“there be fewe or noon such commune Hospitalls within this our Reame, and that for lack of them, infinite nombre of pouer nedie people miserably dailly die, no man putting hande of helpe or remedie.”
The king, recognizing the need, planned to convert the old Savoy Palace into a magnificent institution (Pl. XIV) in which “to lodge nightly one hundred poor folks.” If this charity corresponded with the recent Statute, it would relieve those vagrants who alone were exempt, namely, women in travail and persons in extreme sickness. The king contemplated building institutions similar to the Savoy in York and Coventry, but the design was not carried out.
The problems arising from true poverty and false mendicancy were, of course, intimately connected with hospital life. A graphic picture of the difficulties which beset administrators of charity about the year 1536 is given by Robert Copland in The hye way to the Spyttell hous. The author states that one wintry day, he took refuge from the snow-storm in the porch of a hospital, probably St. Bartholomew’s. Here he got deep into conversation with the porter of the house. While they talked, there gathered at the gate people of very poor estate,—lame, blind, p013 barefoot—and Copland, who does not despise the honest poor, only those who live in need and idleness, inquires whether they admit all who ask for lodging. The porter at first answers, “Forsooth, yes,” and Copland goes on to protest against indiscriminate hospitality:—
“Me thynk that therin ye do no ryght
Nor all suche places of hospytalyte
To confort people of suche iniquyte.
But syr I pray you, of your goodnes and fauour
Tell me which ye leaue, and which ye do socour.”
The porter replies that the house is no supporter of sham beggars. There are some who counterfeit leprosy, and others who put soap in their mouth to make it foam, and fall down as if they had “Saynt Cornelys euyll.” He goes on to describe those who hang about by day and sleep at night at St. Bartholomew’s church door—drunkards, spendthrifts, swearers and blasphemers, those who wear soldiers’ clothing, but are vagabonds, and men who pretend to have been shipwrecked. Many of these live by open beggary, with bag, dish and staff:—
“And euer haunteth among such ryf raf
One tyme to this spyttell, another to that.”
The porter intimates that an effort is made to discriminate among those daily harboured, but he confesses that they are obliged to receive many unsatisfactory men, and disreputable women so numerous that they are weary of them; but they refuse stubborn knaves who are not ill, for they would have over many. Indeed, the aim of the hospital is to relieve those who cannot work and are friendless—the sick, aged, bedridden, diseased, wayfaring men, maimed soldiers, and honest folk fallen into poverty. (See p. xxiv.) p014
It is clear, however, that during the sixteenth century there was much genuine distress besides unthrifty beggary and sham sickness. From various economic causes there was a considerable increase of destitution. Legislation entirely failed to solve the problem of an ever-shifting population. The Statute of 1530–1 had recognized the value of charitable foundations by its clause:—“provided also, that it be lawful to all masters and governors of hospitals, to lodge and harbour any person or persons of charity and alms.” Although hospitals had been abused, the neglect of the sick and homeless which their reduction involved was a far worse evil. One writer after another breaks out into descriptions of the increased poverty and pain. Brinklow, in The Lamentacyon of a Christian agaynst the Cytye of London (1545), bewails the condition of the poor:—
“London, beyng one of the flowers of the worlde, as touchinge worldlye riches, hath so manye, yea innumerable of poore people forced to go from dore to dore, and to syt openly in the stretes a beggynge, and many . . . lye in their howses in most greuous paynes, and dye for lacke of ayde of the riche. I thinke in my judgement, under heaven is not so lytle prouision made for the pore as in London, of so riche a Cytie.”[12]
Again, referring to the old order and the new, A Supplication of the Poore Commons (1546) speaks of poor impotent creatures as “now in more penurye then euer they were.” Once they had scraps, now they have nothing. “Then had they hospitals, and almeshouses to be lodged in, but nowe they lye and storue in the stretes. Then was their number great, but nowe much greater.”