at Brough-under-Stainmoor
(1506): it was situated on the pass into Yorkshire.
At seaports and in places of thoroughfare, shelter was still provided
for travellers. God’s House, Southampton, expended £28 annually upon
“daily hospitality to wayfarers and strangers from beyond the sea,” and
similar charity was provided at Dover. Leland describes St. Thomas’,
Canterbury, as “An Hospital within the Town on the Kinges Bridge for
poore Pylgrems and way faring men.” At Sandwich there was a “Harbinge”
attached to St. John’s almshouse. Provision was made for lodgers,
[p012] and the buildings included “the chambre of harber for strange
wemen, the gentilmen chambre and the long harbur chamber” (1489). The
town authorities ordered “that no persons do harbour beggars, who are
to resort to St. John’s Hospital” (1524).
The existing provision for temporary relief was in fact wholly
inadequate. In the metropolis, for example, there was a crying need. It
was stated by Henry VII in 1509 that:—
“there be fewe or noon such commune Hospitalls within this our Reame,
and that for lack of them, infinite nombre of pouer nedie people
miserably dailly die, no man putting hande of helpe or remedie.”
The king, recognizing the need, planned to convert the old Savoy Palace
into a magnificent institution (Pl. XIV) in which “to lodge nightly
one hundred poor folks.” If this charity corresponded with the recent
Statute, it would relieve those vagrants who alone were exempt, namely,
women in travail and persons in extreme sickness. The king contemplated
building institutions similar to the Savoy in York and Coventry, but
the design was not carried out.
The problems arising from true poverty and false mendicancy were, of
course, intimately connected with hospital life. A graphic picture
of the difficulties which beset administrators of charity about the
year 1536 is given by Robert Copland in _The hye way to the Spyttell
hous_. The author states that one wintry day, he took refuge from the
snow-storm in the porch of a hospital, probably St. Bartholomew’s. Here
he got deep into conversation with the porter of the house. While they
talked, there gathered at the gate people of very poor estate,—lame,
blind, [p013] barefoot—and Copland, who does not despise the honest
poor, only those who live in need and idleness, inquires whether
they admit all who ask for lodging. The porter at first answers,
“Forsooth, yes,” and Copland goes on to protest against indiscriminate
hospitality:—
“Me thynk that therin ye do no ryght
Nor all suche places of hospytalyte
To confort people of suche iniquyte.
But syr I pray you, of your goodnes and fauour
Tell me which ye leaue, and which ye do socour.”
The porter replies that the house is no supporter of sham beggars.
There are some who counterfeit leprosy, and others who put soap in
their mouth to make it foam, and fall down as if they had “Saynt
Cornelys euyll.” He goes on to describe those who hang about by
day and sleep at night at St. Bartholomew’s church door—drunkards,
spendthrifts, swearers and blasphemers, those who wear soldiers’
clothing, but are vagabonds, and men who pretend to have been
shipwrecked. Many of these live by open beggary, with bag, dish and
staff:—
“And euer haunteth among such ryf raf
One tyme to this spyttell, another to that.”
The porter intimates that an effort is made to discriminate among those
daily harboured, but he confesses that they are obliged to receive
many unsatisfactory men, and disreputable women so numerous that they
are weary of them; but they refuse stubborn knaves who are not ill,
for they would have over many. Indeed, the aim of the hospital is
to relieve those who cannot work and are friendless—the sick, aged,
bedridden, diseased, wayfaring men, maimed soldiers, and honest folk
fallen into poverty. (See p. xxiv.) [p014]
It is clear, however, that during the sixteenth century there was
much genuine distress besides unthrifty beggary and sham sickness.
From various economic causes there was a considerable increase of
destitution. Legislation entirely failed to solve the problem of an
ever-shifting population. The Statute of 1530–1 had recognized the
value of charitable foundations by its clause:—“provided also, that
it be lawful to all masters and governors of hospitals, to lodge and
harbour any person or persons of charity and alms.” Although hospitals
had been abused, the neglect of the sick and homeless which their
reduction involved was a far worse evil. One writer after another
breaks out into descriptions of the increased poverty and pain.
Brinklow, in _The Lamentacyon of a Christian agaynst the Cytye of
London_ (1545), bewails the condition of the poor:—
“London, beyng one of the flowers of the worlde, as touchinge
worldlye riches, hath so manye, yea innumerable of poore people
forced to go from dore to dore, and to syt openly in the stretes a
beggynge, and many . . . lye in their howses in most greuous paynes,
and dye for lacke of ayde of the riche. I thinke in my judgement,
under heaven is not so lytle prouision made for the pore as in
London, of so riche a Cytie.”[12]
Again, referring to the old order and the new, _A Supplication of the
Poore Commons_ (1546) speaks of poor impotent creatures as “now in
more penurye then euer they were.” Once they had scraps, now they have
nothing. “Then had they hospitals, and almeshouses to be lodged in,
but nowe they lye and storue in the stretes. Then was their number
great, but nowe much greater.”
[Illustration: _PLATE III._ ST. JOHN’S HOSPITAL, CANTERBURY]
FOOTNOTES:
[3] There were probably other Saxon hospitals. Leland notes the
tradition that St. Giles’, Beverley, and St. Nicholas’, Pontefract,
were founded “afore the Conquest.”
[4] Dugdale, charter temp. Henry VI.
[5] Cott. Tib. A., vii. f. 90.
[6] See also J. C. Wall, _Shrines of British Saints_ in this Series.
[7] Cal. Pap. Letters, 4, p. 36.
[8] Close Rolls 1344, 1353.
[9] Chron. and Mem. 63, p. 434.
[10] Hist. MSS. 14th R. (8) 249.
[11] C. J. Ribton-Turner, _Vagrants and Vagrancy_, 1887.
[12] Early Eng. Text Soc. Extra Series 22, p. 90.
[p015]
CHAPTER II
HOMES FOR THE FEEBLE AND DESTITUTE
“_Hospitals in cities, boroughs and divers other places . . . to
sustain blind men and women . . . and people who have lost their
goods and are fallen into great misfortune._”[13]
The majority of hospitals were for the support of infirm and aged
people. Such a home was called indiscriminately “hospital,” “Maison
Dieu,” “almshouse” or “bedehouse.” It was, as in the case of
Kingston-upon-Hull, “God’s House . . . to provide a habitation for
thirteen poor men and women broken by age, misfortune or toil, who
cannot gain their own livelihood.” It occupied the place now filled
by almshouses, union workhouses, and homes for chronic invalids or
incurables.
(1) ALMSHOUSES IN CITIES
One of the most ancient hospitals for permanent relief was St. John’s,
Canterbury, founded about 1084, and still existing as an almshouse.
(Pl. III.) Eadmer tells us that it was intended for men suffering
from various infirmities and for women in ill health. The inmates are
described as a hundred poor, who by reason of age and disease cannot
earn their bread; and again, as a hundred brothers and sisters blind,
lame, deaf and sick. It is [p016] characteristic that the earliest
foundation of this type should be found in the chief cathedral city of
England: every such town had a hospital in connection with the See.
The prince-bishops of Durham, for example, provided houses of charity
around the city and at their manors. Ralph Flambard built St. Giles’,
Kepier; Philip of Poitiers founded St. James’ near Northallerton;
Robert de Stichill, St. Mary’s, Greatham; and Nicholas of Farnham, St.
Edmund’s, Gateshead. The most famous episcopal hospital remaining is
that of St. Cross, near Winchester. (Pl. VIII.)
Other charities were associated with cathedral clergy. There was a
hospital for the poor in the precincts of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Before
the year 1190, one of the canons gave his house for the purpose, and
the Dean endowed it with certain tithes. St. Nicholas’, Salisbury,
founded by the Bishop, was afterwards committed to the Dean and
Chapter. The existing almshouses in Chichester and Hereford were
likewise associated with those cathedrals.
(2) ALMSHOUSES IN BOROUGHS
The municipal control of charity is an ancient custom. Before
burgesses were called to Parliament, townsmen of Exeter, Northampton,
Nottingham and Wallingford were trustees of the hospitals of St. John
in those places. The leper-houses of Lynn and Southampton were also
early instances of municipal administration. In the reign of Edward
I the hospitals in Scarborough were declared to have been “founded
by burgesses of the town of old.” During the fourteenth century, if
not before, the “keepers” of Beverley, the “jurats” of Hythe, [p017]
and the commonalties of Bedford, Gloucester, Huntingdon, Pevensey,
Sandwich, Wilton, etc., controlled almshouses in those towns.[14] Old
deeds of the Winchester corporation refer to Devenish’s hospital as
“oure hous of Synt John.” Freemen had an advantage, if not a monopoly,
when seeking entrance into houses under municipal supervision. The
“Customals” of Rye and Winchelsea show that men and women “who
have been in good love and fame all their time, and have neither
goods nor chattels whereof to live” were received without payment
into the hospitals of the town. Bubwith’s almshouse, Wells, was to
receive men so poor that they could not live except by begging, and
so decrepit that they were unable to beg from door to door. Reduced
burgesses were assigned “the more honourable places and beds.” At St.
Ursula’s, Chester, candidates were preferred who had been one of “the
twenty-four,” or the widows of aldermen and common council-men.
In some towns charities were not directly connected with the
municipality but with local trustees. St. Katherine’s, Rochester,
was under the governance and correction of the parish priest, the
city bailiff and the founder’s heirs. Davy of Croydon put his
almshouse under the vicar and other townsmen, answerable ultimately
to the Mercers’ Company, and provided that his pensioners should be
“householderers or trewe laborers” from within four miles, preference
being given to residents of long standing, if of good character and
destitute. [p018]
(3) GILD ALMSHOUSES
The gilds were an important factor in the economy of towns, and their
works of piety sometimes included hospital maintenance. St. Cross,
Colchester, having been practically disendowed—the advowson was granted
to the commonalty in aid of the repair of the town walls—was revived in
1407 as an almshouse under the auspices of St. Helen’s gild. Barstaple
of Bristol founded his almshouse for twenty-four poor, (granting the
advowson to the mayor and commonalty,) and also a fraternity for
himself, his wife and others who wished to join. The institutions
were incorporated separately. Each community was ruled by a warden,
possessed a common seal, and had power to make ordinances.[15] In
other cases a private individual attached his charity to an existing
association to secure continuity of rule. Hosyer’s almshouse in Ludlow,
e.g., “appertained” to the Palmers’ gild. These religious societies
often began in connection with some trade. At Winchester, financial
assistance was given to St. John’s by “the fraternity of St. John,
in the hospital there by providence of the Tailors of Winton first
ordained.”
The craft-gilds and city companies supported disabled members in
places like the Maison Dieu of the Shoemakers at York, called also
the Bedehouse of the Cordyners. There are countless references in
wills to the poor of the Drapers’ or Fullers’ Halls, etc. Although
such institutions were really almshouses, they are not (with certain
exceptions) included in the appended list, and their history must be
sought in connection with the trades. [p019]
In ports, special provision was made for seafaring men. Leland
remarks that St. Bartholomew’s, Sandwich, was “fyrst ordened for
Maryners desesid and hurt.” The Fraternity of the Blessed Trinity at
Kingston-upon-Hull maintained “an house of alms of poor mariners,”
and a similar institution was incorporated with Trinity House,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. A society of merchants at Bristol provided
for poor seamen within the old hospital of St. Bartholomew (1445).
Upon arrival in port, masters and mariners alike contributed to the
charity because “the wheche prest and pore peple may nott be founden
ne susteyned withoute grete coste.” This fraternity was in fact a
benefit-club, for members became eligible for admission after paying
their dues for seven years. The community was especially bound to pray
for seamen in time of peril.
(4) PRIVATE ALMSHOUSES
In villages, the lord of the manor or squire provided a charity for his
retainers, tenants or neighbours. This was done at Arundel, Donnington
near Newbury, Heytesbury, Ewelme, Thame, etc. A man who had risen to
prosperity occasionally remembered his birthplace in this way, as
Chichele did at Higham Ferrers.
* * * * *
Although most hospitals were of a general character, some were designed
for particular classes of persons, such as homeless Jews, poor clergy,
decayed gentle-people, women and children.
(5) HOMES FOR JEWS
The chief “hospital” for Jewish converts was in London. The inmates
were not ailing in health, but they needed succour because they were
unable to earn a [p020] living, and were cut off from their own
families as apostates. Converts were often sent to monasteries for
maintenance. The names of almost five hundred, together with the
particular houses that received them, are recorded in one roll of 39
Henry III.[16]
[Illustration: 3. HOUSE OF CONVERTS, LONDON]
Special provision for the maintenance of converted Jews was made in
1232, when Henry III founded the House of Converts, Hospital of St.
Mary or “Converts’ Inn,” near the Old Temple. Within twenty years
Matthew Paris described its purpose, also making a drawing (Fig. 3) in
the margin:—
“To this house converted Jews retired, leaving their Jewish
blindness, and had a home and a safe refuge for their whole lives,
living under an honourable rule, with sufficient sustenance without
servile work or the profits of usury. So it [p021] happened that
in a short time a large number were collected there. And now,
being baptized and instructed in the Christian law, they live
a praiseworthy life under a rector specially deputed to govern
them.”[17]
The year of this chronicler’s death (1256), upwards of 160 convert
brothers received tunics from the king’s almoner. Probably about half
were inmates, and half unattached pensioners. The number may have been
increased from interested motives on account of the persecution of Jews
which followed the supposed “horrible crime lately perpetrated in the
city of Lincoln, of a Christian boy crucified.” In January 1256, pardon
was granted to John the convert, who was a Jew of Lincoln when the
so-called “little St. Hugh” was put to death.
The _Domus Conversorum_ was rebuilt by Edward I, who bestowed much
attention upon it. By his ordinance, the pensioners were taught
handicrafts and trained to support themselves. He ordered that school
should be kept and that suitable converts might be educated as clerks
or chaplains. St. Mary’s was an industrial home or training institution
for persecuted Jewish Christians, who were safe only under royal
protection. Another roll of the same year shows that a special effort
was made at that time to evangelize the Jews. Orders had recently been
given to repress notorious blasphemers, and those who after baptism
had been “perverted to Jewish wickedness.” Edward also directed that
strenuous efforts should be made by the Friar Preachers for their
conversion. Finally he set himself to improve the endowments of the
institution:—
“He therefore, in order that those who have already turned [p022]
from their blindness to the light of the Church may be strengthened
in the firmness of their faith, and those who still persist in their
error may more willingly and readily turn to the grace of the faith,
has taken measures, under divine guidance, to provide healthfully for
their maintenance.”[18]
The House of Converts was then supporting ninety-seven persons. Of
these fifty-one remained in 1308. After the great expulsion in 1290,
the numbers were quickly reduced. In 1327, there were twenty-eight. In
1344, the institution supported eight converts and seven admitted for
other causes. After that date the pensioners dwindled to two. During
the fifteenth century, a few foreign Jews were received from time to
time, the household varying between eight and three. The hospital
was empty in the days of Edward VI, and remained so until 1578; its
subsequent history is related by Adler.
The _Domus Conversorum_ in Oxford was likewise founded by Henry III.
There, says Wood, “all Jews and infidells that were converted to the
Christian faith were ordained to have sufficient maintenance. By which
meanes it was soe brought about that noe small number of these converts
had their abode in this place and were baptized and instructed.” The
building (figured in Skelton’s _Oxonia Antiqua_) subsequently became a
Hall for scholars.
According to Leland and Stow there were homes, or, at least, schools,
for Jews in London and Bristol before Henry III turned his attention to
this work. Stow, referring to the original foundation of St. Thomas’
hospital, Southwark (1213), says that it was a house of alms for
converts and poor children. Leland, quoting from a manuscript of the
Kalendars’ Gild in Bristol, states that [p023] in the time of Henry II
there were “Scholes ordeyned in Brightstow by them for the Conversion
of the Jewes.” The information (which he gleaned from the _Little Red
Book_) originated in the bishop’s inquisition made in 1318, which found
that Robert Fitz-Harding and the Kalendars “established the schools of
Bristol for teaching Jews and other little ones under the government of
the same gild and the protection of the mayor.” It should be noticed
that _scola_ also refers to a Jewish synagogue, but the term _Schola
Judæorum_ is applied by Matthew Paris to the House of Converts in
London.
[Illustration: 4. POOR PRIESTS’ HOSPITAL, CANTERBURY]
(6) HOMES FOR POOR CLERGY AND FOR LAY GENTLEFOLK
Diocesan clergy-homes were provided during the thirteenth century
in most ecclesiastical centres. At Canterbury, the Archdeacon built
(before 1225) the Poor Priests’ hospital (Fig. 4). St. Richard of
Chichester began [p024] a similar charity at Windeham in his diocese.
Walter de Merton designed a small institution at Basingstoke for
“ministers of the altar whose strength is failing,” and incurables of
Merton College. There were three beds for chaplains at St. Wulstan’s,
Worcester, and the Stratford gild intended to initiate a hospital for
the diocesan clergy. To St. Giles’, Lincoln, were admitted “needy
ministers and servants and canons not able to work.”
Similar retreats arose in the following century. The Bishop of Exeter
built near his palace at Clist Gabriel a home for twelve blind,
infirm, ancient or disabled priests, deacons and sub-deacons. The
Dean of York maintained six infirm chaplains in St. Mary’s, Bootham.
