We were not aware that there was one, but found that it consisted of some upper rooms for three nurses. On asking what there was to see in it, and being told, “Well! there is a floor,” none of us felt very enthusiastic about it. And so I left this interesting spot—not to return for fifteen years. Farewell, most conscientious of guides! I am afraid, alas! that thou art “not sitting anywhere now.” I hope thou too art in heaven.
On this, my next visit, our conductor was a man of the modern school, intelligent and energetic, but not so humorous. I went the same round, and heard little more—except that an American gentleman, who had been two months in England studying stained glass, had heard of the ancient windows here just as he was going on board the steamer to return, had retraced his steps, and said when he saw them that he was well repaid for his journey. Our guide also spoke of the silver cross the brethren wear. It seems when any one of them dies it is put on a red velvet cushion, which is laid on his breast in the coffin, and then before burial it is taken off and the Master fastens it to the gown of the next brother. Instances have been known where, by mistake, the cross has been left on the corpse, and there was a brother who was now wearing one which had been exhumed.
The Brew.
Only when we came to look at the black jacks and talk of the beer was our informant slightly at fault. The founder, thinking that his bedesmen would be thirsty souls, ordered each to have daily with his meat and salad mortrell (bread and milk) a gallon and a half of good small beer. Considering this and the free drinks given at the lodge—now reduced to two gallons a day—we may suppose that brewing was a principal industry in the hospital. No beer is now made here or supplied to the men. Our guide told us that about seven years ago the brethren’s wives lived in the village, and that a question was asked, which they preferred—their beer or their wives. To some this might have been puzzling; but the gallant Knights of St. Cross answered without hesitation in favour of their better halves. This raised them greatly in my estimation; but it appears that, in truth, their wives, or in default of them, housekeepers, have been allowed to live here as far back as most people can remember, and the allowance of beer was stopped, because some of the men took too much of it, and others preferred stronger stuff, being of the monkish opinion that—
“Drinkere stalum
Non fecit malum”—
and exchanged it in the village. So they were glad to take money instead.
The greater part of the building here is due to Cardinal Beaufort—the gateway, hall, master’s house, and all the lodgings on the west side. He called the hospital the “Almshouse of Noble Poverty,” and provided an endowment by which some brethren who had “seen better days” should be added to the thirteen of the De Blois foundation. A distinction between the two classes is kept up, the Beaufort men wearing red gowns, but there are very few of them. I heard that a clergyman was here a few years since, but resigned his place. Provision was made for the maintenance of eleven servants and fourteen horses. The present revenue is about £6,000 a year.[101]
St. Catherine’s Hill.
On leaving the hospital, instead of returning as I came, I went to the right through a gate and over a stream; and, following a northerly path across the fields by the engine house, crossed the Itchen to St. Catherine’s Hill, which I saw rising close to me. There was formerly a chapel on it, the tower of which was blown down in 1268, but the building was there in Henry VIII.’s time.