St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.—We are justly proud of the hospitals of the twentieth century, but one of them stands out from the rest on account of its early foundation, and its enormous influence on the growth of professional feeling. In following the incidents in the history of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, we cannot doubt but that this is one of the noblest institutions in London. The hospital was founded by Rahere in 1123, and refounded in 1546. We have little history of the earlier period, but the documents relating to the refoundation evidently echo the sentiments formed during the earlier period.
Dr. Norman Moore in his paper on the Progress of Medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital (1888), writes: ‘We are in the very middle of the sacred land of medicine, and many of the great events in the history of medicine are connected with the particular region in which our hospital is, or have occurred in our hospital itself.’
Rahere while building the hospital continued his labours by founding the priory, of which all that now remains is the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. This consists of the choir and transept of the church of the priory, and a part of the site of the close is marked by the present Bartholomew Close. The hospital and the priory were independent but connected. The relations between the two were revised by Richard de Ely, Bishop of London in 1197; by Eustace de Fauconberg, Bishop of London in 1224: and by Simon of Sudbury, Bishop of London in 1373, and the two foundations were finally separated on the dissolution of the priory in 1537.
There is in the British Museum (Cotton MS. Vespasian, Bk. ix.), a Life of Rahere written by one who had known those who knew the founder. The manuscript is a copy of an earlier one written in the reign of Henry II., within fifty years of the foundation of the
| OBVERSE OF THE COMMON SEAL OF THE CITY OF LONDON, Cir. 1225. | SEAL OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL. |
hospital. This work, which is of great value, is described by Dr. Norman Moore, and analysed in Mr. Morrant Baker’s Two Foundations of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, A.D. 1123 and A.D. 1546[152]