Clergy-homes were usually founded by ecclesiastics; but in 1329, a
London layman, Elsyng by name, touched by the sufferings of the clergy
in that time of scarcity, began his almshouse, ordaining that among
the hundred pensioners, blind, paralytic and disabled priests should
be specially cared for. The need is evident from a deed concerning
St. Giles’, Norwich (1340). The house had been founded for the poor
“and principally to minister the necessaries of life to priests of the
diocese of Norwich, who, broken down with age, or destitute of bodily
strength, or labouring under continual disease, cannot celebrate divine
service”; but the number of such priests and infirm persons “flocking
to the hospital hath so grown and daily groweth” that assistance was
urgently required. Although the priesthood was temporarily diminished
by the pestilence of 1349, clerks acting as chantry priests were again
numerous during the fifteenth century. These unbeneficed clergy, it
was said, “when depressed by the weight of old age, or labouring
under weak health . . . [p025] are by necessity compelled to wander
about, begging miserably for food and raiment . . . to the displeasure
of Him whose ministers they are.” To put an end to this scandal, “the
fraternity of St. Charity and St. John Evangelist” was founded in
London (1442), and this clerical almshouse was commonly called “The
Papey.” Gregory, who was mayor in 1451, describes it in his note-book:—
[Illustration: _PLATE IV._ HOSPITAL OF ST. GILES, NORWICH FOR AGED
CHAPLAINS AND OTHER POOR]
“Pappy Chyrche in the Walle be twyne Algate and Beuysse Markes. And
hyt ys a grete fraternyte of prestys and of othyr seqular men. And
there ben founde of almys certayne prestys, both blynde and lame,
that be empotent.”
Persons of gentle birth who had suffered reverses of fortune often
retreated into convents, or were received into hospitals with a
semi-official position. During the fifteenth century one or two
institutions arose to benefit those decayed gentlefolk who, as one has
said, are of all people “most sensible of want.” Staindrop College
maintained a staff of priests and clerks, and certain gentlemen (_certi
pauperes generosi_) and yeomen (_pauperes valecti_) who had been in the
Earl of Westmorland’s service. The “New Almshouse of Noble Poverty”
(_Nova Domus Eleemosynaria Nobilis Paupertatis_), which Cardinal
Beaufort intended to add to the original establishment of St. Cross,
was never fully completed, but there are still four brethren of the
professional class on the Cardinal’s foundation.
(7) HOMES FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN
One of the earliest permanent homes for women was St.
Katharine’s-by-the-Tower, London. The sisters of St. John’s, Reading,
are described as “certyn relygyous [p026] women, wydowes in chast
lyuyngg in God’s seruyce praying nygt and day.” To provide for
fatherless children and widows was part of the design of Holy Trinity,
Salisbury. In two hospitals outside Lincoln this particular work was
carried on. Originally served by the Gilbertine Order, they became
entirely eleemosynary institutions under the care of lay-sisters. Many
wills about the year 1400 allude to St. Katharine’s asylum or hospital
for widows, orphans, and bedemen. The daughter-house was a home for
waifs and strays, namely, “certain orphans placed in danger through
the negligence of their friends, and deserted, and brought into the
hospital of St. Sepulchre, guarded and educated there.”
A further reason for the adoption of children into the hospital family
was this: that when women died in confinement, their infants were
frequently kept and cared for. (See p. 9.) In connection with St.
Leonard’s, York, mention is made of “ministering to the poor and sick
and to the infants exposed there.” In 1280 there were twenty-three
boys in the orphanage, with a woman in charge. Education was provided
for them and for the thirty choristers. Two schoolmasters taught
grammar and music. The Dean and Chapter were forbidden by the King
on one occasion (1341) to meddle with the grammar school in the
hospital. Among the expenses in 1369 is a gratuity to the bishop of the
choir-boys. This shows, says Canon Raine, that there was a “boy-bishop”
at St. Leonard’s as well as in the Minster.
Nor was it uncommon thus to find young and strong side by side with
aged and infirm inmates. Several almshouses maintained children.
Bishop Grandisson carried out his predecessor Stapeldon’s intention of
[p027] adding twelve boys to the foundation of St. John’s, Exeter,
and Archbishop Chichele attached a boarding-school to his bedehouse
at Higham Ferrers. There were children and adult pensioners in St.
Katharine’s, London, and in Knolles’ almshouse, Pontefract.
Some hospitals had boarders or day-boarders whose studies were
conducted in neighbouring schools. St. John’s, Bridgwater,
maintained thirteen scholars—such as were _habiles ad informandum in
grammatical_—who were excused from full ritual that they might keep
schools daily in the town (1298).[19] In some cases, like St. Giles’,
Norwich, food was provided for children who were getting free education
elsewhere. At St. Cross, Winchester, seven choristers were boarded
and instructed. Thirteen poor scholars from the Grammar School also
received a substantial meal daily.
In other instances we find that instruction was provided without board
and lodging. The lads taught in God’s House, Exeter, were not inmates,
like those of St. John’s in that city. The master of the hospital
was required to teach from three to nine boys, beginning with the
alphabet and going on to the “great psalter of the holy David.” In
the almshouses of Ewelme and Heytesbury also there were non-resident
pupils. Only the more advanced at Ewelme aspired to “the faculty of
grammar.” It was directed that should the schoolmaster have no more
than four “childer that actually lernes gramer, besides petettes [i.e.
beginners] and reders,” he should assist at matins and evensong. He
must so rule his scholars that none be tedious, noisome, or troublous
to the almspeople. Payment was forbidden at [p028] Heytesbury except
as a free gift, or by pupils whose friends had a yearly income of over
£10. Bishop Smyth, a patron of learning, added a schoolmaster and usher
to his restored almshouse at Lichfield, where very poor children were
to be taught. The Grammar School connected with St. John’s hospital,
Banbury, became famous.
* * * * *
Lastly, the development of these institutions must be considered. Many
of the almshouses built during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
were intended from their foundation for life-pensioners. In other
cases, however, on account of necessity or expediency, the permanent
home was evolved from one originally of a temporary character.
Charities underwent a change during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. This may be attributed to various social and economic
causes—the decline of leprosy, legislation regarding vagrancy, and
the redistribution of wealth. As the number of lepers decreased, the
alms formerly bestowed upon them were available for other necessitous
persons, and some lazar-houses gradually became retreats for aged
invalids. This was chiefly during the fifteenth century, but even about
1285 St. Nicholas’, York, is said to be “founded in the name of lepers,
and for the support of the old and feeble of the city.” Again, when
it was realized that indiscriminate hospitality encouraged vagrancy,
the character of some hospitals gradually altered. The Statute of 1388
helped to develop local administration of charity by ordaining that
beggars unable to work must either remain in the town where they found
themselves or return to their birthplace and abide there for life.
[p029]
[Illustration: 5. BEDE-HOUSE, STAMFORD]
The crying need for the permanent relief of genuine distress made
itself heard. Langland, the poet of the people, called attention to the
necessity of rebuilding hospitals. In his _Vision_ “Truth” begs rich
merchants to put their profits to good uses and “amenden meson-dieux”
therewith. In 1410, and again in 1414, the Commons suggested that
new almshouses might be founded if some ecclesiastical property were
confiscated. Although this was not done, many were provided through
private liberality. By the redistribution of wealth and the rise of
the middle classes, a fresh impetus was given to building. The chantry
system also had an increasingly powerful influence upon the charity
of this period. The newer foundations, even more explicitly than the
older, were “bede-houses” or houses of prayer. All [p030] charitable
foundations were to a certain extent chantries. Many, alas! were solely
on this account marked with the stigma of superstition, and fell under
the two Acts for the dissolution of chantries: the plea of usefulness,
however, happily prevailed in several cases.[20] For a time the work of
building almshouses ceased, but revived after a while. In 1583 Philip
Stubbes complained that although in some places the poor were relieved
in hospitals, yet more provision was required:—
“For the supplie whereof, would God there might be in euerie parish
an almes house erected, that the poore (such as are poore indeede)
might be maintained, helped, and relieued. For until the true poore
indeed be better provided for, let them neuer thinke to please
God.”[21]
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Rolls of Parl. 2 Hen. V, Vol. IV, p. 19b Petitions, No. III.
[14] St. John’s, Bedford, was intended only for townsmen; all such
applying to the master for relief were to be received, but “all poore
folkes dwellyng without the same town to be expulsed and put out.”
_Chantry Cert._ (ed. J. E. Brown).
[15] Pat. 9 Hen. IV, Pt. i. m. 8.
[16] Tovey, _Anglia Judaica_, 227.
[17] Chron. and Mem. 44, iii. 262.
[18] Pat. 8 Edw. I, m. 17.
[19] Bishop Drokensford’s Reg. p. 268.
[20] See Chapter XVI.
[21] Anatomie of Abuses, Pt. II, 43.
[p031]
CHAPTER III
HOSPITALS FOR THE INSANE
“_Hospitals . . . to maintain men and women who had lost their wits
and memory._” (Rolls of Parliament, 1414.)
Little is known regarding the extent and treatment of insanity during
the Middle Ages. Persons “vexed with a demon” were taken to holy
places in the hope that the “fiends” might be cast out. An early
thirteenth-century window at Canterbury shows a poor maniac dragged by
his friends to the health-giving shrine of St. Thomas. He is tied with
ropes, and they belabour him with blows from birch-rods. In the second
scene he appears in his right mind, returning thanks, all instruments
of discipline cast away. Even in the sixteenth century we read of
pilgrimage by lunatics, especially to certain holy wells.
Formerly, all needy people were admitted into the hospital, mental
invalids being herded together with those weak or diseased in body.
From the chronicle of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, we learn that in
the twelfth century mad people were constantly received as well as
the deaf, dumb, blind, palsied and crippled. One young man lost “his
resonable wyttys” on his journey to London. He wandered about running,
not knowing whither he went. Arriving in London, he was brought to the
hospital and “ther yn shorte space his witte [p032] was recoueryd.”
Another patient was taken with the “fallynge euill” [epilepsy], which
is described as a sickness hindering the operation of the senses.
It would seem that persons subject to fits were sometimes placed in
a lazar-house, for at St. Bartholomew’s, Rochester (1342), was one
patient “struck with the epilepsy disease.”
The public did not make itself responsible for the custody of the
lunatic, whose own people were required to guard him and others from
harm. One of the “Customs of Bristol” (1344) orders that the goods and
chattels of demented men be delivered to their friends until they come
to a good state of mind (_ad bonam memoriam_). The sad condition of
“lunatick lollers” is described by Langland, who speaks compassionately
of this class of wanderers.
In London, the question of making special provision for the insane
came to the front about this time, for in 1369 one Denton intended to
found a hospital “for poor priests and others, men and women, who in
that city suddenly fell into a frenzy (_in frenesim_) and lost their
memory,” but his plan was not carried out. Stow mentions that the
earliest asylum for distraught and lunatic persons was near Charing
Cross, “but it was said, that some time a king of England, not liking
such a kind of people to remain so near his palace, caused them to be
removed farther off, to Bethlem without Bishopsgate.”
St. Mary of Bethlehem was the most famous refuge for the mentally
disordered. In 1403 there were confined six men deprived of reason
(_mente capti_), and three other sick, one of whom was a paralytic
patient who had been lying in the hospital for over two years. The good
work [p033] done in the institution was fully recognized. A bequest
was made in 1419 to the sick and insane of St. Mary de Bedlam. A
Patent Roll entry of 1437 speaks of “the succour of demented lunatics”
and others, and of the necessity of cutting down these works of
piety unless speedy help were forthcoming. The then town clerk, John
Carpenter, recalled this need and remembered in his will (1441) “the
poor madmen of Bethlehem.” Another citizen, Stephen Forster, desired
his executors to lay out ten pounds in food and clothing for the poor
people “detained” there. Gregory, citizen and mayor, describes in his
_Historical Collections_ (about 1451) this asylum and its work of
mercy, and it is satisfactory to hear that some were there restored to
a sound mind:—
“A chyrche of Owre Lady that ys namyde Bedlam. And yn that place
ben founde many men that ben fallyn owte of hyr wytte. And fulle
honestely they ben kepte in that place; and sum ben restoryde unto
hyr witte and helthe a-gayne. And sum ben a-bydyng there yn for
evyr, for they ben falle soo moche owte of hem selfe that hyt ys
uncurerabylle unto man.”
Probably the utterly incurable were doomed to those iron chains,
manacles and stocks mentioned in the inventory of 1398 and quoted at
the visitation of 1403:—
“Item, vj cheynes de Iren, com vj lokkes. Item iiij peir manycles de
Iren. ij peir stokkys.”[22]
In other parts of the country it was customary to receive persons
suffering from attacks of mania into general infirmaries. At
Holy Trinity, Salisbury, not only were sick persons and women in
childbirth received, but mad people were to be taken care of (_furiosi
custodiantur donec sensum adipiscantur_). This was at the [p034] close
of the fourteenth century. In the petition for the reformation of
hospitals (1414) it is stated that they exist partly to maintain those
who had lost their wits and memory (_hors de lour sennes et memoire_).
Many almshouse-statutes, however, prohibited their admission. A
regulation concerning an endowed bed in St. John’s, Coventry (1444),
declared that a candidate must be “not mad, quarrelsome, leprous,
infected.” At Ewelme “no wood man” (crazy person) must be received; and
an inmate becoming “madd, or woode” was to be removed from the Croydon
almshouse.
Such disused lazar-houses as were inhabitable might well have been
utilized as places of confinement. This, indeed, was done at Holloway
near Bath. At what period the lepers vacated St. Mary Magdalene’s is
not known, but it was probably appropriated to the use of lunatics
by Prior Cantlow, who rebuilt the chapel about 1489. At the close of
the sixteenth century, St. James’, Chichester, was occupied by a sad
collection of hopeless cripples, among whom were found two idiots. A
hundred years later the bishop reported that this hospital was of small
revenue and “hath only one poor person, but she a miserable idiot, in
it.”
Bethlehem Hospital was rescued by the Lord Mayor and citizens at the
Dissolution of religious houses and continued its charitable work. In
1560 Queen Elizabeth issued on behalf of this house an appeal of which
a facsimile may be seen in Bewes’ _Church Briefs_. “Sume be straught
from there wyttes,” it declares, “thuse be kepte and mayntend in the
Hospital of our Ladye of Beddelem untyle God caule them to his marcy or
to ther wyttes agayne.”
[Illustration: _PLATE V._ HARBLEDOWN HOSPITAL, NEAR CANTERBURY ONCE
USED FOR LEPERS]
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Char. Com. Rep., xxxii. vi. 472.
[p035]
CHAPTER IV
THE LAZAR-HOUSE
“_For the relief of divers persons smitten with this sickness and
destitute and walking at large within the realm._”[23] (Holloway,
1473.)
On the outskirts of a town seven hundred years ago, the eye of the
traveller would have been caught by a well-known landmark—a group of
cottages with an adjoining chapel, clustering round a green enclosure.
At a glance he would recognize it as the lazar-house, and would prepare
to throw an alms to the crippled and disfigured representative of the
community.
It is a startling fact that there is documentary evidence for the
existence of over 200 such institutions in this country in the Middle
Ages, though historians disagree in their conclusions on this subject,
as they do on the extent and duration of the disease itself. To some,
leprosy is a phantom playing upon the imagination of a terror-stricken
nation; to others, an all-devouring giant stalking through the land.
One writer surmises that all the _British_ leper-hospitals together
did not exceed fifty, for “there might have been a leper in a village
here and there, one or two in a market-town, a dozen or more in a
city, a score or so in a whole diocese.” Another says that “the
number of these lazar-houses, however great, was insufficient to
accommodate [p036] more than a small proportion of those suffering from
the disease. The rest flocked to the high roads, and exposed their
distorted limbs and sores, and sought by attracting the notice of
travellers to gain alms for their support.”
Speaking broadly, one may say that leprosy raged from the eleventh
to the middle of the thirteenth century, when it abated; that it was
inconsiderable after the middle of the fourteenth; that, though not
extinct, it became rare in the fifteenth; and had practically died out
by the sixteenth century, save in the extreme south-west of England.
* * * * *
It is commonly supposed that leprosy was introduced into this country
by returning crusaders. “The leprosy was one epidemical infection
which tainted the pilgrims coming thither,” says Fuller; “hence was it
brought over into England—never before known in this island—and many
lazar-houses erected.” Voltaire makes this satirical epigram:—“All that
we gained in the end by engaging in the Crusades, was the leprosy; and
of all that we had taken, that was the only thing that remained with
us.” This theory, however, is no longer accepted, and Dr. C. Creighton
expresses an opinion that it is absurd to suppose that leprosy could
be “introduced” in any such way. Geoffrey de Vinsauf, the chronicler
who accompanied Richard I, says, indeed, that many perished from
sickness of a dropsical nature. He was an eyewitness of the famine
which led to the consumption of abominable food, but there is little
proof that these wretched conditions engendered leprosy among the
pilgrim-warriors. Only once is a leper mentioned in his _Itinerary_,
and then it is no less a personage than Baldwin IV, the young prince
who became seventh King of Jerusalem and victor over [p037] Saladin.
It is, moreover, an undeniable fact that there were lepers in Saxon
and early Norman England. The Anglo-Saxon equivalent is found in the
vocabulary attributed to Aelfric. Roger of Hoveden tells the story of
a poor leper whom Edward the Confessor was instrumental in curing.
Aelfward, Saxon Bishop of London, retired into a monastery because of
this affliction; and Hugh d’Orivalle, Bishop of London, a Norman, died
a leper in 1085. Finally, at least two lazar-houses were established
within twenty years of the Conquest, and before the first Crusade.
(a) _Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries_
Leprosy was rampant during the Norman period. By a happy providence,
charity was quickened simultaneously by the religious movement which
illuminated a dark age, so that the need was met. Two leper-houses were
rivals in point of antiquity, namely, Rochester and Harbledown, both
founded before 1100. These were followed (before 1135) by foundations
at Alkmonton, Whitby, London, Lincoln, Colchester, Norwich, Newark,
Peterborough, Oxford, Newcastle, Wilton, St. Alban’s, Bury, Warwick.
