SAINTS OF ENGLAND

St. Oswald; St. Wulstan.—One hospital at Worcester “beareth the name of St. Oswald as a thinge dedicate of ould tyme to him.” (See p. [2].) The foundation of the other is ascribed to St. Wulstan himself. The house grew in importance after the saint’s canonization in the year 1203, which followed a fresh display of miracles at his shrine. The possession of the faithful bishop’s famous staff was disputed between hospital and priory.[162]

The common seal shows the patron in the act of benediction, staff in hand.

St. Godwald; St. David.—The chapel of St. Wulstan’s was dedicated to St. Godwald. “Some say he was a bishop” is Leland’s commentary. Miss Arnold-Forster identifies him with Gulval, hermit-bishop in Wales. St. David, the Welsh Archbishop (canonized 1120), was commemorated at Kingsthorpe, by Northampton, the house being frequently called “St. Dewi’s.”

St. Brinstan; St. Chad; St. Cuthbert, etc.—Although Leland had read that “St. Brinstane foundid an hospitale at Winchester,” nothing is known of it. “Here is a hospital of St. Chadde,” he remarks at Shrewsbury, referring to the church and almshouse. Two dedications sometimes ascribed to St. Cuthbert, namely at Gateshead and Greatham, within “the patrimony of St. Cuthbert,” hardly justify his inclusion among patrons, although he is named in the deed of gift. The same may be said p264 of documentary allusions to St. Erkenwald, St. Hilda and St. Richard in connection with foundations at Ilford, Whitby and Chichester.

St. Ethelbert; St. Edmund, King & Martyr; St. Edmund, Archbishop & Confessor.—The royal Ethelbert and Edmund are included among our saints. St. Ethelbert’s, Hereford, is attached to the cathedral and shares its patron. In the case of the ten houses of St. Edmund, it is not always possible to determine whether the Saxon king is intended or Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury. The “spital on the street” in Lincolnshire and the hospital by Doncaster Bridge were in honour of the royal martyr; whilst those of Leicester and Windeham commemorated the archbishop, the latter being founded by his devoted friend, St. Richard of Chichester, who had recently attended the solemn “Translation” at Pontigny.

[♦] PLATE XXX.

CHAPEL OF ST. EDMUND THE KING, SPITAL-ON-THE-STREET

CHAPEL OF ST. EDMUND THE ARCHBISHOP, GATESHEAD

St. Edmund’s, Gateshead, has puzzled historians because the designations vary between King, Archbishop, Bishop and Confessor. Surtees and others concluded that all had reference to one foundation, but Mr. J. R. Boyle proves that there were two with distinct endowments, and that both chapels were standing a century ago. Now it is recorded that Nicholas of Farnham was the founder of that of “St. Edmund the Bishop.” A sidelight is thrown upon the subject by Matthew Paris, whose narrative of the miraculous recovery of Nicholas in 1244 through the agency of St. Edmund has escaped the notice of local topographers. The emaciated sick man bade farewell and received the last rites when he was restored by the application of a relic of the archbishop. From this incident it seems likely that the hospital was a p265 votive offering and that it was consecrated soon after Archbishop Edmund was enrolled among the saints. The papal letter of canonization (1246) describes his beautiful character and the miraculous events which followed his death. When it declares that “he healed the swelling dropsy by reducing the body to smaller dimensions,” the allusion is surely to the recent recovery of Bishop Nicholas, who had been suffering from that infirmity.

[♦ ] 36. A PILGRIM’S SIGN

St. Thomas the Martyr of Canterbury was believed to surpass all others in powers of healing. His miracles were usually wrought by means of water mixed with a drop of the martyr’s blood; this was carried away in a leaden ampulla, and its contents worked wonders. (See Fig. 8.) Others would purchase a “sign,” upon which was announced in Latin:—“For good people that are sick Thomas is the best of physicians.” (Fig. 36.) Many of these pilgrims to Canterbury lodged in the hospital of p266 St. Thomas (Pl. II), said to have been founded by the archbishop himself, whose martyrdom is depicted on the walls of the hall. The chapel was dedicated to his special patron, the Blessed Virgin. St. Thomas’, Southwark, also claimed him as founder, and two other houses were intimately connected with him. One was Becket’s early home in Cheapside, enlarged by his sister Agnes and her husband, whose charter grants land “formerly belonging to Gilbert Becket, father of the blessed Thomas the Martyr . . . being the birthplace of the blessed martyr.” Privileges were accorded to it long afterwards “from devotion to the saint, who is said to have been born and educated in that hospital.” (This foundation was usually called St. Thomas of Acon, but it is believed that the designation had at first no connection with Acres, but rather with the original owner of the property.) The second house with family associations was at Ilford, for while Becket’s sister was abbess of Barking, the lepers’ chapel was re-consecrated with the addition of the name of St. Thomas.

Nor were his friends less faithful, for when Becket’s chancellor Benedict (afterwards his biographer) was transferred from Canterbury to Peterborough, he completed a foundation in his honour. Probably Benedict was also concerned in the choice of name at Stamford, especially as that dependent house adopted St. John Baptist and St. Thomas as joint patrons; for the fact that the new martyr’s body was laid near the altar of the Baptist called forth from several chroniclers (as Stanley points out) the remark that St. John Baptist was the bold opponent of a wicked king. In a document relating to the Stamford house, St. Thomas is referred to as “the proto-martyr,” but the claim is hard to justify. He was p267 commemorated with St. Stephen at Romney, a dedication which would have given him abundant satisfaction; for previous to his flight in 1164 he celebrated, as having a special portent, the mass “in honour of the blessed proto-martyr Stephen.”

