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.