Within the next twenty years hospitals are mentioned at Canterbury
(St. Laurence), Buckland by Dover, Lynn, Burton Lazars, Aylesbury,
York, Ripon, and Northampton; there were also other early asylums at
Carlisle, Preston, Shrewsbury, Ilford, Exeter, etc. The chief building
period was before the middle of the thirteenth century. A glance at
_Appendix B_ will show how such houses multiplied. Moreover, many
not specifically described as for lepers, were doubtless originally
intended for them. (Cf. Lewes, Abingdon, Scarborough, etc.) [p038]
(b) _Fourteenth Century_ (1300–1350)
During the first part of the fourteenth century, leprosy was
widespread, but by no means as common as formerly. Directly or
indirectly, testimony is borne to the fact of its prevalence by
national laws, by hospital authorities and by the charitable public.
In the first place there is the witness of external legislation, which
is two-fold. Schemes of taxation refer constantly to lepers (_Rolls
of Parliament_, 1307–1324). Measures were repeatedly taken for their
expulsion from towns. An ordinance was made in the Parliament of
Lincoln (1315) commanding that houses founded for the infirm and lepers
should be devoted to their use. The admission of other persons was now
refused, as, for example, at St. Giles’, London, and St. Bartholomew’s,
Oxford.[24]
There is, secondly, the phraseology of contemporary leper-house
statutes, e.g. those drawn up by the Abbot of St. Alban’s (1344), and
by the Bishop of London for Ilford (1346). Here it is right to note a
case where infected inmates were already in a minority. A summary of
the history of St. Nicholas’, Carlisle (1341), includes this definite
statement:—“until by lapse of time the greater part of the lepers died,
when . . . their places were filled by poor impotent folk.”[25]
Thirdly, it is evident from the gifts of charitable persons that there
were still many outcasts in need of assistance. Bishop Bitton of Exeter
left money to lazars in thirty-nine localities within his diocese
(1307). [p039] Practically all the wills of the period allude to the
presence of lepers in the neighbourhood. Although there already existed
two asylums outside Rochester (St. Bartholomew’s and St. Nicholas’ at
Whiteditch), to which bequests were continuously made until far into
the next century,[26] St. Katherine’s hospital was founded in 1316 for
lepers and other mendicants:—
“if it happe anie man or woman of the cittie of Rouchester to be
uisited with lepre, or other suche diseases that longe to impotence,
with unpower of pouertie, there sholde be receaued.”
If leper-houses were empty, the fact is largely accounted for by the
mismanagement and poverty of charitable institutions at that period.
This aspect of the subject has never received adequate attention.
Destitute persons were ousted to make way for paying inmates. One
thirteenth-century master of St. Nicholas’, York, admitted thirty-six
brethren and sisters, of whom four were received _pro Deo_, because
they were lepers, but the rest for money. This practice was sadly
common, and notorious instances might be cited from Lincoln (Holy
Innocents’), London (St. Giles’), and Oxford (St. Bartholomew’s).
Moreover, the leper would probably not be anxious for admission,
because at this time, when hospitals were barely able to supply the
necessaries of life, it meant restriction without the corresponding
comfort which sometimes made it welcome. It is related that in 1315,
the lepers of Kingston showed their independence by quitting the
hospital and demolishing it. A Close Roll entry relating to St.
Nicholas’, Royston (1359), declares that the “lepers for a great while
past have refused to come or to dwell [p040] there.” About the year
1350 the chronicler of St. Alban’s states that at St. Julian’s hospital
“in general there are now not above three, sometimes only two, and
occasionally one.” Possibly they had rebelled against the strict life
enforced: in 1353 the master and lepers were made semi-independent by
grant of the abbot and convent.[27]
In truth, hospitals were in great straits during this distressful
century, and retrenchment was necessary. Leper-houses in particular
were seldom on a sound financial basis. Even if they possessed certain
endowments in kind there was rarely money to spend on the fabric, and
buildings became dilapidated. Experience teaches the difficulty of
maintaining old-established charities. Much of the early enthusiasm had
passed away, and charity was at a low ebb.
It was indeed a poverty-stricken period. Heavy taxation drained the
country’s resources. War, famine and pestilence were like the locust,
palmerworm and caterpillar devastating the land. These were cruel times
for the poor, and also for houses of charity. The mediæval tale of Sir
Amiloun shows that, so long as the land had plenty, the leper-knight
and his companion fared well, but that when corn waxed dear, they were
driven by hunger from town to town, and could barely keep themselves
alive.
A few instances will show how charity suffered. At the Harbledown
leper-house (1276), voluntary offerings were so diminished that inmates
were come to great want, and it was feared the sick would be compelled
to leave. In 1301 the authorities of the Stafford hospital were [p041]
said to be accustomed to receive lepers with goods and chattels, but
they were not bound to support them, and the prior himself had been
driven away by destitution. St. Giles’, Hexham, was suffering from the
Scotch wars. An inquiry ordered by the archbishop (1320) showed that
the numbers were reduced, that none were admitted without payment, and
that they had to work hard. The allowance of bread and beer from the
priory was diminished, oxen were borrowed for ploughing, and there was
scarcely enough corn to sow the land.[28] Wayfaring lepers had ceased
to frequent St. Mary Magdalene’s, Ripon (where they used to receive
food and shelter), because applicants went away empty-handed (1317);
and a later inquiry showed that none came there “because it was fallen
down.” In 1327, the Huntingdon lepers had barely sufficient to maintain
their present company, admittance being refused to applicants solely
on that account, and they were excused taxation in 1340, because if
payment were made, they would have to diminish the number of inmates
and disperse them to seek their food. Civil and ecclesiastical
registers alike, in issuing protections and briefs for leprous men
collecting alms for hospitals, tell a tale of utter destitution.
(c) _Fourteenth Century_ (1350–1400)
Having discussed that portion of the century which preceded the fateful
year 1349, we now inquire to what extent leprosy existed during the
fifty years that followed. It is no longer mentioned in legislation,
and there are indications that it had come to be regarded chiefly as
a question for local government: the _Letter Books_ of the [p042]
Corporation of London record edicts of expulsion. There are other
proofs that the number of sufferers was decreasing. If, for example,
the language be compared of two Harbledown deeds, dated 1276 and 1371,
an appreciable difference can be discerned. In the first it is declared
that there “a hundred lepers are confined to avoid contagion,” but a
century later it is merely stated that “some of these poor are infected
with leprosy.” It was said at Maldon in 1402 that there had been no
leper-burgesses for twenty years and more. The mention of burgesses is,
however, inconclusive, for there may have been mendicant lazars who
would gladly have accepted the shelter of St. Giles’; but the town was
not bound to support them.
The gifts and bequests of this period testify to the fact that although
there were lepers—notably in the vicinity of towns—yet the institutions
provided for them were small in comparison with former asylums. A new
lazar-house was built at Sudbury in 1373, to accommodate three persons.
Shortly before 1384 a house for lepers and other infirm was founded
at Boughton-under-Blean.[29] Richard II left money to complete two
hospitals near London. The will of his uncle, John of Gaunt, who died
the same year (1399), indicates the smallness of existing institutions
within five miles of the city, for he bequeaths to every leper-house
containing five _malades_, five nobles, and to lesser hospitals, three
nobles each.
For a time, the pestilence of 1349 had brought financial ruin to
houses dependent upon charity. In London, for example, in 1355, the
full complement at St. Giles’ should [p043] have been fourteen—it had
originally been forty—but the authorities complained that they could
not maintain even the reduced number, for their lands lay uncultivated
“by reason of the horrible mortality.” St. James’ hospital—which used
to support fourteen—was empty, save for the sole survivor of the
scourge who remained as caretaker, nor does it appear to have been
reorganized as a leper-asylum.
This diminution in numbers may be attributed to various causes. An
increase of medical knowledge with improved diagnosis, together
with the strict examination which now preceded expulsion, doubtless
prevented the incarceration of some who would formerly have been
injudiciously classed as lazars. Possibly, too, the disease now took
a milder form, as it is apt to do in course of time. Again, the Black
Death (1349) had not merely impoverished leper-hospitals, but must
surely have been an important factor in the decline of leprosy itself.
If it reduced the population by two-thirds, or even by one-half, as is
computed, it also carried off the weakest members of society, those
most prone to disease. When the plague reached a lazar-house, it found
ready victims, and left it without inhabitant. The same may be said
of the terrible though lesser pestilences which followed (1361–76).
The attempt to purify towns by sanitary measures contributed to the
improvement of public health. In Bartholomew’s _De Proprietatibus
Rerum_ (_circa_ 1360) it is declared, among divers causes of leprosy
that:—“sometyme it cometh . . . of infecte and corrupte ayre.” Steps
were taken in London to improve sanitation (1388) because “many and
intolerable diseases do daily happen.” [p044]
(d) _Fifteenth Century_
Having admitted that leprosy was steadily declining, so that by the
year 1400 it was rare, we are not prepared to echo the statement that
its disappearance “may be taken as absolute.” Certain lazar-houses
were, indeed, appropriated to other uses, as at Alkmonton (1406),
Sherburn (1434), and Blyth (1446). In remembrance of the original
foundation, accommodation was reserved at Sherburn for two lepers “if
they could be found in those parts” [i.e. in the Bishopric of Durham]
“or would willingly come to remain there,” the place of the sixty-five
lepers being now taken by thirteen poor men unable of their own means
to support themselves.[30] This was a period of transition, and
although ruins already marked the site of many a former settlement, yet
there were places where a few lepers occupied the old habitations.
Leprosy certainly lurked here and there. The testimony of wills may
not be considered wholly trustworthy evidence, yet they show that the
public still recognized a need. In 1426 a testator left money for four
lepers to receive four marks yearly for ten years. Bequests were made
to lepers of Winchester (1420); to “eche laseer of man and woman or
child within Bury” (1463); to “the leprous men now in the house of
lepers” at Sandwich (1466). There were, perhaps, cases where testators
had little personal knowledge of the charities. We cannot, however,
doubt that a real need existed when the former mayor of Newcastle
leaves forty shillings to “the lepre men of Newcastell” (1429), or
when [p045] John Carpenter—for over twenty years town-clerk of
London—bequeaths money to poor lepers at Holborn, Locks and Hackney
(1441).
In 1464, when confirming Holy Innocents’, Lincoln, to Burton Lazars,
Edward IV renewed Henry VI’s stipulation that three leprous retainers
should still be supported:—“to fynde and susteyn there yerely for
ever, certeyn Lepurs of oure menialx Seruauntez and of oure Heires
& Successours, yf eny suche be founde.” The king relinquished some
property near Holloway (Middlesex), in order to provide a retreat
for infected persons. In the year 1480 there were a few lepers at
Lydd, who were allowed to share in the festivities when the quarrels
between Edward IV and Louis XI came to an end. The ships of the Cinque
Ports had been requisitioned, including “the George” of Romney. The
town-clerk of Lydd makes an entry of 4_d._ “Paid to the leperys, whenne
the George was fette home fro Hethe.”[31]
(e) _Sixteenth Century_
Cases of true leprosy were now of rare occurrence. Probably leper
hospitals were in the main only nominally such, as a testator hints
in 1519, bequeathing a legacy “to every Alms House called Lepars
in the Shire of Kent.” But although the social conditions of the
country improved during the Tudor period, they were still low enough
continually to engender pestilence. When Erasmus visited England, he
was struck by the filthy habits which were prevalent; but the avengers
of neglect of cleanliness were now plague and the sweating sickness. In
some few cases old hospitals were [p046] utilized for the sufferers.
The plague having lately raged in Newcastle, it was recorded in the
Chantry Certificate of St. Mary Magdalene’s (1546) that it was once
used for lepers, but “syns that kynde of sickeness is abated it is used
for the comforte and helpe of the poore folks that chaunceth to fall
sycke in tyme of pestilence.”
The south-west corner of England was now the last stronghold of
leprosy. St. Margaret’s, Honiton, had been refounded about 1530. A new
leper-hospital was built at Newton Bushell near Exeter in 1538:—
“for the releff of powre lazar-people, whereof grete nomber with
that diseas be now infectid in that partis, to the grete daunger of
infection of moche people . . . for lacke of conueayent houses in the
county of Devonshire for them.”
Even in 1580, none were admitted to St. Mary Magdalene’s, Exeter,
except “sick persons in the disease of the leprosy.” About the same
time it was reported that “for a long time there had been a great
company of lazar-people” at Bodmin.
A few of the old hospitals were kept up in different parts. In the
first year of Edward VI (1547) it was enacted that all “leprouse and
poore beddred creatures” who were inmates of charitable houses should
continue in the places appointed, and be permitted to have proctors
to gather alms for them. The Corporation MSS. of Hereford include a
notification that year of the appointment of collectors for “the house
of leprous persons founded in the worship of St. Anne and St. Loye.”
Strype records similar licences granted to Beccles and Bury; and he
also cites[32] “A protection to beg, granted to [p047] the poor
lazars of the house of our Saviour Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, at
Mile-end [in Stepney], and J. Mills appointed their proctor” (1551).
The sixteenth-century seal of this _Domus Dei et S. Marie Magd. de Myle
End_ (figured below) shows a crippled leper and an infirm woman of the
hospital. In 1553, £60 was given to the lazar-houses round London on
condition that inmates did not beg to people’s annoyance within three
miles.
* * * * *
It has here been attempted to bring together some notes touching the
extent and duration of leprosy during the Middle Ages, as affecting
the provision and maintenance of leper-hospitals. Into the nature of
the disease itself we have not endeavoured to inquire, that being a
scientific rather than an historical study. Those who would go further
into the subject must gain access to the writings of Sir James Simpson,
Dr. C. Creighton, Dr. George Newman and others.
[Illustration: 6. SEAL OF THE LAZAR-HOUSE, MILE END]
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Patent 12 Ed. IV, pt. II, m. 6.
[24] Pat. 8 Edw. II, pt. ii. m. 5. Close 9 Edw. II, m. 18 _d_.
[25] Pat. 15 Edw. III, pt. i. m. 49, 48.
[26] J. Thorpe, _Custumale Roffense_, p. 39 et sq.; _Reg. Roff._ p. 113.
[27] Pat. 27 Edw. III, pt. ii. m. 16.
[28] Surtees Soc. 46, ii. 130.
[29] Cited Vict. Co. Hist. _Kent_.
[30] One deed of reformation speaks of “the diminution of the means of
the hospital and the small number of lepers who resort thither.” (_Pap.
Lett._ 1430–1.)
[31] Hist. MSS. 5th R. p. 527 a.
[32] Ecclesiastical Memorials, II, 248.
[p048]
CHAPTER V
THE LEPER IN ENGLAND
“_From the benefactions and possessions charitably bestowed upon the
hospital, the hunger, thirst and nakedness of those lepers, and other
wants and miseries with which they are incessantly afflicted . . .
may be relieved._”
(Foundation Charter of Sherburn.)
We now turn from leper-asylums to consider the leper himself—a sadly
familiar figure to the wayfaring man in the Middle Ages. He wears a
sombre gown and cape, tightly closed; a hood conceals his want of hair,
which is, however, betrayed by the absence of eyebrows and lashes; his
limbs are maimed and stunted so that he can but hobble or crawl; his
features are ulcerated and sunken; his staring eyes are unseeing or
unsightly; his wasted lips part, and a husky voice entreats help as he
“extends supplicating lazar arms with bell and clap-dish.”
* * * * *
At the outset it is necessary to state that inmates of lazar-houses
were not all true lepers. Persons termed _leprosi_, _infirmi_,
_elefantuosi_, _languidi_, _frères malades_, _meselles_, do not
necessarily signify lepers in a strict sense. Gervase of Canterbury,
writing about 1200, speaks of St. Oswald’s, Worcester, as intended
for “_Infirmi, item leprosi_”; and these words are used synonymously
in Pipe Rolls, charters, seals, etc. “Leprosy” was an elastic term as
commonly used. In the statutes of one hospital, [p049] the patriarch
Job was claimed as a fellow-sufferer—“who was so smitten with the
leprosy, that from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there
was no soundness in him.” A _lazar_ was one “full of sores,” and any
person having an inveterate and loathsome skin-eruption might be
considered infected. Disfiguring and malignant disorders were common.
Victims of _scrofula_, _lepra_, _lupus_, _tuberculosis_, _erysipelas_
(or “St. Anthony’s fire”) and persons who had contracted disease
as the baneful result of a life stained with sin, would sometimes
take advantage of the provision made for lepers, for in extremity
of destitution this questionable benefit was not to be despised. In
foreign lands to-day, some are found not unwilling to join the infected
for the sake of food and shelter; we are told, for example, that the
Hawaiian Government provides so well for lepers that a difficulty
arises in preventing healthy people from taking up their abode in the
hospitals. On the other hand, it often happens that those who are
actually leprous refuse to join a segregation-camp.
No one, however, can deny that leprosy was once exceedingly prevalent,
and after weighing all that might be said to the contrary, Sir J.
Y. Simpson and Dr. George Newman were convinced that the disease
existent in England was for the most part true leprosy (_elephantiasis
Græcorum_).
1. PIONEERS OF CHARITY
One practical outcome of the religious revival of the twelfth century
was a movement of charity towards the outcast. The Lazarus whom Jesus
loved became linked in pious minds with that [p050] _Lazarus ulceribus
plenus_ neglected by men, but now “in Abraham’s bosom,” and the thought
took a firm hold of the heart and imagination. Abandoned by relatives,
loathed by neighbours, the famished leper was now literally fed with
crumbs of comfort from the rich man’s table.
The work of providing for “Christ’s poor,” begun by the great churchmen
Lanfranc and Gundulf, was carried into the realm of personal service by
Queen Maud (about 1101), the Abbot of Battle (before 1171) and Hugh,
Bishop of Lincoln (about 1186). Queen Maud is the brightest ornament
of the new movement. Like St. Francis of Assisi a century later,
she “adopted those means for grappling with the evil that none but
an enthusiast and a visionary would have taken.” Aelred of Rievaulx
relates how Prince David visited her and found the house full of
lepers, in the midst of whom stood the queen. She washed, dried and
even kissed their feet, telling her brother that in so doing she was
kissing the feet of the Eternal King. When she begged him to follow her
example, he withdrew smiling, afterwards confessing to Aelred:—“I was
sore afraid and answered that I could on no account endure it, for as
yet I did not know the Lord, nor had His spirit been revealed to me.”
