LIII.—SITE OF THE HOSPITAL OF ST. GILES.
The Hospital of St. Giles-in-the-Fields was founded by Maud,[[583]] Henry I.’s Queen, probably in 1117 or 1118.[[584]] Stow[[585]] giving, on unknown authority, the date as “about the yeare 1117,” and the Cottonian MS. Nero C.V.[[586]] placing the event in 1118. The number of lepers to be maintained in the Hospital was stated, in the course of the suit between the Abbot of St. Mary Graces and the Master of Burton Lazars in the fourth year of Henry IV.’s reign, to be fourteen,[[587]] and this is to a certain extent confirmed by a petition[[588]] from the brethren of the Hospital, dating from the end of Edward I.’s reign, which gives the number as “xiij,” apparently a clerical error. On the other hand, the jury who were sworn to give evidence at the above-mentioned suit, declared that from time immemorial it had not been the custom to maintain fourteen, but that sometimes there had been only three, four or five.
Maud had assigned 60s. rent, issuing from Queenhithe, for the support of the lepers, and had afterwards granted the ward of the Hospital to the citizens of London,[[589]] who appointed two persons to supervise the Hospital. Certain of the citizens had given rents, etc., amounting to upwards of £80 a year towards the maintenance of lepers of the City and suburbs,[[590]] and an arrangement come to[[591]] in the reign of Edward III. between the City and the Warden of the Hospital provided that, apparently in accordance with the ancient custom, the whole of the fourteen lepers should be taken from the City and suburbs and presented by the Mayor and Commonalty, or that if there were not so many within those limits, the County of Middlesex should be included, and that in the event of further gifts to the Hospital by good men of the City, the number of lepers should be increased in proportion. It will be seen, therefore, that the Hospital of St. Giles was, in early times, a peculiarly London institution, and very closely connected with the governing body of the City.
On 4th April, 1299,[[592]] it was granted to the Hospital of Burton Lazars in Leicestershire. It thus became a cell to that house, and a member of the order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem. Except for a short intermission, it remained under the control of the house of Burton Lazars until the dissolution in 1539, but it must long before have ceased to serve its original purpose. Its constitution during the later period of its existence is obscure, but the place of the lepers was probably taken by infirm persons, when leprosy became extinct. The hospital appears to have been governed by a Warden, who was subordinate to the Master of Burton Lazars.
The Precinct of the Hospital probably included the whole of the island site now bounded by High Street, Charing Cross Road[[593]] and Shaftesbury Avenue; it was entered by a Gatehouse in High Street. The Hospital church is sufficiently represented by the present parish church, while the other buildings of the hospital included the Master’s House (subsequently called the Mansion House) to the west of the church, and the Spittle Houses, which probably stood in the High Street to the east of the church. There is no evidence of the internal arrangement of these buildings, with the exception of the church, which survived till 1623, and will be described below.