The House of Converts was founded by Henry III. (1234), and here “all Jews and infidels converted to the Christian faith were ordained to have sufficient maintenance.” After the expulsion of the Jews and when the number of converts began to fail, it was used as a Hall for scholars and known as Cary’s Inn. Later it was the magnificent old Inn, the Blue Boar, which spanned the old south boundary of Little Jewry, Blue Boar, Bear or Tresham Lane. The whole of its site is occupied by the modern Town Hall.
The hospital of S. Bartholomew, which lay about half a mile to the east of the city, was founded by Henry I. for leprous folk. It consisted of one master, two healthful brethren, six lepers and a clerk. The chapel and buildings were given in 1328 by Edward III. to Oriel College. In the fourteenth century forty days’ indulgence or pardon of sins was granted by the Bishop of Lincoln to all who would pay their devotions at the chapel of S. Bartholomew, on the feast of that saint, and give of their charity to the leprous alms-folk. The result was that multitudes resorted there, and the priests and poor people benefited considerably. But after the Reformation the custom died out. Later, it was revived, for charitable reasons, by the Fellows of New College. They changed the day to May-day, and then
“after their grave and wonted manner, early in the morning, they used to walk towards this place. They entered the chapel, which was ready decked and adorned with the seasonable fruits of the year. A lesson was read, and then the fellows sung a hymn or anthem of five or six parts. Thereafter one by one they went up to the altar where stood a certain vessel decked with Tuttyes, and therein offered a piece of silver; which was afterwards divided among the poor men. After leaving the chapel by paths strewn with flowers, they in the open space, like the ancient Druids, the Apollinian offspring, echoed and warbled out from the shady arbours harmonious melody, consisting of several parts then most in fashion.” And Wood adds that “the youth of the city would come here every May-day with their lords and ladies, garlands, fifes, flutes, and drums, to acknowledge the coming in of the fruits of the year, or, as we may say, to salute the great goddess Flora, and to attribute her all praise with dancing and music.”
The income of the hospital had previously been much augmented by the relics which it was fortunate enough to possess. S. Edmund the Confessor’s comb, S. Bartholomew’s skin, as well as his much revered image, the bones of S. Stephen and one of the ribs of S. Andrew the apostle, all helped to draw to this shrine without the walls the worship and the offerings of the sick and the devout. It is difficult to realise with what reverential awe men regarded the jaw-bone of an ancient cenobite, the tooth or even the toe-nail of a saint or martyr. Charms, in those days, were considered more efficacious than drugs, and the bones of saints were the favourite remedies prescribed by the monkish physicians. Comb your hair with this comb of Saint Edmund, then, and you would surely be cured of frenzy or headache; apply the bones of S. Stephen to your rheumatic joints, and your pains would disappear. So it was most firmly believed; and faith will remove mountains. There was a saint for every disease. To touch the keys of S. Peter or to handle a relic of S. Hubert was deemed an effectual mode of curing madness. S. Clare, according to monkish leechcraft, cured sore eyes; S. Sebastian the plague, and S. Apollonia the toothache. The teeth of S. Apollonia, by the way, were by a fortunate dispensation almost as numerous as the complaint which she took under her charge was common.
It is said that Henry VI., disgusted at the excess of this superstition, ordered all who possessed teeth of that illustrious saint to deliver them to an officer appointed to receive them. Obedient crowds came to display their saintly treasures, and lo! a ton of the veritable teeth of S. Apollonia were thus collected together. Were her stomach, says Fuller, proportionate to her teeth, a country would scarce afford her a meal.
The relics at S. Bartholomew’s were so highly prized that Oriel College thought it desirable to remove them to their church of S. Mary—where more people might have the benefit of them. S. Bartholomew’s hospital was used as a common pest-house for the plague in 1643, and shortly after was completely demolished. The chapel fared no better, for it was put to base uses by the Parliamentarians, and the roof, which was of lead, was melted down to provide bullets for “the true Church Militant.”