Of Walter de Lucy, the chronicler of Battle Abbey writes:—
“He especially compassionated the forlorn condition of those
afflicted with leprosy and _elephantiasis_, whom he was so far from
shunning, that he frequently waited upon them in person, washing
their hands and feet, and, with the utmost cordiality, imprinting
upon them the soothing kisses of love and piety.”
St. Hugh used to visit in certain hospitals, possibly those at
Peterborough and Newark connected with the [p051] See or the Mallardry
at Lincoln.[33] He would even dwell among the lepers, eating with them
and ministering to them, saying that he was inspired by the example
of the Saviour and by His teaching concerning the beggar Lazarus. On
one occasion, in reply to a remonstrance from his Chancellor, he said
that these afflicted ones were the flowers of Paradise, pearls in the
coronet of the Eternal King.[34]
2. PUBLIC OPINION
These noble pioneers were doubtless important factors in moulding
public opinion. They may often have outstepped the bounds of prudence,
but, as one has observed, “an evil is removed only by putting it for
a time into strong relief, when it comes to be rightly dealt with and
so is gradually checked.” As long as possible the world ignored the
existence of leprosy. The thing was so dreadful that men shut their
eyes to it, until they were shamed into action by those who dared to
face the evil. The Canon of the Lateran Council of 1179 acknowledged
that unchristian selfishness had hitherto possessed men with regard to
lepers. We need not suppose that the heroism of those who ministered
to lepers was that which boldly faces a terrible risk, but it was
rather that which overcomes the strongest repulsion for hideous and
noisome objects. There is no hint in the language of the chroniclers of
encountering danger, but rather, expressions of horror that any should
hold intercourse with such loathsome creatures. The remonstrances of
Prince David and of William de Monte were not primarily on account of
contagion.—“What is it that thou doest, O my lady? [p052] surely if
the King knew this, he would not deign to kiss with his lips your mouth
thus polluted with the feet of lepers!” “When I saw Bishop Hugh touch
the livid face of the lepers, kiss their sightless eyes or eyeless
sockets, I shuddered with disgust.”—If St. Francis raised an objection
to inmates wandering outside their precincts, it was because people
could not endure the sight of them. The popular opinion regarding the
contagious nature of the disease developed strongly, however, towards
the close of the twelfth century. The Canon _De Leprosis_ (Rome, 1179;
Westminster, 1200) declares emphatically that lepers cannot dwell with
healthy men. Englishmen begin to act consistently with this conviction.
The Prior of Taunton (1174–85) separates a monk from the company of
the brethren “in fear of the danger of this illness”; and the Durham
chronicler mentions an infirmary for those “stricken with the contagion
of leprosy.”
3. CIVIL JURISDICTION
(a) _The Writ for Removal._—The right to expel lepers was acknowledged
before it was legally enforced. An entry upon the statute-book may be
merely the official recognition of an established custom. The fact that
where use and wont are sufficiently strong, law is unnecessary, is
illustrated to-day in Japan, where public opinion alone enforces the
separation of lepers. At length English civil law set its seal upon
the theory of infection by the writ _De Leproso Amovendo_, authorizing
the expulsion of lepers on account of manifest peril by contagion.
An early instance of removal occurs in the Curia Regis Rolls (1220).
It is mentioned that William, son of Nicholas Malesmeins, had been
consigned with the assent [p053] of his friends to a certain Maladria
in Bidelington, where he abode for two years. This was the leper-house
near Bramber, mentioned four years previously in a Close Roll as “the
hospital of the infirm of St. Mary Magdalene of Bidelington.”
Legislation on this subject was chiefly local. The Assizes of London
had proclaimed in 1276 that “no leper shall be in the city, nor come
there, nor make any stay there.” Edward III supplemented existing
measures by an urgent local edict for London and Middlesex. The royal
proclamation sets forth that many publicly dwell among the citizens,
being smitten with the taint of leprosy; these not only injure people
by the contagion of their polluted breath, but they even strive to
contaminate others by a loose and vicious life, resorting to houses of
ill-fame, “that so, to their own wretched solace, they may have the
more fellows in suffering.”[35] All persons proved leprous—citizens
or others, of whatever sex or condition—are to quit the city within
fifteen days, “and betake themselves to places in the country,
solitary, and notably distant from the city and suburbs.” This order,
sent to the mayor, was followed by a proclamation to the sheriff of
the county. Lepers are to abandon the highways and field-ways between
the city and Westminster, where several such persons sit and stay,
associating with whole men, to the manifest danger of passers-by.[36]
This social problem continued to vex municipal authorities. A
precept was issued (1369) “that no leper beg in the street for fear
of spreading infection.” The porters of the eight principal gates
of the city were sworn [p054] to refuse them admittance. (That
_barbers_—forerunners of the barber-chirurgeons—were included among
the gate-keepers in 1310 and 1375, was perhaps due to their supposed
capability of recognizing diseases.) If a leper tried to enter, he
should forfeit his horse or his outer garment, and if persisting, be
taken into custody. The foreman at “le loke” and an official at the
Hackney lazar-house were also bound to prevent their entry into the
city.
The “Customs of Bristol,” written down by the recorder in 1344, declare
“that in future no leper reside within the precincts of the town.”
Imprisonment was the penalty—a plan of doubtful wisdom. The measures
ordained by the burgesses of Berwick-on-Tweed were summary:—
“No leper shall come within the gates of the borough; and if one gets
in by chance, the serjeant shall put him out at once. If one wilfully
forces his way in, his clothes shall be taken off him and burnt, and
he shall be turned out naked. For we have already taken care that a
proper place for lepers shall be kept up outside the town, and that
alms shall be there given to them.”[37]
It was comparatively easy for the civic authorities to control the
ejection of lepers when the asylum was under their supervision, as
it frequently was. At Exeter, ecclesiastical leniency permitted a
continuance of the custom (which was already “ancient” in 1163)
of allowing lepers to circulate freely in the town. In 1244 the
bishop seems to have agreed with the mayor and corporation about the
inadvisability of the practice; and he resigned the guardianship of the
lazar-house, accepting in its stead that of St. John’s hospital. [p055]
Municipal documents record the expulsion of lepers. In Gloucester
(1273), Richard, Alice and Matilda gave trouble and would remain within
the town “to the great damage and prejudice of the inhabitants.” John
Mayn, after repeated warnings to provide for himself some dwelling
outside London, was sworn to depart forthwith and not return, on pain
of the pillory (1372). A Leet Roll among the records of Norwich states
that “Thomas Tytel Webstere is a leper, therefore he must go out of the
city” (1375). In the following instances, the infected were consigned
to hospitals. Margaret Taylor came before the keepers of Beverley in
the Gild Hall, and asked by way of charity permission to have a bed
in the lepers’ house outside Keldgate Bar, which request was granted
(1394). The town-clerk of Lydd makes an entry of ten shillings “Paied
for delyvere of Simone Reede unto the howse of Lazaris” (_circa_ 1460).
The manorial court sometimes dealt with such cases. That of the Bishop
of Ely at Littleport recorded (1321):—“The jurors say upon their oath
that Joan daughter of Geoffrey Whitring is leprous. Therefore be she
set apart.”[38]
The law evidently had no power to touch a leper unless he made himself
a source of public danger. No one interfered with him as long as he
remained in a quiet hiding-place, quitting it, perhaps, only at night.
Individuals, sheltered by the affection or self-interest of relatives,
might never come under the ban of the law: in the Norwich records, for
example, Isabella Lucas seems to have been allowed to remain at home
(1391). Judge Fitz-Herbert, commenting on the writ of removal, observes
[p056] that it lies where a leper is dwelling in a town, and will come
into the church or amongst his neighbors.[39]
English legislation was never severe regarding lepers. We may believe
that the tolerant spirit of a certain thirteenth-century Scottish canon
prevailed throughout Great Britain. Lepers, it was declared, might well
fulfil their parochial obligations, but “if they cannot be induced
to do so, let no coercion be employed, seeing that affliction should
not be accumulated upon the afflicted, but rather their misfortunes
commiserated.”[40] In France, however, upon one terrible occasion,
Philip V was guilty of the abominable cruelty of burning lepers on the
pretext that they had maliciously poisoned wells. Mezeray says:—“they
were burned alive in order that the fire might purify at once the
infection of the body and of the soul.” The report of this inhuman act
reached England and was recorded both in the Chronicle of Lanercost
(under date 1318) and also by John Capgrave, who says:—
“And in this same yere [1318] the Mysseles [lepers] thorow oute
Cristendam were slaundered that thei had mad couenaunt with Sarasines
for to poison alle Cristen men, to put uenym in wellis, and alle
maner uesseles that long to mannes use; of whech malice mony of hem
were conuicte, and brent, and many Jewes that gave hem councel and
comfort.”[41]
(b) _Property._—The legal status of the leper must now be examined.
When pronounced a leper in early days, a man lost not only his liberty,
but the right to inherit or bequeath property. A manuscript Norman
law-book [p057] declares “that the mezel cannot be heir to any one.”
In the days of Stephen, for example, Brien Fitz-Count was lord of
Wallingford and Abergavenny. “He had two sons, whom, being lepers, he
placed in the Priory of Bergavenny and gave lands and tithes there to
for their support,” bequeathing his property to other kinsmen. Again,
two women of the Fitz-Fulke family appeared in the King’s Court (1203)
in a dispute about property at Sutton in Kent: Avice urged that Mabel,
having a brother, had no claim—“but against this Mabel says that he
is a leper.”[42] Even a grant made by such a person was void. In 1204
King John committed the lands of William of Newmarch to an official who
should answer for them at the Exchequer, but “if he have given away
any of his lands after he fell sick of the leprosy, cause the same to
be restored to his barony.”[43] This illustrates Bracton’s statement
that “a leprous person who is placed out of the communion of mankind
cannot give . . . as he cannot ask,” and, again, “if the claimant be
a leper and so deformed that the sight of him is insupportable, and
such that he has been separated . . . [he] cannot plead or claim an
inheritance.”[44]
On the other hand, Lord Coke declares that “ideots, leapers &c. may
be heires,” and he comments thus upon Bracton and Britton:—“if these
ancient writers be understood of an appearance in person, I think
their opinions are good law; for [lepers] ought not to sue nor defend
in proper person, but by attorney.”[45] Possibly the Norman custom of
disinheritance prevailed in England at one time and then died out. The
case of Adam [p058] de Gaugy proves that in 1278 this Northumbrian
baron was not liable to forfeiture. He was excused, indeed, from
appearing in the presence of Edward I, but was directed to swear fealty
to an official. Although spoken of as his brother’s heir, Adam did not
long enjoy his property. He died the same year, childless, but leaving
a widow (_Eve_), and the barony passed to a kinsman.[46]
The Norman maxim that the leper “may possess the inheritance he had
before he became a leper” is illustrated by the story of the youthful
heir of Nicholas de Malesmeins. Having attained full age, he left the
hospital where he had been confined, appeared before his feudal lord,
did homage, made his payment, and entered his fief.[47]
4. ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION
Although leprosy was a penal offence, only laymen could be cited and
dealt with by the king, mayor or feudal lord. Clerks in holy orders
had to answer to their bishop. In the case of parochial clergy, the
diocesan was responsible for their suspension from office, as stated
by the Canon _De Leprosis_. Lucius III (1181–1185) decreed that they
must serve by coadjutors and wrote to the Bishop of Lincoln on this
subject.[48] The episcopal registers of Lincoln afterwards record
the case of the rector of Seyton (1310). Several leprous parish
priests are named in other registers, e.g. St. Neot, 1314 (Exeter),
Colyton, 1330 (Exeter), Castle Carrock, 1357 (Carlisle). In the latter
instance, the bishop having learned with sorrow that the rector was
infected and unable to [p059] administer the sacraments, cited him
to appear at Rose with a view to appointing a coadjutor.[49] It was
ordered by Clement III that when clergy were thus removed, they should
be supported from the fruits of their benefices. Sir Philip, the
leper-priest of St. Neot in Cornwall, was allowed two shillings a week,
besides twenty shillings a year for clothing. He was permitted to keep
the best room in his vicarage and the adjoining chambers, except the
hall. The rest of the house was partitioned off for the curate, the
door between them being walled up.[50]
5. EXAMINATION OF SUSPECTED PERSONS
The duty of reporting and examining cases fell to the clergy, doctors,
civil officers or a jury of discreet men. (Cf. Fig. 7.) A curiously
complicated lawsuit brought into the King’s Court in 1220 relates how a
certain man had custody of the children of Nicholas de Malesmeins. When
the eldest-born became a leper, his perplexed guardian took the young
man to the King’s Exchequer, and before the barons of the Exchequer he
was adjudged a leper, and consigned to a hospital. (See pp. 52, 58.)
[Illustration: 7. LEPER AND PHYSICIAN]
In ordinary cases, the leper would show himself to the parish priest
as the only scholar. It was the village priest who helped the stricken
maiden to enter “Badele Spital” near Darlington, and afterwards
attested her [p060] cure, as related by Reginald of Durham. (See p.
97.) The register of Bishop Bronescomb of Exeter declares that “it
belongs to the office of the priest to distinguish between one form of
leprosy and another.” It was the duty of the clergy to take cognizance
of cases, but it was not always politic to interfere. In 1433 the
parson of Sparham endeavoured to get a parishioner, John Folkard, to
withdraw from the company of other men because he was “gretely infect
with the sekeness of lepre.” The vicar advertised him to depart, for
“his sekenes was contagious and myght hurte moche people.” After much
disputing, John went off to Norwich and took an action for trespass
against the parson before the sheriffs. Whereupon the vicar had to
appeal in chancery.[51]
The writ of removal ordered the careful investigation of cases in the
presence of discreet and lawful men having the best knowledge of the
accused person and his disease. Probably the best was not very good,
for many judged by the outward appearance only. The Bishop of Lincoln,
directing the resignation of a clergyman (1310), says that he is
besprinkled with the spot of leprosy. The decree of 1346 condemns “all
those who are found infected with leprous spots” to be removed. Anthony
Fitz-Herbert, writing in 1534, points out that the writ is for those
“who appear to the sight of all men that they are lepers,” by their
voice, disfigurement and noisome condition.
In medical treatises, great stress was laid on the necessity of
investigation with pondering and meditation. The _Rosa Anglica_ of
John of Gaddesden (physician to Edward II) declares that “no one is
to be adjudged a leper, and separated from intercourse of mankind,
until [p061] the figure and form of the face is actually changed.” The
contemporary French doctor, Gordon, uses almost the same words; and,
repeating his precautions, observes that “lepers are at the present day
very injudiciously judged.” A later writer, Guy de Chauliac (_circa_
1363) says:—
“In the examination and judgement of lepers, there must be much
circumspection, because the injury is very great, whether we thus
submit to confinement those that ought not to be confined, or allow
lepers to mix with the people, seeing the disease is contagious and
infectious.”
Sir J. Simpson gives copious extracts from Guy’s _Chirurgia_, which has
also been translated into modern French (1890). Guy describes fully
the examination of a suspected person, giving in detail all possible
symptoms. It may here be observed that Bartholomew _Anglicus_, his
contemporary, enumerates among the causes predisposing to leprosy,
dwelling and oft talking with leprous men, marriage and heredity, evil
diet—e.g. rotten meat, measled hogs, flesh infected with poison, and
the biting of a venomous worm: “in these manners and in many other the
evil of _lepra_ breedeth in man’s body.” Guy advises the doctor to
inquire if the person under examination comes of tainted stock, if he
have conversed with lepers, etc. He must then consider and reconsider
the equivocal and unequivocal signs of disease. After a searching
investigation—not to be confined to one day—the patient must either
be set free (_absolvendus_) with a certificate, or separated from the
people and conducted to the lazar-house.
About the time that John of Gaddesden was professor of medicine at
Oxford (1307–1325), and was writing upon [p062] leprosy, “experienced
physicians” were summoned to examine a provincial magnate. The mayor
and bailiffs of royal Winchester had been over-zealous “under colour
of the king’s late order to cause lepers who were amongst the healthy
citizens to be expelled.” It was surely a bitter hour to Peter de
Nutle, late mayor of the grand old city, when his successor and former
colleagues hounded him out! But there was justice for one “falsely
accused”; and subsequently an order of redress was sent, not without
rebuke to the civic authorities for their malicious behaviour towards a
fellow-citizen:—
“as it appears, from the inspection and examination before our
council by the council and by physicians expert in the knowledge of
this disease, that the said Peter is whole and clean, and infected in
no part of his body.”
A few days later the sheriff of Hampshire was directed to make a
proclamation to the same effect, so that Peter might dwell as he was
wont unmolested.[52]
The royal mandate of 1346 reiterated the stipulation that men of
knowledge should inquire into suspected cases. It therefore seems
unlikely that a London baker ejected in 1372 was merely suffering
from an inveterate eczema, as has been suggested. Careless as were
the popular notions of disease, medical diagnosis was becoming more
exact; four kinds of leprosy were distinguished, of which “leonine” and
“elephantine” were the worst.
There is an interesting document extant concerning a certain woman who
lived at Brentwood in 1468. She was indicted by a Chancery warrant,
but acquitted on the [p063] authority of a medical certificate of
health. The neighbours of Johanna Nightingale petitioned against
her, complaining that she habitually mixed with them and refused to
retire to a solitary place, although “infected by the foul contact
of leprosy.” A writ was therefore issued by Edward IV commanding a
legal inquiry. Finally, Johanna appeared before a medical jury in the
presence of the Chancellor. They examined her person, touched and
handled her, made mature and diligent investigation, going through
over forty distinctive signs of disease. She was at length pronounced
“utterly free and untainted,” and the royal physicians were prepared to
demonstrate this in Chancery “by scientific process.”[53]
6. TREATMENT OF THE BODY
Alleviation was sometimes sought in medicinal waters. Here and there
the site of a hospital seems to have been selected on account of
its proximity to a healing spring, e.g. Harbledown, Burton Lazars,
Peterborough, Newark, and Nantwich. In various places there are springs
known as the Lepers’ Well, frequented by sufferers of bygone days.
