Most of the Scottish leper-houses were very poorly or not at all endowed. Their principal subsistence seems to have been derived from casual alms. Each of the doomed inmates of the hospitals was, like the leper-struck heroine of the old Scottish poet, Henryson, by
....cauld and hounger sair
Compellit to be ane rank beggair.[83]
The inmates of the Greenside or Edinburgh lazar-house were allowed four shillings Scotch (about fourpence sterling) per week, and for the remainder of their subsistence they were, according to the original rules of the institution, obliged to beg at the gate of their hospital.[84] The leper-house at Aberdeen was supported from the public funds of the town; but in 1591 James VI. granted a charter to “Robert Abell and remanent of the pure (poor) leprous personis and thair successors” in the hospital, to draw one peat of custom from every load of them brought to the markets of Aberdeen, in consequence (as the words of the original charter bear) “of the smallness of the rent appointit for the leprous personis in the Hospitall being unable to sustene thame in meet and fyre, quhairthrow they leif verie miserablie.”[85]
Other Scottish lazar-houses, however, were comparatively wealthy. Thus, I have already mentioned that the Kingcase Hospital, near Ayr, had some large and extensive landed properties attached to it.
The inmates of most of the smaller English leper-houses seem also to have principally depended for their subsistence upon the precarious contributions of the charitable. One of the lepers of the hospital at Beccles was, by a royal grant, empowered to beg for his leprous brothers.[86] Several of the larger English hospitals, however, were well endowed, and the food, clothing, etc., of the inmates amply provided for.
In some instances these endowments consisted of the accumulations of large and voluntary charities; in others they were made up of rich grants, left for the avowed purpose of founding chantries for the spiritual peace and pardon of the donor and his family; and in other cases, again, they were originally obtained as direct propitiations to the church for misconduct and crime. Indulgences[87] of forty days’ pardon seem to have been occasionally granted by the bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries to all the benefactors of the hospitals.
A bull of Pope Alexander III., which has been already referred to, granted all leper hospital possessions an exemption from the payment of tithes.[88] The canon was not universally adhered to in England, for, in the account which Archbishop Parker drew up in 1562 of the hospitals in the diocese of Canterbury, while Herbaldone and Bobbing leper-houses are reported as “not charged with the taxes of the tenths,” it is declared of the leper hospital of St. Laurence, Canterbury, that “the same is taxed and payeth the perpetual tenth.”[89]
From the Valor Ecclesiasticus, taken in the time of Henry VIII., it appears that whilst forty-eight hospitals, leper-houses, and lazar-houses in the diocese of Norwich and county of Norfolk possessed only a revenue of about £158 in all,[90] the rentals, on the other hand, of certain individual hospitals were comparatively great for that period. Thus, the revenues of Herbaldone[91] Hospital, Kent, and St. James’, London,[92] were each rated at £100; of Sherburne above £140;[93] of Maiden Bradley at near £200;[94] and those of the establishment and “veri fair hospital” (as Leland terms it),[95] of Burton Lazars were valued above £260.[96] In some of these richer institutions the inmates were, as I have just remarked, well provided for. As illustrative of this, I may quote the diet-table, etc., of one or two of the wealthier leper hospitals. Thus, among the rules published in the Additamenta to Matthew Paris, as established about the middle of the fourteenth century by the Abbot Michaele for the leper-house of St. Julian, near St. Albans, we find the following regulations laid down with regard to the commons of the leprous brothers (de distributionibus fratrum leprosorum):—[97]
“Let every leprous brother receive from the property of the hospital, for his living and all necessaries, whatever he has been accustomed to receive by the custom observed of old in the said hospital, namely, every week seven loaves, of which five shall be white and two brown, made from the grain as thrashed from the ear; also, every seventh week, fourteen gallons of beer, or eight-pence (octo denarios) for the same. Let him have, in addition to this, on the feasts of all the saints, on the feast of Saint Julian, the purification of the Blessed Mary, the Annunciation, the Trinity, Saint Albans, Saint John the Baptist, the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, and the Nativity of the same, for each feast, one loaf, one jar of beer, or a penny for the same, and one obolus, which is called the charity of the aforesaid hospital; also, let every leprous brother receive, at the feast of Christmas, forty gallons of good beer, or forty pence for the same. Also, let each receive on the said feast his share of two quarters of pure and clean corn, which is called the great charity. Also, at the feast of St. Martin, each leper shall have one pig from the common stall, and that there may be a fair division of the pigs amongst the brothers, according to the custom observed of old, we desire that the pigs, according to the number of the lepers, may be brought forward in their presence, if it can conveniently be done, otherwise in another place fit for the purpose, and there each, according to the priority of entering the hospital, shall choose one pig (otherwise a sum of money to be distributed equal to the value of the pigs). Also, each leper shall receive on the feast of Saint Valentine, for the whole of the ensuing year, one quarter of oats. Also, about the feast of St. John Baptist, two bushels of salt, or the current price. Also, at the feast of St. Julian, and at the feast of St. Alban, one penny for the accustomed pittance. Also, at Easter one penny, which is called by them ‘Flavvonespeni.’ Also, on Ascension-Day, one obolus for buying potherbs. Also, on each Wednesday in Lent, bolted corn of the weight of one of their loaves. Also, on the feast of St. John the Baptist, four shillings for clothes. Also, at Christmas, let there be distributed in equal portions among the leprous brothers, fourteen shillings for their fuel through the year, as has been ordained of old for the sake of peace and concord. Also, since, by the bounty of our Lord the King, thirty shillings and fivepence have been assigned for ever for the use of the lepers, which sum the Viscount of Hertford has to pay them annually at the feasts of Easter and Michaelmas, we command that the said 30s. and 5d. be equally divided among them in the usual manner; and we desire the brothers to be contented with the aforesaid distributions, which have been accustomed to be made amongst the leprous brothers of old: But the residue of the property of the said hospital we order and decree to be applied to the support of the Master and Priests of the said Hospital.”