The Mediæval Hospitals of England

by Rotha Mary Clay

(ii) RELATIONS WITH THE PARISH PRIEST

Before the foundation of a hospital chapel, special permission was required from the bishop, with a guarantee that it should not interfere with the parochial system. It was necessary clearly to define privileges, lest friction should arise. Grants in civil and ecclesiastical registers include “a chapel, bell and chaplain,” oblations, sepulture and “the cure of souls.”

(a) Oblations.—One quarter of the offerings received at St. Katharine’s, Ledbury, was reserved for parochial use. Unless some definite scheme was arranged, disputes quickly arose. A serious collision of interests occurred at Brough. The tiny hostel, founded with the sanction of bishop and archbishop (1506), developed into a pilgrimage-place. The injured vicar, with solemn ritual, cursed with bell, book and candle all concerned with such oblations as were made in the chapel. The founder, however, called forth upon his parson the archbishop’s censure “as an abandoned wretch and inflated with diabolical venom for opposing so good a work.” The priest in turn appealed to the Pope. At length it was agreed that 20s. yearly should be paid to the mother-church.[120]

(b) Public and private Worship, Bells, etc.—Agreements as to public worship on certain occasions were made between the parish and institutions within its boundary. The biographer of the Berkeley family, quoting from the episcopal register (1255), records:—

“That all the seculars in the hospitall of Longbridge, exceptinge a Cooke, and one person to kepe sick folkes, should in the spetiall solemne dayes, come to Berkeley Church and there p198 should receive all the ecclesiasticall Sacraments, (except holy bread and holy water) unles it bee by the dispensation and leave of the Vicar of Berkeley.”[121]

[♦ ] 29. GLASTONBURY

To infringe such rules meant trouble. One Easter (1439), the chaplain of St. Leonard’s, Leicester, permitted two of the warden’s servants to receive the Sacrament from him there, instead of repairing to the parish church; but the following Sunday he was forced to do public penance.

The curious restriction of repeating divine service with closed doors and in an undertone was made at St. John’s, Nottingham, when the patronal feasts were being celebrated in the parish. The rule for ordinary days was that of St. James’ near Canterbury (1414), namely, that the canonical hours be said audibly after the sounding of the handbells or bells according to ancient custom.

The possession of a bell in a turret required a special licence, lest outside worshippers should attend. A chapel being added to St. Mary Magdalene’s, Bristol (1226), the stipulation was made p199 “but the leprous women shall have no bells except handbells, and these shall not be hung up.” It was agreed at Portsmouth (1229) that the two bells in God’s House should not exceed the weight of those of the parish church, and should only ring at set hours. The Annals of Dunstable Monastery show how important the matter was considered:—

“In the same year (1293) the lepers of Dunstaple set up a mighty bell outside the precincts of their house on two timbers; but the prior . . . brought that bell within our jurisdiction; which afterwards he restored to them yet so that they should by no means use that or any other bell for calling together our parishioners or other people.”

(c) Burial Rights.—The privilege of sepulture rendered the community more independent, and secured to it certain fees and legacies. A popular institution like St. Leonard’s, York, or St. John’s, Exeter, derived benefits from the burial of benefactors. There is a will entered on the Patent Roll of 1341 whereby a certain Vincent de Barnastapolia requested to be interred in the cemetery of St. Mark’s, Bristol, to which house he left a considerable legacy.[122] The conferring or denial of a place of sepulture seems to have been without rule, and was a matter of favour and circumstance. Thus St. Oswald’s, Worcester, had a cemetery (probably because it was originally a leper-house), whilst St. Wulstan’s had none.

(d) Worship and Burial of Lepers.—To lepers both chapel and graveyard were willingly granted. This was an early custom in England, as the Norman architecture of several chapels shows (e.g. Rochester, circa 1100). The p200 Gloucester lazars were granted burial rights before 1160, when they already possessed a chapel, the chancel of which still stands; the bishop’s licence made the usual stipulation that none but lepers should be interred.[123] A fresh impetus was given to spiritual provision for outcasts by the Lateran Council of 1179. Pope Alexander III decreed as follows:—

“Seeing that it is very remote from Christian piety that those who seek their own and not the things of Jesus Christ do not permit lepers . . . to have churches or burial places of their own, nor to be assisted by the ministry of a priest of their own, we ordain that these lepers be permitted to have the same without any contradiction.”

This privilege, it was declared, must not be prejudicial to the rights of ancient churches.