Tradition ascribes to bathing some actual cures of “leprosy.” Bladud
the Briton, a prehistoric prince, was driven from home because he was a
leper. At length he discovered the hot springs of Bath, where instinct
had already taught diseased swine to wallow: Bladud, too, washed and
was clean. The virtue of the mineral waters, well known to the Romans,
was also appreciated by the Saxons; possibly the baths were frequented
by lepers [p064] from early days, for there was long distributed in
Bath “an ancient alms to the poor and leprous of the foundation of
Athelstan, Edgar and Ethelred.” A small bath was afterwards set apart
for their use, to which the infected flocked. Leland notes that the
place was “much frequentid of People diseasid with Lepre, Pokkes,
Scabbes, and great Aches,” who found relief. A story similar to that of
Bladud, but of later date, comes from the eastern counties: a certain
man, sorely afflicted with leprosy, was healed by a spring in Beccles,
near which in gratitude he built a hospital.
[Illustration: 8. ELIAS, LEPER MONK]
There was rivalry between the natural water of Bath and the
miraculous water of Canterbury; the latter consisted of a drop of St.
Thomas’ blood many times diluted from the well in the crypt of the
cathedral.[54] William of Canterbury, a prejudiced critic, is careful
to relate how a leper-monk of Reading, Elias by name, went with his
abbot’s approval to Bath desiring to ease his pain, and there sought
earnestly of the physicians whatever he was able to gather from
them. “He set his hope in the warmth of the sulphur and not in the
wonder-working martyr,” says William. After forty days in Bath, Elias
set out for Canterbury, but secretly, pretending to seek medicine in
London; because (adds the chronicler) the abbot honoured [p065] the
martyr less than he ought to have done, and might not have countenanced
the pilgrimage. On his way, Elias met returning pilgrims, who gave him
some of the water of St. Thomas (Fig. 8); he applied this externally
and internally and became well.[55] Lest any should doubt the miracle,
Benedict of Canterbury tells us that many who were especially skilled
in the art of medicine used to say that Elias was smitten with a
terrible leprosy, and he proceeds to detail the horrible symptoms. In
the end, however, William declares that he who had been so ulcerated
that he might have been called another Lazarus, now appeared pleasant
in countenance, as was plain to all who saw him. What the Bath doctors
and Bath waters could not do, that the miraculous help of St. Thomas
had achieved.
We see from the story of the monk Elias that the ministrations of the
physician and the use of medicine were sought by lepers. Bartholomew
says that the disease, although incurable “but by the help of God” when
once confirmed, “may be somewhat hid and let, that it destroy not so
soon”; and he gives instructions about diet, blood-letting, purgative
medicines, plasters and ointments. Efficacious too was (we are told)
the eating of a certain adder sod with leeks.
There is no information forthcoming as to the remedial treatment of
lepers in hospital. The only narrative we possess is Chatterton’s
lively description of St. Bartholomew’s, Bristol, the Roll of which he
professed to find; it satisfied Barrett, a surgeon, and a local, though
uncritical, historian. A father of the Austin Friary came to shrive the
lepers (for which he received ten marks) and to dress [p066] their
sores (for which he was given fifty marks) saying, “lette us cure both
spryte and bodye.” When barber-surgeons came for an operation—“whanne
some doughtie worke ys to bee donne on a Lazar”—friars attended “leste
hurte ande scathe bee done to the lepers.” The friars’ knowledge was
such that barber-surgeons were willing to attend “wythoute paye to
gayne knowleche of aylimentes and theyr trew curis.”
7. TREATMENT OF THE SPIRIT
Disease was sometimes regarded as an instrument of divine wrath, as
in the scriptural case of Gehazi. Thus Gilbert de Saunervill after
committing sacrilege was smitten with leprosy, whereupon he confessed
with tears that he merited the scourge of God. The popular view that
it was an expiation for sin is shown in the romance of Cresseid false
to her true knight. But except in signal cases of wrong-doing this
morbid idea was not prominent; and the phrase “struck by the secret
judgement of God” implies visitation rather than vengeance. Indeed,
the use of the expression “Christ’s martyrs” suggests that the leper’s
affliction was looked upon as a sacrifice—an attitude which illuminated
the mystery of pain. St. Hugh preached upon the blessedness of such
sufferers: they were in no wise under a curse, but were “beloved of God
as was Lazarus.”
Those responsible for the care of lepers long ago realized exactly what
is experienced by those who carry on the same extraordinarily difficult
work to-day, namely, that leprosy develops to a high degree what is
worst in man. Bodily torture, mental anguish, shattered nerves almost
amounting to insanity, render lepers wearisome [p067] and offensive
to themselves no less than to others. These causes, together with
the absence of the restraining influences of family life, make them
prone to rebellious conduct, irritability, ingratitude and other evil
habits. Hope was, and is, the one thing to transform such lives, else
intolerable in their wintry desolation. St. Hugh therefore bade lepers
look for the consummation of the promise:—“Who shall change our vile
body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious Body.”[56]
Alleviation of the agonized mind of the doomed victim was undertaken
first by the physician and afterwards by the priest. A recognized part
of the remedial treatment advocated by Guy was to comfort the heart.
His counsel shows that doctors endeavoured to act as physicians of the
soul, for they were to impress upon the afflicted person that this
suffering was for his spiritual salvation. The priest then fulfilled
his last duty towards his afflicted parishioner:—
“The priest . . . makes his way to the sick man’s home and addresses
him with comforting words, pointing out and proving that if he
blesses and praises God, and bears his sickness patiently, he may
have a sure and certain hope that though he be sick in body, he may
be whole in soul, and may receive the gift of eternal salvation.”
The affecting scene at the service which followed may be pictured from
the form in _Appendix A_. There was a certain tenderness mingled with
“the terrible ten commandments of man.” The priest endeavours to show
the leper that he is sharing in the afflictions of Christ. For [p068]
his consolation the verse of Isaiah is recited:—“Surely He hath borne
our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet did we esteem Him as a leper,
smitten of God and afflicted.” The same passage from the Vulgate is
quoted in the statutes for the lepers of St. Julian’s:—“among all
infirmities the disease of leprosy is more loathsome than any . . . yet
ought they not on that account to despair or murmur against God, but
rather to praise and glorify Him who was led to death as a leper.”
[Illustration: 9. A LEPER]
After separation the fate of the outcast is irrevocably sealed.
Remembering the exhortation, he must never frequent places of public
resort, nor eat and drink with the sound; he must not speak to them
unless they are on the windward side, nor may he touch infants or young
folk. Henceforth his signal is the clapper, by which he gives warning
of his approach and draws attention to his [p069] request. (Fig. 26.)
This instrument consisted of tablets of wood, attached at one end with
leather thongs, which made a loud click when shaken. In England, a
bell was often substituted for this dismal rattle. Stow and Holinshed
refer to the “clapping of dishes and ringing of bels” by the lazar.
The poor creature of shocking appearance shown in Fig. 9 holds in his
one remaining hand a bell. His piteous cry is “Sum good, my gentyll
mayster, for God sake.” This was the beggar’s common appeal: in an
_Early English Legendary_, a _mesel_ cries to St. Francis, “Sum good
for godes love.”
Compelled to leave home and friends, many a leper thus haunted the
highway—his only shelter a dilapidated hovel, his meagre fare the
scraps put into his dish. To others, the lines fell in more pleasant
places, for in the hospital pain and privation were softened by
kindness.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] See p. 180.
[34] Chron. and Mem. 37, _Magna Vita_, pp. 162–5.
[35] Riley, _Memorials of London_, 230.
[36] Close 1346 pt. i. m. 18 _d_, 14 _d_, and 1348 pt. i. m. 25 _d_.
[37] Toulmin Smith, _Gilds_, 241.
[38] Selden Soc., _Court Baron_, p. 134.
[39] _Natura Brevium_, ed. 1652 p. 584.
[40] Wilkins, _Concil. Mag._ i. 616.
[41] Chron. and Mem., 1. 186.
[42] Selden Soc., 3, No. 157.
[43] Rot. Litt. Claus. 6 John m. 21.
[44] Chron. and Mem., 70, i. 95; vi. 325.
[45] First Institutes, p. 8a., 135b.
[46] Inquisition, cf. Rot. Curia Scacc. Abb., i. 33.
[47] Curia Regis Rolls, 72, m. 18 _d_.
[48] _Conciliorum Omnium_, ed. 1567, III, 700 (cap. 4).
[49] Reg. Welton. Cited Vict. Co. Hist.
[50] Reg. Stapeldon, p. 342.
[51] P.R.O. Early Chancery Proceedings, Bundle 46, No. 158.
[52] Close 6 Edw. II, m. 21 _d_.
[53] Close Roll, Rymer, ed. 1710, ix. 365. Translated, Simpson, _Arch.
Essays_.
[54] Chron. and Mem., 67, i. 416.
[55] Id. ii. 242.
[56] Compare the title of a modern leper-house at Kumamoto in Kiushiu,
known as “The Hospital of the Resurrection of Hope”: and in Japanese
_Kwaishun Byōin_—“the coming again of spring.”
[p070]
CHAPTER VI
FOUNDERS AND BENEFACTORS
“_Hospitals . . . founded as well by the noble kings of this realm
and lords and ladies both spiritual and temporal as by others of
divers estates, in aid and merit of the souls of the said founders._”
(Parliament of Leicester.)
As our period covers about six centuries, some rough subdivision is
necessary, but each century can show patrons of royal birth, benevolent
bishops and barons, as well as charitable commoners. The roll-call is
long, and includes many noteworthy names.
FIRST PERIOD (BEFORE 1066)
First, there is the shadowy band of Saxon benefactors. ATHELSTAN, on
his return from the victory of Brunanburh (937), helped to found St.
Peter’s hospital, York, giving not only the site, but a considerable
endowment. (See p. 185.) Among other founders was a certain noble and
devoted knight named ACEHORNE, lord of Flixton in the time of the
most Christian king Athelstan, who provided a refuge for wayfarers
in Holderness. Two Saxon bishops are named as builders of houses for
the poor. To ST. OSWALD (Bishop of Worcester, died 992) is attributed
the foundation of the hospital called after him; but the earliest
documentary reference to it is by Gervase of Canterbury (_circa_ 1200).
ST. WULSTAN (died 1094) [p071] provided the wayfarers’ hostel at
Worcester which continued to bear his name. Wulstan, last of the Saxon
founders, forms a fitting link with Lanfranc, foremost of those Norman
“spiritual lords” who were to build hospitals on a scale hitherto
unknown in England.
SECOND PERIOD (1066–1272)
[Illustration: 10. “THE MEMORIAL OF MATILDA THE QUEEN”]
LANFRANC erected the hospitals of St. John, Canterbury, and St.
Nicholas, Harbledown; these charities remain to this day as memorials
of the archbishop. His friend Bishop GUNDULF of Rochester founded a
lazar-house near that city. In QUEEN MAUD, wife of Henry I, the bishop
found a ready disciple. Her mother, Margaret of Scotland, had trained
her to love the poor and minister to them. St. Margaret’s special
care had been for pilgrims, for whom she had provided a hospital at
Queen’s-ferry, Edinburgh. The “holy Queen Maud,” as we have seen,
served lepers with enthusiasm, and she established a home near London
for them. (Fig. 10.) HENRY I caught something of his lady’s spirit.
“The house of St. Bartholomew [Oxford] was founded by our lord old King
Henry, who married the good queene Maud; and it was assigned for the
receiving and susteyning of infirme leprose folk,” says Wood, quoting
a thirteenth-century Inquisition. Henry endowed his friend Gundulf’s
foundation at Rochester, and probably also “the king’s hospital” near
Lincoln, which had possibly been begun by Bishop Remigius; that of
Colchester was built by his steward [p072] Eudo at his command, and
was accounted of the king’s foundation. Matilda, daughter of Henry and
Maud, left a benefaction to lepers at York.
KING STEPHEN reconstructed St. Peter’s hospital, York, after a great
fire. (Cf. Pl. XXIV, XXV.) His wife, MATILDA of BOULOGNE, founded St.
Katharine’s, London, which continues to this day under the patronage of
the queens-consort. Henry II made considerable bequests for the benefit
of lazars, but it is characteristic that his hospital building was in
Anjou. RICHARD I endowed Bishop Glanvill’s foundation at Strood. KING
JOHN is thought to have founded hospitals near Lancaster, Newbury and
Bristol. He is sometimes regarded as the conspicuous patron of lepers.
Doubtless this may be partly attributed to the fact that at the outset
of his reign the Church secured privileges to outcasts by the Council
of Westminster (1200). There seems, however, to be some ground for his
charitable reputation. Bale, in his drama _Kynge Johan_, makes England
say concerning this king:—
“Never prynce was there that made to poore peoples use
So many masendewes, hospytals and spyttle howses,
As your grace hath done yet sens the worlde began.”
. . . . . .
“Gracyouse prouysyon for sore, sycke, halte and lame
He made in hys tyme, he made both in towne and cytie,
Grauntynge great lyberties for mayntenaunce of the same,
By markettes and fayers in places of notable name.
Great monymentes are in Yppeswych, Donwych and Berye,
Whych noteth hym to be a man of notable mercye.”[57]
Indeed, as the Suffolk satirist knew by local tradition, King John did
grant the privilege of a fair to the lepers of Ipswich. [p073]
[Illustration: _PLATE VI._
a. ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S, GLOUCESTER
b. ST. MARY’S, CHICHESTER]
HENRY III erected houses of charity at Woodstock, Dunwich and Ospringe,
as well as homes for Jews in London and Oxford. He refounded St. John’s
in the latter city, and laid the first stone himself; he seems also to
have rebuilt St. John’s, Cambridge, and St. James’, Westminster. The
king loved Gloucester—the place of his coronation—and he re-established
St. Bartholomew’s, improving the buildings (Pl. VI) and endowment.
The new hospitals of Dover and Basingstoke were committed to his care
by their founders. Of Henry III’s charities only that of St. James’,
Westminster, was for lepers; but St. Louis, who was with him while on
crusade, told Joinville that on Holy Thursday (i.e. Maundy Thursday)
the king of England “now with us” washes the feet of lepers and then
kisses them. The ministry of the good queen Maud was thus carried on to
the fifth generation.
* * * * *
If history tells how Maud cared for lepers and provided for them in St.
Giles’, London, tradition relates that ADELA of LOUVAIN, the second
wife of Henry I, was herself a leper, and that she built St. Giles’,
Wilton. A Chantry Certificate reports that “Adulyce sometym quene of
Englande” was the founder. The present inmates of the almshouse are
naturally not a little puzzled by the modern inscription _Hospitium S.
Egidii Adelicia Reg. Hen. Fund_. The local legend was formerly to be
seen over the chapel door in a more intelligible and interesting form:—
“This hospitall of St. Giles was re-edified (1624) by John Towgood,
maior of Wilton, and his brethren, adopted patrons thereof, by the
gift of Queen Adelicia, wife unto King Henry [p074] the First. This
Adelicia was a leper. She had a windowe and dore from her lodgeing
into the chancell of the chapel, whence she heard prayer. She lieth
buried under a marble gravestone.”
Although in truth the widowed queen made a happy marriage with
William d’Albini, and, when she died, was buried in an abbey in
Flanders, she did endow a hospital at that royal manor—maybe to shelter
one of her ladies, whose affliction might give rise to the tale of “the
leprosy queen” and her ghost. When a person of rank became a leper, the
terrible fact was not disclosed when concealment was possible. This is
illustrated by another Wiltshire tradition—that of the endowment of the
lazar-house at Maiden Bradley by one of the heiresses of Manser Bisset,
dapifer of Henry II. The story is as old as Leland’s day; and Camden
says that she “being herselfe a maiden infected with the leprosie,
founded an house heere for maidens that were lepers, and endowed the
same with her owne Patrimonie and Livetide.” MARGARET BISSET was
certainly free from all taint of leprosy in 1237, when she sought and
gained permission to visit Eleanor of Brittany, the king’s cousin. She
was well known at court at this time, and a Patent Roll entry of 1242
records that:—“At the petition of Margery Byset, the king has granted
to the house of St. Matthew [_sic_], Bradeleg, and the infirm sisters
thereof, for ever, five marks yearly . . . which he had before granted
to the said Margery for life.” Another contemporary deed (among the
_Sarum Documents_) may support the legend of the leper-lady. It sets
forth how Margaret Bisset desired to lead a celibate and contemplative
life; and therefore left her lands to the leper-hospital of Maiden
Bradley on condition that she herself was maintained there. [p075]
Many famous churchmen, statesmen and warriors were hospital builders.
Among the episcopal founders who figured prominently in public affairs
were the following. RANULF FLAMBARD—“the most infamous prince of
publicans” under William Rufus—founded Kepier hospital, Durham. The
warlike HENRY de BLOIS, half-brother of Stephen, erected St. Cross near
Winchester. HUGH de PUISET, being, as Camden says, “very indulgently
compassionate to Lepres,” gathered them into his asylum at Sherburn,
but it is hinted that his bounty was not altogether honestly come by.
Again, “the high-souled abbot” SAMPSON—he who dared to oppose Prince
John and also visited Richard in captivity—was the founder of St.
Saviour’s, at Bury St. Edmunds.
