7. ALMS OF PILGRIMS

Such visits to hospitals lead to the further consideration of pilgrimage and devotion to relics, which directly affected charity. An indulgence was offered to penitents visiting Yarmouth hospital and the sacred relics therein and giving a helping hand to the poor inhabitants. The Maison Dieu at Dunwich possessed a holy cross of great reputation “whither many resorted to adore it, who bestowed much alms.” When the precious relic was carried away and detained “by certain evil-wishers” connected with St. Osith’s Abbey, the inmates were greatly impoverished.[114] The abbot having been prosecuted, came into chancery in person and rendered the cross to the king, who restored it to the master and brethren “to remain in the hospital for ever.” Holy Cross, Colchester, claimed to keep a portion of the true Cross; an indulgence was offered by various bishops to those paying pilgrimage visits and contributing to the hospital. (See pp. [248]–9.) p191

[♦] PLATE XXII. LEPER HOSPITAL OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, OXFORD

Other treasures visited by pilgrims were of a more personal character. Anthony à Wood found records of choice things formerly preserved in St. Bartholomew’s, Oxford, whereby it was enriched:—“they were possest of St. Edmund the Confessor’s combe, St. Barthelmew’s skin, the bones of St. Stephen, and one of the ribbes of St. Andrew.” The first and foremost of the sacred relics was evidently a personal possession of the local saint, Archbishop Edmund Rich, a native of Abingdon:—“Those that were troubled with continuall headaches,” (University students, perhaps) “frenzies, or light-headed, were by kembing their heads with St. Edmund’s combe restored to their former health.” On high days and holy days these treasures were exposed to view in the chapel. (Pl. XXII.) They were of so great value that the authorities of Oriel College, having acquired the patronage, appropriated them, “which caused great complaints from these hospitalliers.”

[♦ ] 28. A HOSPITAL ALMS-BOX

The alms of pilgrims and other travellers were a valuable asset in the funds, for it was customary for those so journeying to spend much in charity by the way. On the penitential pilgrimage of Henry II to Canterbury (1174) “as he passed on his way by chapels and hospitals he did his duty as a most devout Christian and son of Holy Church by confession of sin and distribution of offerings and gifts.”[115] Halting at Harbledown he left the sum of forty marks, probably because the hospital belonged to the bereaved archbishopric. Long afterwards, another king—John of France—passed along the road, leaving at sundry hospitals a substantial proof of his gratitude for release from captivity. Among his p192 expenses are included gifts to “les malades de 4 maladeries depuis Rocestre jusques à Cantobérie, pour aumosne”; also to the communities of St. James’, St. John’s at the Northgate, St. Mary’s, and Harbledown, and to the brethren of Ospringe; whilst the king gave as much as twenty nobles to the Maison Dieu, Dover, where he was received as a guest.[116] Situated close to the highway, on the hill which eager travellers were about to climb to catch their first sight of the grand tower of Canterbury, the Harbledown lepers benefited by the gifts of pilgrims for three and a half centuries. Treasured in the hospital (Pl. V) was a relic of “the glorious martyr” to whose shrine they wended. “This fragment of his p193 shoe supports this little community of poor men,” says Ogygius in the Colloquy on Pilgrimages,[117] where Erasmus describes his visit to Canterbury with Dean Colet sometime before the year 1519. Shortly after leaving the city, where the road becomes steep and narrow, there is, he says, a hospital of a few old men. One of the brethren runs out, sprinkles the travellers with holy water, and presently offers them the upper part of a shoe, set with a piece of glass resembling a jewel. This the strangers are invited to kiss. (Bale satirizes this custom where he says, “here ys the lachett of swett seynt Thomas shewe.”) Colet is indignant, but Erasmus, to appease the injured brother, drops a coin into his alms-box. The quaint old box is still kept at Harbledown, and is figured above.

[♦] p194