Digressing from the immediate subject of spiritual provision for the outcast, one point must be made clear. It is sometimes thought that the strict parochial discipline of mediæval England would insist upon the attendance of the leper at his parish church on certain occasions; others on the contrary suppose that the leper was excommunicate. The popular belief is that the Church provided for his worship the so-called “leper’s window,” frequently shown in old edifices. The existence of low-side-windows at such places as Bridgnorth and Spondon, where there were leper-colonies, is considered circumstantial evidence of their origin and purpose. But name and idea alike are of entirely modern growth, arising from a misinterpretation of a wall-painting at Windsor, which Mr. Street took to represent the p201 communicating of a leper through an aperture. Administration would have been both difficult and irreverent; the opening, moreover, is often so situated that any such act would be physically impossible. A manuscript chronicle, indeed, records how Blase Tupton, who was dwelling near St. Chad’s, Shrewsbury, about the year 1409, had a gallery made so that she might join in public worship:—

“Blase . . . cam by chance to be a leeper, and made the oryell which goythe allong the west side of the churche-yarde, throughe which she cam aloft to heare serveys throughe a doore made in the churche wale, and so passyd usually uppon the leades unto a glasse wyndowe, throughe which she dayly sawe and hard dayly serveys as longe as shee lyvyd.”[124]

Now Blase was doubtless a privileged person, being the daughter of the well-known townsman who had founded the almshouse adjoining St. Chad’s; and though now and again a lazar might make his way to a churchyard to gaze upon the holy mysteries, it is certain that only those living in a community with a chapel and priest could be confessed and receive the Blessed Sacrament. Most antiquaries are of opinion that the popular theory of the object of lowside-windows is untenable.

Careful provision was made for the religious observances of the untainted inmates of a hospital as well as for the leprous. They might use the chapel except on the greater festivals when they were required to attend the parish church and make oblations there. At St. Mary Magdalene’s, Bristol, the infected confessed to their chaplain, but the rest to the parish priest. No parishioner of Bedminster might attend the chapel on Sundays or p202 festivals to receive the blessed bread and holy water, the distribution of which to other than inmates would infringe parochial rights.[125] It was provided by the founder’s statutes at Sherburn that on Sundays the lepers should receive “the sprinkling of holy water, blessed bread, and other things which are fitting.”

(e) Free Chapels.—These were “places of worship exempted from all relation to the mother church and also from episcopal jurisdiction, an exemption which was an equivocal privilege, obtained immediately from the Crown, or appended to ancient manors originally belonging to the Crown.”[126] St. John’s, Oxford, was a privileged proprietary chapel. The king withheld the right of visitation from the bishop of the diocese, who, in turn, seems to have refused to sanction and consecrate a graveyard. Henry III called in the Roman Pontiff to arbitrate; whereupon “the pope at the instance of the king commanded the Bishop of Lincoln to provide a burial ground for the hospital of Oxford, for the brethren of the hospital and for the poor dying therein, the indemnity of the mother church and of the king as patron being provided for.”[127] The kings contrived to evade the Bishop of Lincoln’s rightful authority. Edward I wrote to request Bishop Giffard of Worcester to confer holy orders upon a brother “because the same hospital is the king’s free chapel where the diocesan ought to exercise no jurisdiction.” The Close Roll of 1304 emphasizes the fact that the house was wholly independent and therefore “quit of payments, procurations and other exactions of the ordinary.”[128] p203

A few royal hospitals were subordinate to the Crown and the papal see. That of Basingstoke, with its “free chapel of the king”, was granted immunity from episcopal control by Cardinal Ottobon (1268). The Maison Dieu, Dover, was taken under immediate papal protection by a bull of Nicholas III (1277). A unique case occurs where the lay founder of an almshouse at Nottingham gained for it freedom from the jurisdiction of the ordinary or judges, and subjection alone “to St. Peter and the Apostolic See” (1402).[129]

(f) “The Cure of Souls.”—Whereas the “free chapel” had no parochial obligations, there were hospital churches to which full parochial rights were attached. How or why such houses as St. Paul’s, Norwich, and Armiston came to possess “the cure of souls” is uncertain; the little chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, Durham (now a ruin), was also a rectorial parish church. More curious is the fact that several leper-hospitals acquired this peculiar advantage. Thus in Northampton, although St. John’s was “no parish church, but only for the company there inhabiting,” St. Leonard’s was a “liberty” having parochial rights, not only of burial, but of Baptism. St. Nicholas’, York, required as master, “a fit clerk who shall be able to answer for the cure of souls belonging to the parish church of that hospital.” The Lincoln leper-house had similar rights.

(g) Almshouses and the Parish Church.—Many of the later almshouses were closely connected with the parish. At Ewelme, for example, the almsmen resorted to the church constantly, and their presence was regarded as so important that even absence on pilgrimage was p204 deprecated. Those institutions which had no chaplain of their own were brought into close touch with the parish priest, as at Croydon, where the poor men went every day to the church to “here all manner divine service there to be songe and saide.”

(h) Collegiate Foundations.—Several large almshouses possessed collegiate rights or formed part of a college (e.g. St. Mary’s, Leicester; Shrewsbury, Tong, Heringby). Sometimes, as at Higham Ferrers, there existed side by side a parish church, a bede-house for pensioners, and a college for the priests and clerks.