Even in the troublous days of Stephen there were barons who were tender
towards the afflicted. WILLIAM LE GROS, lord of Holderness, was one of
these. He was the founder of St. Mary Magdalene’s, Newton-by-Hedon, for
a charter speaks of “the infirm whom William, Earl of Albemarle, placed
there.” The _Chartulary of Whitby_ relates how the earl—“a mighty
man and of great prowess and power”—was wasting the eastern parts of
Yorkshire. Nevertheless he “was a lover of the poor and especially of
lepers and was accustomed to distribute freely to them large alms.”
Abbot Benedict therefore bethought him of a plan whereby he might save
the threatened cow-pastures of the abbey from devastation: he permitted
the cattle belonging to the Whitby hospital to join the herds of the
convent; consequently the earl was merciful to that place on account of
the lepers, and the herds fed together henceforth undisturbed.
[Illustration: 11. THE TOMB OF RAHERE
(Founder and first prior of St. Bartholomew’s)]
Another charitable lord was RANULF de [p076] GLANVILL—“justiciary
of the realm of England and the king’s eye”—who with his wife Berta
founded a leper-hospital at West Somerton upon land granted to him by
Henry II. His nephew GILBERT de GLANVILL built St. Mary’s, Strood,
near his cathedral city of Rochester (_circa_ 1193); the loyal bishop
declaring in his charter that it was founded amongst other things
“for the reformation of Christianity in the Holy Land and for the
liberation of Richard the illustrious king of England.” After the royal
captive had been freed, he endowed his faithful friend’s foundation
with seven hundred acres of land. Among the leading men of the day
who built hospitals were Geoffrey Fitz-Peter and William Briwere,
Peter des Roches and Hubert de Burgh, together with Hugh and Joceline
of Wells. Yet another distinguished bishop of this period must be
[p077] mentioned, namely, WALTER de SUFFIELD, who was very liberal to
the poor, especially in his city of Norwich. During his lifetime he
established St. Giles’ and drew up its statutes. He directed that as
often as any bishop of the See went by, he should enter and give his
blessing to the sick, and that the occasion should be marked by special
bounty. His will shows a most tender solicitude for the welfare of the
house, which he commended to his successor and his executors.
Benefactors included not only men eminent in church and state, but
“others of divers estates,” clerical and lay commoners. Foremost
of these stands RAHERE, born of low lineage, but court-minstrel
and afterwards priest. In obedience to a vision, he determined to
undertake the foundation of a hospital. He sought help from the Bishop
of London, by whose influence he obtained from Henry I the site of
St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield. While many founders are forgotten, men
delight to honour Rahere. The chronicler, who had talked with those who
remembered him, records how he sympathized with the tribulation of the
wretched, how he recognized their need, supported them patiently, and
finally helped them on their way. Rahere’s character is delightfully
portrayed in the _Book of the Foundation_:—
“whoose prouyd puryte of soule, bryght maners with honeste probyte,
experte diligence yn dyuyne seruyce, prudent besynes yn temperalle
mynystracyun, in hym were gretely to prayse and commendable.”
Other clerical founders include William, Dean of Chichester (St.
Mary’s), Walter the Archdeacon (St. John’s, Northampton), Peter the
chaplain (Lynn), Guarin the [p078] chaplain (Cricklade), Walter,
Vicar of Long Stow, etc. HUGH THE HERMIT was reckoned the founder of
Cockersand hospital, which grew into an abbey:—
“Be it noted that the monastery was furst founded by Hugh Garthe, an
heremyt of great perfection, and by such charitable almes as [he] dyd
gather in the countre he founded an hospitall.”
The leading townsfolk of England have long proved themselves
generous. GERVASE of Southampton is in the forefront of a line of
merchant-princes and civic rulers who have also been benefactors of
the needy. Gervase “le Riche” was evidently a capitalist, and it is
recorded that he lent moneys to Prince John. His responsible office was
that of portreeve; it may be that while exercising it, he witnessed
sick pilgrims disembark and was moved to help them. Certainly, about
the year 1185, Gervase built God’s House (Pl. VII) beside the quay,
and his brother Roger became the first warden. Leland’s version is as
follows:—
“Thys Hospitale was foundyd by 2 Marchauntes beyng Bretherne
[whereof] the one was caullyd Ge[rvasius] the other Protasius. . . .
These 2 Brethern, as I there lernid, dwellyd yn the very Place wher
the Hospitale is now. . . . These 2 Brethern for Goddes sake cause[d]
their House to be turnid to an Hospitale for poore Folkes, and
endowed it with sum Landes.”
Among other citizen-founders of this period may be named Walter and
Roesia Brune, founders of St. Mary’s, Bishopsgate, London; Hildebrand
le Mercer, of Norwich; and William Prodom and John Long, of Exeter.
[p079]
[Illustration: _PLATE VII._ GOD’S HOUSE, SOUTHAMPTON]
THIRD PERIOD (1272–1540)
Few royal builders or benefactors can be named at this time. EDWARD
I, who, from various motives, set his face like a flint against the
Jews, was a beneficent patron to those who were prepared to submit to
Baptism; and he reorganized and endowed his father’s House of Converts.
His charity, however, was of a somewhat belligerent character and
partook of the nature of a crusade. He was always extremely harsh
towards the unconverted Jew; his early training as champion of the
Cross in the Holy Land helped to make him zealous in ridding his own
kingdom of unbelievers. But before finally expelling them, he did
his best for their conversion, enlisting the help of the trained
and eloquent Dominican brethren. Edward with justice ordained that
as by custom the goods of the converts became the king’s, he should
henceforth “provide healthfully for their maintenance”; and he granted
them a moiety of their property when they became, by Baptism, “sons
and faithful members of the Church.” The chevage, or Jewish poll-tax,
and certain other Jewish payments, were appropriated to the _Domus
Conversorum_, over £200 being paid annually from the Exchequer.
Edward took an interest in “the king’s converts” and drew up careful
regulations for them. ELEANOR, his consort, was a benefactor of the
royal hospital near the Tower, and she was also by tradition the
founder of St. John’s, Gorleston.
The unhappy RICHARD II desired in his will that five or six thousand
marks should be devoted to the maintenance of lepers at Westminster and
Bermondsey.[58] [p080] The reference to “the chaplains celebrating
before them for us” seems to imply that the king was the patron if
not the founder; possibly one house was that of Knightsbridge. The
will of HENRY VII provided for the erection of three great charitable
institutions. He was at least liberal in this, that he began in his
lifetime the conversion of his palace of Savoy into a noble hospital.
(Pl. XIV.) Its completion at the cost of 10,000 marks was the only
part of his plan carried out, and of the 40,000 marks designed to be
similarly expended at York and Coventry, nothing more is heard.
The great lords of this period who were founders are led by two
distinguished kinsmen and counsellors of Edward III—each a HENRY of
LANCASTER and Steward of England. The father, when he was becoming
blind, erected St. Mary’s at Leicester for fifty poor (1330), and
his son doubled the foundation. RICHARD, EARL of ARUNDEL—the victor
of Sluys—began to found the Maison Dieu, Arundel, in 1380, but he
was executed on a charge of treason; and the work ceased until his
son, having obtained fresh letters-patent from Henry V (1423), set
himself to complete the design. Several notable veterans of the French
campaign may be mentioned as hospital builders, namely, MICHAEL de la
POLE (Kingston-upon-Hull), SIR ROBERT KNOLLES (Pontefract), WALTER,
LORD HUNGERFORD (Heytesbury) and WILLIAM de la POLE (Ewelme); when
the latter became unpopular and was executed as a traitor, his wife
Alice—called on her tomb _fundatrix_—completed the building and
endowment of God’s House. (Pl. XVII.)
[Illustration: _PLATE VIII._ HOSPITAL OF ST. CROSS, WINCHESTER
GATEWAY AND DWELLINGS BUILT BY CARDINAL BEAUFORT]
Although the benevolence of bishops now chiefly took the form of
educational institutions, some well-known prelates [p081] erected
hospitals. BUBWITH—Treasurer of England under Henry IV—planned St.
Saviour’s, Wells, but it was not begun in his lifetime. BEAUFORT—Lord
Chancellor and Cardinal—refounded St. Cross, but, owing to the York and
Lancaster struggle, the design was not fully carried out. His rival
CHICHELE—the faithful Primate of Henry V—built not only All Souls,
Oxford, but the bede-house at Higham Ferrers. There is a tradition
that while keeping the sheep by the riverside he was met by William of
Wykeham, who recognized his talents and provided for his education.
He afterwards desired to found a college in the place where he was
baptized, and of this the almshouse formed part. WILLIAM SMYTH—founder
of Brasenose—restored St. John’s during his short episcopate at
Lichfield. When translated to Lincoln, he turned his attention to St.
John’s, Banbury, and bequeathed £100 towards erecting and repairing its
buildings, in addition to £60 already bestowed upon it. “This man,”
says Fuller, “wheresoever he went, may be followed by the perfume of
Charity he left behind him.”
It was undoubtedly townsfolk who were the principal founders of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The name of many an old
merchant-prince is still a household word in his native place, where
some institution remains as a noble record of his bounty. St. John’s,
Winchester, for example, was erected by an alderman, JOHN DEVENISH, its
revenues being increased by another of the family and by a later mayor;
and the memory of benefactors was kept fresh by a “love-feast and merry
meeting” on the Sunday after Midsummer Day. WILLIAM ELSYNG established
a large almshouse near Cripplegate. He was a mercer of influential
position, being given a licence to travel in the [p082] king’s
service beyond seas with Henry of Lancaster; and it may have been this
nobleman’s charitable work in Leicester that inspired the foundation
known as “Our Lady of Elsyngspital.”
A more famous London mercer, RICHARD WHITTINGTON, proved himself the
“model merchant of the Middle Ages”; Lysons records his manifold
beneficent deeds. Although he did not live long enough to carry out
all his schemes, his executors completed them, and in particular, the
almshouse attached to St. Michael Royal. In a deed drawn up after
his death (1423) and now preserved in the Mercers’ Hall, is a fine
pen-and-ink sketch which depicts the passing of this “father of the
poor.” (Pl. IX.) John Carpenter and other friends stand round the sick
man; nor are we left in doubt as to the significance of the group at
the foot of the bed—evidently twelve bedemen, led by one who holds a
rosary in token of his intercessory office—it being recorded in the
document that:—
“the foresayde worthy and notable merchaunt, Richard Whittington, the
which while he leued had ryght liberal and large hands to the needy
and poure people, charged streitly on his death bed us his foresayde
executors to ordeyne a house of almes, after his death . . . and
thereupon fully he declared his will unto us.”[59]
The same benefactor not only repaired St. Bartholomew’s, but added a
refuge for women to St. Thomas’, Southwark, as is set forth by William
Gregory, one of Whittington’s successors in the mayoralty:—
[Illustration: _PLATE IX._ THE DEATH OF RICHARD WHITTINGTON]
“And that nobyl marchaunt Rycharde Whytyngdon, made a new
chamby[r] with viij beddys for yong weme[n] that hadde done a-mysse
in truste of a good mendement. And he [p083] commaundyd that alle
the thyngys that ben don in that chambyr shulde be kepte secrete
with owte forthe, yn payne of lesynge of hyr leuynge; for he wolde
not shame no yonge women in noo wyse, for hyt myght be cause of hyr
lettyng of hyr maryage.”
“Verily,” we exclaim with Lysons, “there seems to be no end to the good
deeds of this good man.”
Nor were other places without their public-spirited townsmen. Unlike
“Dick” Whittington who died childless, THOMAS ELLIS left twenty-three
sons and daughters: nevertheless this large-hearted draper provided an
almshouse for his poorer neighbours in Sandwich.
The wealth of WILLIAM BROWNE of Stamford and of ROGER THORNTON
of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was proverbial when Leland visited those
industrial centres and saw the charities which they had established.
Browne, founder of the bede-house (Fig. 5), “was a Marchant of a very
wonderful Richeness.” Thornton, a very poor man, reported to have been
a pedlar, who rose to be nine times mayor, was remembered as “the
richest Marchaunt that ever was dwelling in Newcastelle.” While in
this way many that were rich made offerings of their abundance, there
were those, too, who gave of their penury. Such was “ADAM RYPP, of
Whittlsey, a poor man, who began to build a Poor’s Hospital there, but
had not sufficient means to finish it.” His work was commended to the
faithful by briefs from Bishop Fordham of Ely (1391–4).
TOMBS OF FOUNDERS AND BENEFACTORS
[Illustration: 12. JOHN BARSTAPLE
(Burgess of Bristol)]
Many benefactors associated themselves so closely with their bedemen
that they desired to be buried within the precincts of the hospital.
Robert de Meulan, one of the [p084] Conqueror’s lords, is said to have
founded and endowed Brackley hospital, where his heart was embalmed.
His descendant, Roger, Earl of Winchester, a considerable benefactor in
the time of Henry III, “ordered a measure to be made for corn in the
shape of a coffin, and gave directions that it should be placed on the
right side of the shrine, in which the heart of Margaret his mother
lay intombed,” providing that it should be filled thrice in a year for
ever for the use of the hospital.[60] The chapel [p085] continued to
be a favourite place of interment, for Leland says:—“There ly buryed in
Tumbes dyvers Noble Men and Women.” Bishop Suffield directed that if he
should die away from Norwich—as he afterwards did—his heart should be
placed near the altar in the church of St. Giles’ hospital. The blind
and aged Henry of Lancaster and Leicester was buried in his hospital
church, the royal family and a great company being present (1345); and
there likewise his son was laid. Few founders’ tombs remain undisturbed
in a spot still hallowed by divine worship, but some have happily
escaped destruction. Rahere has an honoured place at St. Bartholomew’s.
The mailed effigy of Sir Henry de Sandwich—lord warden of the Cinque
Ports—remains in the humbler St. Bartholomew’s near Sandwich. The
fine alabaster monument of Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, is in perfect
preservation at Ewelme. The rebuilt chapel of Trinity Hospital,
Bristol, retains a monumental brass of the founder (Fig. 12) and his
wife.
AIMS AND MOTIVES OF BENEFACTORS
It is sometimes asserted that the almsgiving of the Middle Ages was
done from a selfish motive, namely, that spiritual benefits might be
reaped by the donor. Indeed it is possible that the giver then, like
some religious people in every age, was apt to be more absorbed in the
salvation of self than in the service of others; but the testimony
of deeds and charters is that the threefold aim of such a man was to
fulfil at once his duty towards God, his neighbour, and himself. That
he was often imbued with a true ministering spirit is shown by his
personal care for the comfort of [p086] inmates. Doubtless the hidden
springs of charity were as diverse as they are now: not every name on
a modern subscription list represents one that “considereth the poor.”
No one could imagine, for instance, that Queen Maud and King John had a
common motive in their charity to lepers; or that the bishops Wulstan
and Peter des Roches were animated by the same impulse when they
provided for the wants of wayfarers.
The alleged motives of some benefactors are revealed in documents.
Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, refers to St. Cross—“which I for
the health of my soul and the souls of my predecessors and of the kings
of England have founded . . . that the poor in Christ may there humbly
and devotedly serve God.” Herbert, Bishop of Salisbury, in making a
grant to clothe the lepers of a hospital in Normandy, says that:—“Among
all Christ’s poor whom a bishop is bound to protect and support, those
should be specially cared for whom it has pleased God to deprive
of bodily power,” and these poor inmates “in the sorrow of fleshly
affliction offer thanks to the Lord for their benefactors with a joyous
mind.” Matthew Paris writes of Henry III that “he being touched with
the Holy Ghost and moved with a regard to pity, ordained a certain
famous hospital at Oxon.”
In the case of Rahere, the foundation of St. Bartholomew’s was an act
of gratitude for deliverance from death, and the practical outcome of a
vision and a sick-bed vow. While Rahere tarried at Rome,
“he began to be uexed with greuous sykenesse, and his doloures,
litill and litill, takynge ther encrese, he drew to the extremyte of
lyf. . . . Albrake owte in terys, than he auowyd yf helthe God hym
wolde grawnte, that he myght lefully returne to his contray, [p087]
he wolde make and hospitale yn recreacion of poure men, and to them
so there i gaderid, necessaries mynystir, after his power.”
Now and again a benefactor evinces deep religious feelings, as shown in
the charter of Bishop Glanvill at the foundation of St. Mary’s, Strood:—
“Bearing in mind the saying of the Lord: ‘I was an hungred, and ye
gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger,
and ye took Me in;’ . . . And seeing that the Lord takes upon Himself
the needs of those who suffer . . . we have founded a hospital in
which to receive and cherish the poor, weak and infirm.”
Another founder showed the zeal of Apostolic days; a layman of
Stamford, Brand by name, made an offering to God and held nothing back.
This we learn from a papal document (_circa_ 1174):—
“Alexander the bishop to his beloved son Brand de Fossato, greeting
. . . we having, been given to understand . . . that you, guided by
divine inspiration, having sold all you did possess, have erected a
certain hospital and chappel . . . where you have chose to exhibit a
perpetual offering to your creator.”[61]
The meritorious aspect of almsgiving was sometimes uppermost. Hugh
Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, in founding his hospital at Ledbury, sets
forth the importance and advantage of exercising hospitality. He
illustrates the point by the case of the patriarchs, who were signally
rewarded for their hospitality:—
“Bearing in mind therefore that . . . almost nothing is to be
preferred to hospitality, and that so great is its value that Lot and
[p088] Abraham who practised it were counted worthy to receive angels
for guests . . . we have built a certain hospital for strangers and
poor people.”
