CRYPT AT THE “GEORGE,” ROCHESTER.
Beside the Dover Road, which is of course the pilgrims’ road from London to Canterbury, one mile short of Faversham town, stands the village of Ospringe, identified by some antiquaries as the site of the Roman station of Durolevum. Time was when those who made pilgrimage to Canterbury came to Ospringe through a water-splash, a little stream that flowed across the highway and no one thought worth while bridging. And so it remained, through the coaching age, until modern times. Now it is covered over, and Ospringe is at this day a quite remarkably dusty place.
There remain, built into the “Red Lion” inn beside the way, fragments of a “maison Dieu,” or God’s House, that stood here so early as the time of Henry the Second: a hostel established for the reception of travellers, and maintained for many years by the Knights Templars and Brethren of the Holy Ghost. Here travellers of all classes found a lavish hospitality awaiting them, and, so sparsely settled was the country in those centuries, that even kings were glad of this rest-house—and of others like it elsewhere. King John, who was for ever spoiling the Church, and bringing upon himself, and the country with him, Papal excommunications major and minor, and yet was always sponging upon abbots and their kind for board and lodging, had what is described as a camera regis here, which seems to modern ears to indicate that he practised photography, centuries before the invention of it. The camera in this case is, however, only the mediæval chronicler’s Latin way of saying that a room was kept for the King’s use.
A landed gentleman of the neighbouring Preston-by-Faversham, one Macknade by name, who died in 1407, left, among many other bequests, £1 to the “Domus Dei” of Ospringe, together with £10 for the repair of the highway between that point and Boughton-under-Blean. In this manner he hoped to be remembered in the prayers of travellers; and to the same end of bidding for Aves and paternosters for the repose of his soul, he bequeathed 20 pence to all prisoners in Kentish gaols, 12 pence to all debtors similarly situated, £23 to the minor religious houses of the county, and a larger sum to the principal abbeys. In addition to these items we find one of 10 cows, left to Preston church, for the purpose of maintaining a lighted taper at the Easter Sepulchre there. Let us hope his solicitude for his soul has not been without its due results.
The “maison Dieu” of Ospringe was disestablished long before the general ruin of such institutions was ordained, in the time of Henry the Eighth. In 1479 we find the place inhabited by two brethren, survivors of the eight who once welcomed and made good cheer for pilgrims; but they forsook it the next year, and in 1480-81 it was, as a derelict religious house, escheated to the Crown.
Canterbury itself was, of course, once full of such travellers’ rests. Chief among these was the inn called “The Chequers of the Hope,” at the corner of Mercery Lane, leading to the Cathedral; but, although the lower part of the walls and the mediæval crypt remain, the present aspect of the building is modern and commonplace. It is, in point of fact, a “Ladies’ Outfitting” shop.
Travellers in those centuries seem to have been in many ways well cared for. The hospitality of the “houses of God” and pilgrims’ halts, however, does but show the bright side of the medal, and implies a very dark reverse.
Good, charitable folks, as we have seen, were rightly sorry for wayfarers, and gave or bequeathed money for lightening the trials and tribulations of their lot. The Church itself regarded the succouring of all such as one of its first duties, and so granted all manner of ghostly privileges to such persons as would build causeways, improve roads, or establish hostels. The bargain seemed in those times a fair one, and induced many to give who would not otherwise have given. To buy absolution for gold, or a few days less purgatory by charitable bequest was good business; but we may wonder if those who thus purchased remission of sins or an “early door” into Paradise sometimes spared a pitying thought for those poor devils who had not the needful for such indulgences.
