CHAPTER XIII HOSPITAL FUNDS

“To the which hospitals the founders have given largely of their moveable goods for the building of the same, and a great part of their lands and tenements therewith to sustain impotent men and women.”

(Parliament of Leicester.)

ENDOWMENTS were to a certain extent supplied by the pat­ron, but were sup­ple­ment­ed by pub­lic charity. The emol­u­ments in­clud­ed gifts of money, food and fuel, grants of prop­erty, admis­sion fees, the profits of fairs, and col­lec­tions. Receipts in kind are seldom recorded, and the changing scale of values would involve points beyond the scope of this volume. Par­ticu­lars may be found in the ex­tant man­us­cripts of cer­tain hos­pitals and abbeys, in Valor Ecclesiasticus, etc. Extracts from the account-books of St. Leonard’s, York, have been pub­lished in a lecture by Canon Raine. The finance of such an in­sti­tu­tion, with scat­tered and extensive property, neces­si­tated a depart­ment which required a special clerk to super­in­tend it, and the ex­che­quer had its par­tic­ular seal. Reports of the His­tori­cal MSS. Com­mis­sion give details of the working expenses of hos­pitals at South­ampton and Win­chester.

[♦] PLATE XXI. ST. MARY MAGDALENE’S, WINCHESTER

(a) MASTER’S HOUSE AND CHAPEL. (b) CHAPEL