The Church continued to teach the imperative duty of almsgiving. It is
stated in the will of Henry VII that in the one act of establishing a
hospital the Seven Works of Mercy might be fulfilled:—
“And forasmuch as we inwardly consideir, that the vij. workes of
Charite and Mercy bee moost profitable, due and necessarie for
the saluation of man’s soule, and that the same vij. works stand
moost commonly in vj. of theim; that is to saye in uiseting the
sik, mynistring mete and drinke and clothing to the nedy, logging
of the miserable pouer, and burying of the dede bodies of cristen
people. . . . We therefor of our great pitie and compassion . . .
have begoune to erecte, buylde and establisshe a commune Hospital in
our place called the Sauoie . . . to the laude of God, the weale of
our soule, and the refresshing of the said pouer people, in daily,
nightly and hourely exploytyng the said vj. works of Mercy, Pitie,
and Charity.”
To the hospital which he had provided, the founder looked not only
for spiritual and temporal profit in this life, but above all for
help to his soul in the world to come. The desire for the prayers
of generations yet unborn was a strong incentive to charity. The
bede-houses testify to a purposeful belief in the availing power of
intercession. Thus the patrons of Ewelme speak in the statutes of
“prayoure, in the whiche we have grete trust and hope to oure grete
relefe and increce of oure merite and joy fynally.” The same faith is
expressed by the action of the merchants and mariners of Bristol in
1445. Because
“the crafte off maryners is so auenturous that dayly beyng in ther
uiages ben sore vexed, trobled and deseased and [p089] distried,
the which by gode menys of the prayers and gode werkes might be
graciously comforted and better releced of such trobles,”
they wished to found a fraternity to support, within the old hospital
of St. Bartholomew (Fig. 13), a priest and twelve poor seamen who
should pray for those labouring on the sea, or passing to and fro into
their port.
[Illustration: 13. ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL, BRISTOL
(Called in 1387 _the Domus Dei by Frome Bridge_)]
An earnest desire to make the world better is shown in one foundation
deed, dating probably from the middle of the fourteenth century. It
concerns Holy Trinity, Salisbury, erected by Agnes Bottenham on a spot
where a [p090] house of evil repute had existed “to the great perils
of souls”:—
“The founders, by means of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have
ordained thirty beds to the sustentation of the poor and infirm
daily resorting thither, and the seven works of charity are there
fulfilled. The hungry are fed, the thirsty have drink, the naked are
clothed, the sick are comforted, the dead are buried, the mad are
kept safe until they are restored to reason, orphans and widows are
nourished, lying-in women are cared for until they are delivered,
recovered and churched.”
The aim of pious benefactors was indeed the abiding welfare of their
bedemen. The hard-headed, warm-hearted business men of Croydon and
Stamford, no less than the ladies of Heytesbury and Ewelme, expressed
a hope that the _Domus Dei_ on earth might be a preparation for the
eternal House of God. In the words of the patrons of Ewelme, they
desired the poor men so to live:—
“that aftyr the state of this dedely [mortal] lyf they mowe come
and inhabit the howse of the kyngdome of heven, the which with oure
Lordes mouth is promysed to all men the which bene pore in spirit. So
be yt.”
FOOTNOTES:
[57] Camden Soc., 1838, pp. 82, 85.
[58] Rolls of Parl. 1 Henry IV, vol. iii. 421.
[59] T. Brewer, _Carpenter’s Life_, p. 26.
[60] Bridges’ _History_, I, 146,
[61] F. Peck’s _Annals of Stanford_, v. 15.
[p091]
CHAPTER VII
HOSPITAL INMATES
“_To the master and brethren of the hospital of St. Nicholas,
Scarborough.—Request to admit John de Burgh, chaplain, and grant
him maintenance for life, as John has been suddenly attacked by the
disease of leprosy, and has not wherewith to live and is unable
through shame to beg among Christians._” (Close Roll, 1342.)
Though a visit to a modern infirmary calls forth in us, doubtless,
passing thoughts of admiration for the buildings and the arrangements,
what draws most of us thither is the bond of brotherhood. It is the
inmates of the wards who are to us the centre of attraction. Looking
upon the sufferers, we desire to know their circumstances, their
complaints, their chance of cure. Nor is it otherwise in studying the
history of ancient institutions. The mere site of an old hospital may
become a place of real interest when we know something of those who
once dwelt there, when we _see_ the wayworn pilgrim knocking at the
gate, the infirm man bent with age, the paralysed bedridden woman, and
the stricken leper in his sombre gown, and realize what our forefathers
strove to do in the service of others.
In many cases the link between the first founder and first inmate was
very close, being the outcome of personal relations between master and
servant, feudal lord and tenant. It was so in the case of Orm, the
earliest hospital inmate whose name has been handed down to us. [p092]
This Yorkshireman, who lived near Whitby eight hundred years ago,
“was a good man and a just, but he was a leper.” The abbot, therefore,
having pity on him, founded a little asylum, in which Orm spent the
rest of his days, receiving from the abbey his portion of food and
drink. In the same way Hugh Kevelioc, Earl of Chester, built a retreat
outside Coventry for William de Anney, a knight of his household, which
was the origin of Spon hospital for the maintenance of such lepers as
should happen to be in the town.
(i) PERSONS MIRACULOUSLY CURED
In dealing with mediæval miracles it may not unnaturally be objected
that we are wandering from the paths of history into the fields of
fiction; but it is absolutely necessary to allude to them at some
length because they played so important a part in the romantic tales
of pilgrim-patients. We shall see that sufferers were constantly being
carried about in search of cure, and in some cases were undoubtedly
restored to health. This was an age of faith and therefore of infinite
possibilities. It would appear that “marvels” were worked not only
on certain nervous ailments, but on some deep-seated diseases. It is
a recognized fact that illness caused by emotion (as of grief) has
oftentimes been cured by emotion (as of hope). Possibly, too, not a
few of the persons restored to health were suffering from hysteria
and nervous affections, which complaints might be cured by change of
scene and excitement. In the _Book of the Foundation_ is the story of
a well-known man of Norwich who would not take care of his health,
and therefore “hadde lost the rest of slepe,” which alone keeps the
nature sound and whole. His [p093] insomnia became chronic, and by the
seventh year of his misfortune he became very feeble, and so thin that
his bones could be numbered. At length he betook himself to the relics
of St. Bartholomew; there, grovelling on the ground, he multiplied his
prayers and began to sleep—“and whan he hadde slepte a grete while he
roys up hole.”
On the other hand the conviction is forced upon us that many, perhaps
most, of the so-called miracles were not genuine. Some diseases might
have been feigned by astute beggars. Although experienced doctors and
skilled nurses to-day are quick to detect cases, cleverly simulating
paralysis, epilepsy, etc., the staff in a mediæval hospital would
probably not discover the deception. When one such person became the
hero of a dramatic scene of healing, the officials would joyfully
acknowledge his cure, without intention of fraud. The narratives come
down to us through monk-chroniclers, whose zeal for their home-shrines
made them lend a quick ear to that which contributed to their fame. In
those days people were uncritical and were satisfied without minute
investigation.
[Illustration: 14. ST. BARTHOLOMEW
(Twelfth-century seal)]
There is, indeed, little information about early hospital inmates
unless they were fortunate enough to receive what was universally
believed in those days to be miraculous [p094] healing. Startling
incidents are related by contemporary writers, whose vivid and
picturesque narratives suggest that they had met witnesses of the
cures related. The twelfth-century chronicler of St. Bartholomew’s,
Smithfield, gives us eyes to see some of the patients of that famous
hospital.
(1) _Patients of St. Bartholomew’s._—The cripple Wolmer, a well-known
beggar who lay daily in St. Paul’s, was a most distressing case. He
was so deformed as to be obliged to drag himself along on all fours,
supporting his hands on little wooden stools. (Cf. Pl. XX.) His story
is extracted from Dr. Norman Moore’s valuable edition of the faithful
English version of the _Liber Fundacionis_, dating about the year 1400.
“There was an sykeman Wolmer be name with greuous and longe langoure
depressid, and wrecchid to almen that hym behylde apperyd, his feit
destitute of naturall myght hyng down, hys legges cleuyd to his
thyis, part of his fyngerys returnyd to the hande, restynge alwey
uppon two lytyll stolys, the quantite of his body, to hym onerous, he
drew aftir hym. . . .”
For thirty winters Wolmer remained in this sad condition, until at
length he was borne by his friends in a basket to the newly-founded
hospital of St. Bartholomew, where his cure was wrought by a miracle as
he lay extended before the altar in the church:—
“. . . and by and by euery crokidness of his body a litill &
litill losid, he strecchid un to grownde his membris & so anoon
auawntynge hym self up warde, all his membris yn naturale ordir was
disposid. . . .”
The scene of this incident was, presumably, that noble building which
we still see (Fig. 11), and which was then [p095] fresh from the hand
of the Norman architect and masons.
Aldwyn, a carpenter from Dunwich, once occupied a place in St.
Bartholomew’s. His limbs were as twisted and useless as those of
Wolmer; his sinews being contracted, he could use neither hand nor
foot. Brought by sea to London, the cripple was “put yn the hospitall
of pore men,” where awhile he was sustained. Bit by bit he regained
power in his hands, and when discharged was able to exercise his craft
once more.
Again the veil of centuries is lifted and we see the founder himself
personally interested in the patients. A woman was brought into the
hospital whose tongue was so terribly swollen that she could not close
her mouth. Rahere offered to God and to his patron prayer on her behalf
and then applied his remedy:—
“And he reuolvynge his relikys that he hadde of the Crosse, he depid
them yn water & wysshe the tonge of the pacient ther with, & with the
tree of lyif, that ys with the same signe of the crosse, paynted the
tokyn of the crosse upon the same tonge. And yn the same howre all
the swellynge wente his way, & the woman gladde & hole went home to
here owne.”
Perhaps the most startling cure was that of a maid deaf, dumb, blind
of both eyes and crippled. Brought by her parents to the festival of
St. Bartholomew in the year 1173, she was delivered from every bond of
sickness. Anon she went “joyfull skippyng forth”; her eyes clear, her
hearing repaired, “she ran to the table of the holy awter, spredyng
owte bothe handys to heuyn and so she that a litill beforne was dum
joyng in laude of God [p096] perfitly sowndyd her wordes”; then weeping
for joy she went to her parents affirming herself free from all
infirmity.
In the foregoing narratives it will be noticed that hospital and shrine
were adjacent. This convenient combination not being found elsewhere,
incurable patients were carried to pilgrimage-places. Two of the
chief wonder-workers were St. Godric of Finchale and St. Thomas of
Canterbury, who both died in 1170. Reginald of Durham narrates the cure
by their instrumentality of three inmates from northern hospitals.[62]
(2) _The Paralytic Girl and the Crippled Youth._—A young woman who had
lost the use of one side by paralysis, was brought from the hospital
of Sedgefield (near Durham) to Finchale, where the same night she
recovered health. The poor cripple of York was not cured so rapidly.
Utterly powerless, his arms and feet twisted after the manner of
knotted ropes, this most wretched youth had spent years in St. Peter’s
hospital. At length he betook himself as best he could to Canterbury,
where he received from St. Thomas health on one side of his body.
It grieved him that he was not worthy to be completely cured, but
learning from many witnesses the fame of St. Godric, he hastened to
his sepulchre; falling down there, he lay in weakness for some time,
then, rising up, found the other side of his body absolutely recovered.
The lad returned home whole and upright, and this notable miracle was
attested by many who knew him, and by the procurator of the hospital.
(3) _A Leper Maiden._—The touching tale of a girl who was eventually
released from the lazar-house near [p097] Darlington (Bathelspitel) is
also related by Reginald, and transcribed by Longstaffe.
“There is a vill in the bishopric called Hailtune
[Haughton-le-Skerne] in which dwelt a widow and her only daughter
who was grievously tormented with a most loathsome leprosy. The
mother remarried a man who soon began to view the poor girl with the
greatest horror, and to torment and execrate her. . . . She fled for
aid to the priest of the vill, who, moved with compassion, procured
by his entreaties the admission of the damsel to the hospital of
Dernigntune [Darlington], which was almost three miles distant, and
was called Badele.”
There the maiden remained three years, growing daily worse. After
describing her horrible symptoms and wasted frame, the chronicler
narrates her marvellous cure at Finchale. Thrice did the devoted mother
take her thither until the clemency of St. Godric was outpoured and
“he settled and removed the noxious humours.” When at length the girl
threw back the close hood, her mother beheld her perfectly sound. The
scene of this pitiful arrival and glad departure was that beautiful
spot at the bend of the river Weir, now marked by picturesque ruins.
The complete recovery was attested by all, including the sheriff and
the kind priest, Normanrus. We reluctantly lose sight of the delivered
damsel, wondering whether the cruel step-father received her less
roughly when she got home. It is simply recorded that never did the
disease return, and that she lived long to extol the power given by God
to His servant Godric.
(4) _A Taunton Monk._—Seldom do we know the after-life of such
patients, but a touching picture shows us one cleansed of his leprosy,
serving his former fellow-inmates. This was John King, a monk of
Taunton Priory. Prior [p098] Stephen tells how he was smitten with
terrible and manifest leprosy, on which account he was transferred to
a certain house of poor people, where he stayed for more than a year
among the brethren. The prior’s letter, after declaring how the fame of
St. Thomas was growing throughout the world, refers to divers miracles,
by one of which John was completely cured. Returning from Canterbury,
he was authorized to gather alms for his former companions:—
“We . . . earnestly implore your loving good will for the love of God
and St. Thomas, that you listen to the dutiful prayer of our brother
John, wonderfully restored to health by God, if you have power to
grant it. For he earnestly begs you to help by your labour and your
alms the poverty of those sick men whose company he enjoyed so
long.”[63]
Two similar instances of service are recorded. Nicholas, a cripple
child cured at St. Bartholomew’s, was sent for a while to serve in
the kitchen,—“for the yifte of his helth, he yave the seruyce of his
body.” In the same way a blind man who had been miraculously cured by
the merit of St. Wulstan (1221), afterwards took upon himself the habit
of a professed brother in the hospital of that saint in Worcester. He
had been a pugilist and had lost his sight in a duel, but having become
a peaceable brother of mercy, he lived there honourably for a long
while.[64]
(ii) CROWN PENSIONERS
Leaving the chronicles, and turning to state records, we find that
the sick, impotent and leprous were recipients of royal favour. An
early grant of maintenance was [p099] made in 1235 to Helen, a blind
woman of Faversham whom Henry III caused to be received as a sister
at Ospringe hospital. Similar grants were made from time to time to
faithful retainers, veteran soldiers or converted Jews (who were the
king’s wards).
_Old Servants, Soldiers, etc._—The most interesting pensioners were
veterans who had served in Scotland and France. The year of the battle
of Bannockburn (1314), a man was sent to Brackley whose hand had been
inhumanly cut off by Scotch rebels.[65] There are several instances of
persons maimed in the wars who were sent for maintenance to various
hospitals. One of the many grants of Richard II was made—“out of
regard for Good Friday”—to an aged servant, that he should be one of
the king’s thirteen poor bedemen of St. Giles’, Wilton. Another of
Richard II’s retainers, a yeoman, was generously offered maintenance at
Puckeshall by Henry IV.[66]
_Jewish Converts._—The House of Converts was akin to a modern
industrial home for destitute Jewish Christians, inmates being kept
busily employed in school and workshop. During the century following
the foundation of these “hospitals,” many converts are named, _Eve_,
for instance, was received at Oxford, and _Christiana_ in London.
Usually admitted after baptism, they were enrolled under their new
names. _Philip_ had been baptized upon St. Philip and St. James’ Day,
and _Robert Grosseteste_ was possibly godson of the bishop. Converts
were brought from all parts. We find John and William of Lincoln,
Isabel of Bristol and her boy, [p100] Isabel of Cambridge, Emma of
Ipswich, etc.[67] A century later pensioners must have been immigrants,
since all Jews resident in England had been expelled in 1290. A Flemish
Jew, baptized at Antwerp in the presence of Edward III, was granted
permission to dwell in the London institution with a life-pension of
2_d._ a day:—
“Inasmuch as our beloved Edward of Brussels has recently abandoned
the superstitious errors of Judaism . . . and because we rejoice in
Christ over his conversion, and lest he should recede from the path
of truth upon which he has entered, because of poverty . . . we have
granted to him a suitable home in our House of Converts.”
Theobald de Turkie, “a convert to the Catholic Faith,” was afterwards
received, together with pensioners from Spain, Portugal, France, and
Italy. A chamber was granted to Agnes, an orphan Jewess of tender
age and destitute of friends, the child of a convert-godson of
Edward II. A later inmate, of whose circumstances we would fain know
more, was Elizabeth, daughter of Rabbi Moyses, called “bishop of the
Jews” (1399). Converts frequently had royal sponsors. Henry V stood
godfather to Henry Stratford, who lived in the _Domus Conversorum_
from 1416–1441. There was a certain risk in being called after the
sovereign, nor was it unknown for the king’s converts to change their
names. As late as 1532 Katharine of Aragon and Princess Mary stood
sponsor to two Jewesses.
(iii) INMATES OF SOME LAZAR-HOUSES
(1) _Lincoln Invalids._—Near Lincoln is a spot still pointed out as
the “Lepers’ Field.” Formerly it was known as the Mallardry or as Holy
Innocents’ hospital. [p101] Had one visited this place in the days of
Edward I, ten of the king’s servants—lepers or decrepit persons—would
have been found there, together with two chaplains and certain
brethren and sisters. Thomas, a maimed clerk, was one of the staff,
but after thirty years he incurred the jealousy of his companions, who
endeavoured to ruin his character while he was absent on business.
Brother Thomas appealed to the king, and justice was administered
(1278). Some time afterwards the household became so quarrelsome that
the king issued a writ, and a visitation was held in 1291 to set
matters straight. In 1290 William le Forester was admitted to the
lepers’ quarters, his open-air life not having saved him from disease.
Dionysia, a widow, took up her abode as a sister the same year, and
remained until her death, when another leper was assigned her place.