It is a far cry from Kent to Northumberland, but there existed at Bolton a hospital of St. Thomas. Within a few miles had been fought the Battle of Alnwick, a victory won, it was believed, as the result of the king’s public penance the same day (1174). The date of foundation is not recorded, but it was begun before 1225. About the same time a hospital of St. Thomas was being built at Hereford, by one of the Warennes, whose father had bitterly opposed the then unpopular Chancellor. The new devotion to St. Thomas was fanned into flame by the magnificent ceremony of 1220 on the removal of his body to its wonderful shrine. Soon after this, a hospital was founded at Bec, and the patronage annexed to the See of Norwich; it was consecrated by Bishop Pandulph, who had taken a leading part in the “Translation,” an event which was henceforth celebrated on July 7. For centuries the shrine was held in high honour. The Letter Books of Christ Church, Canterbury, record miracles in 1394 and 1445.[163] So notable was the first of these that Richard II wrote to congratulate the archbishop, acknowledging his thankfulness to “the High Sovereign Worker of miracles who has deigned to work this miracle in our days, and upon a foreigner, as though for the purpose of spreading . . . the glorious fame of His very martyr,” adding a pious wish that it might result in the conversion of those in error at a time when “our faith and belief p268 have many more enemies than they ever had time out of mind.” Such signs were, in fact, an antidote to Lollardy, as is implied by the public testimony of the Chapter to the cure of a cripple from Aberdeen in 1445.

The kings continued to pay pilgrimage visits, and even Henry VIII sent the accustomed offerings to Canterbury. His subsequent animosity towards St. Thomas was a political move, as is shown by the report of Robert Ward in 1535; having spied at the hospital of St. Thomas of Aeon a window depicting the flagellation of Henry II by monks at the shrine, he pointed out to Thomas Cromwell that Becket was slain “in that he did resist the king.” Bale afterwards alludes thus to this burning question:—

“A trayterouse knave ye can set upp for a saynte,

And a ryghteouse kynge lyke an odyouse tyrant paynte.

· · · · · ·

In your glasse wyndowes ye whyppe your naturall kynges.”[164]

In 1538 Henry thought it expedient to inform his loving subjects that notwithstanding the canonization of St. Thomas “there appeareth nothing in his life and exteriour conversation whereby he should be called a saint, but rather . . . a rebel and traitor to his prince.” Henceforth few windows remained depicting the acts of the martyr,—though one representation of the penance of Henry II is familiar to readers at the Bodleian. The name was to be no longer perpetuated; “St. Thomas the Martyr, Southwark,” becomes “Becket Spital” and then “St. Thomas the Apostle,” whilst “Thomas House” is found at Northampton. p269

All Saints.—In spite of many general references to All Saints, the invocation by itself was as rare for a hospital as it was common for a church. Leland and the Valor Ecclesiasticus give the dedication of the Stamford bede-house as “All Saints.” The founder had willed that “there be for ever a certain almshouse, commonly called William Browne’s Almshouse, for the invocation of the most glorious Virgin Mary and of All Saints, to the praise and honour of the Name Crucified.” The almsmen’s special chapel in the parish church of All Saints was in honour of the Blessed Virgin. The existing silver seal shows the Father, seated, supporting between His knees the Saviour upon the Cross, whilst the Spirit appears as a Dove.

Alternative Dedications, etc.

There is frequently an uncertainty as to the invocation, even with documentary assistance. A Close Roll entry (1214) mentions a foundation at Portsmouth in honour of Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin, St. Cross, St. Michael and All Saints. Usually the name is simply “God’s House,” but often St. John Baptist or St. Nicholas. The seal seems to suggest the original designation, for it shows a Cross, with the Divine Hand, a scroll and angels. Again, God’s House at Kingston-upon-Hull was called Holy Trinity or St. Michael’s, or from its situation “the Charterhouse hospital”; but its full title was “in honour of God, and the most glorious Virgin Mary His Mother, and St. Michael the Archangel, and all archangels, angels and holy spirits, and of St. Thomas the Martyr, and all saints of God.” It may be observed that inasmuch as the founder Michael Pole was Chancellor of England, p270 he looked to his predecessor in office St. Thomas as patron, no less than to his name-saint. By the foundation-deed of Heytesbury almshouse, it was in honour of “the Holy Trinity, and especially of Christ our Redeemer, the Blessed Virgin Mary His Mother, St. Katherine and all saints.” The almsmen wore the letters JHU. XRT. upon their gowns. The Chantry Certificate, nevertheless, gives St. John’s. The original seal shows a Cross and the name domus elimosinaria, but the post-Reformation seal has St. Katherine. Varying dedications are sometimes merely mistakes. It must, however, be remembered that occasionally hospital and chapel had different patrons, and that both were sometimes rebuilt and, re-consecrated. As civil and ecclesiastical archives continue to reveal their long-hidden information, the dedication-names of many houses will doubtless come to light, together with notices of foundations at present unknown to us.

Some seventy titles of hospitals are here recorded, as compared with over six hundred different dedications of parish churches. In some instances the patron of a charitable institution bequeathed his name to a parish. At Tweedmouth, St. Bartholomew of the hospital was powerful enough to dispossess St. Boisil, the rightful patron of the place. The parishes of St. Mary Magdalene, Colchester, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London, and St. Giles, Shrewsbury, have grown up round a former leper-house. Several modern churches, such as St. John’s, Bridgwater, occupy the site and carry on the name of an old foundation.

In conclusion, it must be observed that since the subject of England’s Patron Saints has been fully dealt with by p271 Miss Arnold-Forster, no attempt has here been made to make more than passing allusions to the lives of hospital saints. The foregoing notes on saints were suggested by her Studies in Church Dedications.

[♦ ] 37. SEAL OF THE HOSPITAL OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, ROCHESTER

[♦] p273