An old servant of the house past work was admitted as pensioner, and
also a blind and aged retainer whose faithfulness had reduced him to
poverty, he having served in Scotland and having moreover lost all his
horses, waggons and goods in the Welsh rebellion. But strangest of
all the residents in the hospital of Holy Innocents was the condemned
criminal Margaret Everard. She was not a leper, but had once been
numbered among the dead. Mistress Everard, of Burgh-by-Waynflete, was
a widow, convicted of “harbouring a thief, namely, Robert her son,
and hanged on the gallows without the south gate of Lincoln.” Now the
law did not provide interment for its victims, but it seems that the
Knights Hospitallers of Maltby paid a yearly sum to the lepers for
undertaking this work of mercy at Canwick.[68] On this memorable [p102]
occasion, however, the body being cut down and already removed near
the place of burial—the lepers’ churchyard—the woman “was seen to draw
a breath and revive.” We learn from a Patent Roll entry (1284) that
pardon was afterwards granted to Margaret “because her recovery is
ascribed to a miracle, and she has lived two years and more in the said
hospital.”
(2) _The Lancastrian falconer and Yorkist yeoman._—A certain Arnald
Knyght, who had been falconer to Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI,
caused a habitation to be built for himself on the site of the hospital
by the Whiteditch, near Rochester, in order that there he might spend
his days in divine service. In consideration of his age and of his
infirmity of leprosy, Henry VI granted to Arnald and Geraldine his
wife not only the building recently erected, but the lands and rents
of St. Nicholas’ hospital. Edward IV afterwards granted a parcel of
land between Highgate and Holloway to a certain leper-yeoman “to the
intent that he may build a hospital for the relief of divers persons
smitten with this sickness and destitute.” This man—half-founder,
half-inmate—soon succumbed, for a record four years later states that
“the new lazar-house at Highgate which the king lately caused to be
made for William Pole . . . now deceased” was granted for life to
another leper, Robert Wylson, a saddler, who had served well “in divers
fields and elsewhere.”[69]
(3) _The Mayor of Exeter._—Shortly before 1458, St. Mary Magdalene’s,
Exeter, had a prominent inmate in the sometime mayor, Richard Orenge.
In 1438 Richard William, [p103] _alias_ Richard Orenge, is mentioned
as a tailor; he is also described as being a man of French extraction
and of noble family. Once he had been official patron of the asylum,
but when the blow fell, he threw in his lot with those to whom he had
formerly been bountiful. There, Izacke says, he finished his days and
was buried in the chapel.
[Illustration: 15. SEAL OF KNIGHTSBRIDGE HOSPITAL]
(4) _Two Norfolk lepers._—We learn incidentally through a lawsuit
that about the year 1475 the vicar of Foulsham, Thomas Wood, was in
seclusion in a London lazar-house:—“and nowe it is said God hathe
visited the seid parsone with the sekenes of lepre and is in the
Spitell howse of knygtyes brygge beside Westminster.”[70] Why the
priest came up from the country to Knightsbridge does not appear; it
would seem, however, that the Norfolk manor was temporarily in the
king’s hands, so that possibly the crown bailiff procured his removal.
One of the latest leper-inmates whose name is recorded ended his days
at Walsingham. The patron of the Spital-house left it in 1491 to John
Ederyche, a leper of Norwich, and Cecily his wife, stipulating that
after their decease, one or two lepers—“men of good conversation and
honest disposition”—should be maintained there. [p104]
(iv) SOLITARY OUTCASTS
It must not be supposed that there were no lepers save those living
in community. To use the old phrase, there was the man who dwelt in a
several house and he who was forced to join the congregation without
the camp. To lepers “whether recluses or living together” the Bishop of
Norwich bequeathed five pounds (1256). Hermit-lazar and hospital-lazar
alike fulfilled the legal requirement of separation. It may be noticed
that the service at seclusion implies that the outcast may dwell alone.
In early records, before the king habitually imposed “corrodies” on
charitable institutions, pensioners are named who were not inhabiting
lazar-houses. Philip the clerk was assigned a tenement in Portsmouth,
which was afterwards granted to God’s House on condition that Philip
was maintained for life, or that provision was made for him to go to
the Holy Land (1236). Long afterwards, in 1394, Richard II pensioned a
groom of the scullery from the Exchequer, but provided for one of his
esquires in a hospital.[71]
In hermitage and hospital alike service was rendered to the leper in
his loneliness. The little cell and chapel at Roche in Cornwall is said
to have been a place of seclusion for one “diseased with a grievous
leprosy.” Since no leper might draw from a spring, his daughter Gundred
fetched him water from the well and daily ministered to his wants.
Mediæval poems tell of solitary or wandering lepers as well as of those
residing in communities. In the romance _Amis and Amiloun_, the gentle
knight is stricken with [p105] leprosy. His lady fair and bright
expels him from his own chamber. He eats at the far end of the high
table until the lady refuses to feed a _mesel_ at her board—“he is so
foule a thing.” His presence becoming intolerable, a little lodge is
built half a mile from the gate. The child Owen alone is found to serve
Sir Amiloun, fetching food for his master until he is denied succour
and driven away. Knight and page betake themselves to a shelter near
a neighbouring market-town, and depend for a time upon the alms of
passers-by. The next stage is that of wandering beggars.[72]
In the _Testament of Cresseid_ the leper-heroine begged to go in secret
wise to the hospital, where, being of noble kin, they took her in with
the better will. She was conveyed thither by her father, who daily
sent her part of his alms. But Cresseid could not be resigned to her
affliction, and in a dark corner of the house alone, weeping, she made
her moan. A leper-lady, an old inmate, tries in vain to reconcile her
to her fate—it is useless to spurn herself against the wall, and tears
do but double her woe—but in vain:—
“Thus chiding with her drerie destenye,
Weiping scho woik the nicht fra end to end.”
This “Complaynt of Cresseid” is affecting in its description of the
lamentable lot of a woman whose high estate is turned into dour
darkness: for her bower a leper-lodge; for her bed a bunch of straw;
for wine and meat mouldy bread and sour cider. Her beautiful face is
deformed, and her carolling voice, hideous as a rook’s. Under these sad
conditions, Cresseid dwells for the rest of her life in the spital.[73]
FOOTNOTES:
[62] Surtees Soc., Vol. 20, pp. 376, 432–3, 456–7.
[63] Chron. and Mem., 67, i. 428–9.
[64] Chron. and Mem., 36, iv. p. 413.
[65] Close 8 Edw. II, m. 35 _d_.
[66] Pat. 8 Ric. II, pt. ii. m. 22; 9 Hen. IV, pt. ii. m. 14.
[67] Close Rolls _passim_.
[68] P.R.O. Chanc. Misc. Bundle 20, No. 10.
[69] Pat. 21 Hen. VI, pt. i. m. 35, pt. ii. m. 16; 12 Edw. IV, pt. ii.
m. 6; 17 Edw. IV, pt. i. m. 1.
[70] P.R.O., Early Chancery Proceedings, Bundle 60, No. 93.
[71] Pat. 20 Hen. III, m. 13; 17 Ric. II, pt. ii. m. 14.
[72] H. M. Weber, _Metrical Romances_, II, 269.
[73] R. Henryson, _Testament of Cresseid_ (Bannatyne Club).
[p106]
CHAPTER VIII
HOSPITAL DWELLINGS
“_He_” [_Lanfranc_] “_built a fair and large house of stone, and
added to it several habitations for the various needs and convenience
of the men, together with an ample plot of ground._” (Eadmer’s
History.)
The Canterbury monk mentions the foundation of Archbishop Lanfranc’s
two hospitals. The lepers’ dwellings on the hill-side at Harbledown
were merely wooden houses. The architecture of St. John’s was more
striking: _lapideam domum decentem et amplam construxit_. The edifice
(_palatium_) was divided in two parts, to accommodate men and women.
As Eadmer was living until 1124, he saw the hospital shortly after its
erection. He may even have watched the Norman masons complete it, and
the first infirm occupants take up their abode.
Before considering the plan of hospital buildings, it will be
of interest to learn how they impressed men of those days. The
twelfth-century writer of the _Book of the Foundation_ betrays his
unfeigned admiration of St. Bartholomew’s. The hospital house was at a
little distance from the church, which was “made of cumly stoonewerke
tabylwyse.” The traditional commencement of the work was that Rahere
playfully acted the fool, and thus drew to himself a good-natured
company of children and servants: “with ther use and helpe stonys and
othir thynges profitable to the bylynge, lightly he gaderyd to [p107]
gedyr,” until at length “he reysid uppe a grete frame.” When all was
finished and he had set up the sign of the cross “who shulde not be
astonyd, ther to se, constructe and bylyd thonorable byldynge of pite.”
Matthew Paris gives sketches and brief descriptions of three hospitals
in his _Chronica Major_.[74] St. Giles’, near London—“the memorial of
Matilda the Queen”—seems to consist of hall and chapel with an eastern
tower and another small tower at the south-west (Fig. 10); of the
_Domus Conversorum_, London, he says, “Henry built a decent church, fit
for a conventual congregation, with other buildings adjoining” (Fig.
3); St. John’s, Oxford, he calls _quoddam nobile hospitale_. (Fig. 1.)
The chronicler died in 1259, and these sketches were probably made
about ten years previously, when the two latter houses were newly built.
[Illustration: 16. HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN, EXETER]
[Illustration: 17. HOSPITAL OF ST. ALEXIS, EXETER]
Two thirteenth-century seals depict hospitals at Exeter. Mr. Birch
describes that of St. John’s as “a church-like [p108] building of
rectangular ground-plan, with an arcade of three round-headed arches
along the nave, roof of ornamental shingles, and crosses at the
gable-ends.” The artist contrives to show not only one side, but one
end, apparently the west front, with entrance. (Fig. 16.) The other
seal is that of the neighbouring hospital of St. Alexis “behind St.
Nicholas.” (Fig. 17.) The beautiful seal of St. John’s, Stafford
(reproduced by the kindness of the Society of Antiquaries) shows
architectural features of the transition period between the Early
English and Decorated styles. The windows are triple-lancets with a
delicately-pierced trefoil above; and an arcade runs round the base.
(Fig. 18.)
[Illustration: 18. ST. JOHN’S, STAFFORD]
Casual references to building in progress occur in records, but they
give little information. As early as 1161–3 Pipe Rolls mention works
going on at the houses of the infirm at Oxford; there is one entry of
over £8 spent on repairs. In 1232 timber was being sent to Crowmarsh
to make shingles for the roof of the hospital [p109] church. Land was
granted to St. Bartholomew’s, Gloucester, for the widening of their
chancel (1265); it is of interest to compare this fact with the elegant
Early English work shown in Lysons’ view. (Pl. VI.) There occurs on
another roll a licence to lengthen the portico of the Maison Dieu,
Dover (1278).
The arrangement of most of these buildings is unknown, for frequently
not a vestige remains. In many cases they grew up with little definite
plan. A private dwelling was adapted, further accommodation being
added as funds permitted. The domestic buildings were usually of wood
and thatched, which accounts for the numerous allusions to fire. Even
St. John’s, Canterbury, which was chiefly of stone, was burnt in the
fourteenth century, but some traces of Norman work remain. (Pl. III.)
In time of war, houses near the Border or on the South Coast suffered.
The buildings of God’s House, Berwick-on-Tweed, were cast down by
engines during a siege. The master and inmates implored aid in their
sore extremity, declaring that in spite of all efforts to repair the
buildings, the work was unfinished, and that they could not endure
the winter without being utterly perished.[75] The same year (1333)
the destroyed hospital at Capelford-by-Norham was being rebuilt. St.
Nicholas’, Carlisle, was levelled to the ground more than once, and
Sherburn was partly demolished at the time of the Battle of Neville’s
Cross. The same story of attack and fire comes from houses at
Southampton and Portsmouth.
Before proceeding to any classification of buildings, some of the
component parts may be mentioned. The precincts were often entered by
a gateway beneath a [p110] tower. (Pl. VIII, XVI.) Sometimes, as at
Northallerton, there was a hospice near the gate, especially intended
for wayfarers who were too feeble to proceed; and an almonry, as at St.
Cross, for the distribution of out-relief.
The mode of life in different hospitals affected their architectural
arrangement. The warden and professed members of the staff were
expected to live in community. The master of St. John’s, Ely, was
charged not to have delicate food in his own chamber, but to dine in
the refectory. In most houses the rule was relaxed, and the warden
came to have private apartments, and finally, a separate dwelling.
(Pl. XVI, XXI.) In large institutions, the dining-hall was a fine
building. The “Brethren Hall” at St. Cross (about 36 × 20 feet)
consists of four bays, and has a handsome chestnut ceiling. (Pl. X.)
The beautiful refectory at St. Wulstan’s, Worcester (48 feet × 25 feet
8 inches), adjoins another long, narrow hall; these buildings present
interesting features—such as the screen, a coved canopy over the dais,
and a loft from which reading was given during meals. The screen,
gallery and oriel are reproduced in _Domestic Architecture during
the Tudor Period_. The title of “minstrels’ gallery,” given by J. H.
Parker to the screen at the western end of the hall, has been called
in question; but as the same name is found at St. Cross it may be
remarked that in such institutions minstrels were called in to perform
on festal days, for the account rolls of St. Leonard’s, York (1369),
and St. John’s, Winchester[76] (1390), allude to it. The hospital was
a semi-secular house, and such halls were occasionally used for public
affairs. Permission was granted in 1456 that the hall and kitchen of
St. Katherine’s Maison Dieu, [p111] Newcastle, might be used by
young couples for their wedding dinner and the reception of gifts,
because at that time houses were not large. Leland notes that Thornton
“buildid St. Katerines Chapelle, _the Towne Haulle_, and a Place for
poor Almose Menne.” If the above-mentioned kitchen was as magnificent
as that of St. John’s, Oxford (now incorporated into Magdalen College),
a wedding-feast or civic banquet might well take place there.
[Illustration: _PLATE X._ HALL OF ST. CROSS, WINCHESTER]
The transaction of business was conducted in the chapter-house or in
an audit-room. At Ewelme, for example, there was a handsome chamber
above the steps leading from the almshouse into the church, and the
audit-room at Stamford is still in use.
The development of hospital buildings has been admirably dealt
with by F. T. Dollman. In his earlier work (_Examples of Domestic
Architecture_, 1858), he illustrates in great detail seven ancient
institutions; a reprint with additions followed (1861). The subject
calls for a more exhaustive study, which is now being undertaken by
a competent architect. In this chapter nothing is attempted beyond a
brief indication of the prevalent styles. Frequently, however, the
original construction can be barely conjectured, for only a part
is left, and that has probably suffered from alteration. Dollman
distinguishes four principal modes of arrangement:—
(i) Great hall—infirmary or dormitory—with chapel at the eastern end.
(ii) As above, with chapel detached, and entered from without.
(iii) Suite of buildings, usually quadrangular; chapel apart.
(iv) Narrow courtyard. [p112]
i. HALL WITH TERMINATING CHAPEL
[Illustration: 19. ST. MARY’S, CHICHESTER]
(a) _Infirmary._—The early form of a hospital was that of a church.
A picturesque fragment of St. James’, Lewes, is figured in _Beauties
of Sussex_;[77] the foundations remained within memory, consisting,
apparently, of nave, aisles and chancel, the dimensions of the latter
being about 34 × 15 feet. From an ancient deed in the Record Office,
this building is shown to have been the sick-ward with its chapel;
it refers to the “sick poor in the great hall of the hospital of
Suthenovere.” Mention is frequently made of chapels “within the
dormitory” or “in the infirmary,” and of beds “in the hospital on
the west of the church.” The statutes of Kingsthorpe show how this
arrangement met the patients’ spiritual wants:—
“In the body of the house adjoining the chapel of the Holy Trinity
there should be three rows of beds joined together in length, in
which the poor and strangers and invalids may lie for the purpose
of hearing mass and attending to the prayers more easily and
conveniently.” [p113]
[Illustration: 20. ST. NICHOLAS’, SALISBURY
_Black._ Extant remains (xiii. cent.).
_Tint._ Site of destroyed walls.
_Dotted lines._ Probable arrangement of original buildings.
_AA._ The Chapels.
_BB._ Cubicles.
_C._ Latrines.
_D._ Porch.
_E._ Old Hospital.
_F._ Covered way.]
The finest remaining example of such an infirmary is St. Mary’s,
Chichester. (Pl. XVIII.) It is now a great hall of four bays, and seems
originally to have been longer by two bays. (See Ground-plan, Fig.
19.) The hall measures over 84 feet, and opens into a chapel 47 feet
in length. A wide and lofty roof with open timbers spans the whole
building, the pitch of the roof being such that the north and south
walls are unusually low. (Pl. VI.) The Domus [p114] Dei, Portsmouth,
was of similar construction. Its thirteenth-century chapel still exists
as the chancel of the Royal Garrison Church, the nave and aisles of
which replace the infirmary, or “Nurcery” as it is called in one
document.
The early French hospitals were usually of three wings, as at St.
Jean, Angers, built by Henry II. It is probable that the same design
was commonly adopted in England. St. Bartholomew’s, London, had three
chapels—besides those now called “St. Bartholomew’s the Great” and
“the Less”—and possibly these three were terminating chapels of an
infirmary. At St. Nicholas’, Salisbury, a double-hall opened into two
chapels. (Fig. 20, Ground-plan.) Here there are some traces of Early
English work, which can almost be dated, for an entry of 1231 records a
grant of timber,[78] and Bishop Bingham completed the hospital before
1244. Buckler’s sketches (Pl. XV) give some idea of the charm of the
existing buildings, which are mainly of the fourteenth century.
(b) _Almshouse._—The infirmary-plan became a model for some of the
later almshouses. A fine example remains at Higham Ferrers (about
1423). The dimensions of this building were as follows:—Hall, 63 × 24
feet; Chapel, 17 feet, 10 inches × 20 feet. Wooden screens subdivided
the dormitory; and the statutes directed that each bedeman should join
in evening prayers at his chamber door. Although not so secluded as the
separate-t
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