Many benefactors associated themselves so closely with their bedemen that they desired to be buried within the precincts of the hospital. Robert de Meulan, one of the p084 Conqueror’s lords, is said to have founded and endowed Brackley hospital, where his heart was embalmed. His descendant, Roger, Earl of Winchester, a considerable benefactor in the time of Henry III, “ordered a measure to be made for corn in the shape of a coffin, and gave directions that it should be placed on the right side of the shrine, in which the heart of Margaret his mother lay intombed,” providing that it should be filled thrice in a year for ever for the use of the hospital.[60] The chapel p085 continued to be a favourite place of interment, for Leland says:—“There ly buryed in Tumbes dyvers Noble Men and Women.” Bishop Suffield directed that if he should die away from Norwich—as he afterwards did—his heart should be placed near the altar in the church of St. Giles’ hospital. The blind and aged Henry of Lancaster and Leicester was buried in his hospital church, the royal family and a great company being present (1345); and there likewise his son was laid. Few founders’ tombs remain undisturbed in a spot still hallowed by divine worship, but some have happily escaped destruction. Rahere has an honoured place at St. Bartholomew’s. The mailed effigy of Sir Henry de Sandwich—lord warden of the Cinque Ports—remains in the humbler St. Bartholomew’s near Sandwich. The fine alabaster monument of Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, is in perfect preservation at Ewelme. The rebuilt chapel of Trinity Hospital, Bristol, retains a monumental brass of the founder (Fig. 12) and his wife.
AIMS AND MOTIVES OF BENEFACTORS
It is sometimes asserted that the almsgiving of the Middle Ages was done from a selfish motive, namely, that spiritual benefits might be reaped by the donor. Indeed it is possible that the giver then, like some religious people in every age, was apt to be more absorbed in the salvation of self than in the service of others; but the testimony of deeds and charters is that the threefold aim of such a man was to fulfil at once his duty towards God, his neighbour, and himself. That he was often imbued with a true ministering spirit is shown by his personal care for the comfort of p086 inmates. Doubtless the hidden springs of charity were as diverse as they are now: not every name on a modern subscription list represents one that “considereth the poor.” No one could imagine, for instance, that Queen Maud and King John had a common motive in their charity to lepers; or that the bishops Wulstan and Peter des Roches were animated by the same impulse when they provided for the wants of wayfarers.
The alleged motives of some benefactors are revealed in documents. Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, refers to St. Cross—“which I for the health of my soul and the souls of my predecessors and of the kings of England have founded . . . that the poor in Christ may there humbly and devotedly serve God.” Herbert, Bishop of Salisbury, in making a grant to clothe the lepers of a hospital in Normandy, says that:—“Among all Christ’s poor whom a bishop is bound to protect and support, those should be specially cared for whom it has pleased God to deprive of bodily power,” and these poor inmates “in the sorrow of fleshly affliction offer thanks to the Lord for their benefactors with a joyous mind.” Matthew Paris writes of Henry III that “he being touched with the Holy Ghost and moved with a regard to pity, ordained a certain famous hospital at Oxon.”
In the case of Rahere, the foundation of St. Bartholomew’s was an act of gratitude for deliverance from death, and the practical outcome of a vision and a sick-bed vow. While Rahere tarried at Rome,
“he began to be uexed with greuous sykenesse, and his doloures, litill and litill, takynge ther encrese, he drew to the extremyte of lyf. . . . Albrake owte in terys, than he auowyd yf helthe God hym wolde grawnte, that he myght lefully returne to his contray, p087 he wolde make and hospitale yn recreacion of poure men, and to them so there i gaderid, necessaries mynystir, after his power.”
Now and again a benefactor evinces deep religious feelings, as shown in the charter of Bishop Glanvill at the foundation of St. Mary’s, Strood:—
“Bearing in mind the saying of the Lord: ‘I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me in;’ . . . And seeing that the Lord takes upon Himself the needs of those who suffer . . . we have founded a hospital in which to receive and cherish the poor, weak and infirm.”
Another founder showed the zeal of Apostolic days; a layman of Stamford, Brand by name, made an offering to God and held nothing back. This we learn from a papal document (circa 1174):—
“Alexander the bishop to his beloved son Brand de Fossato, greeting . . . we having, been given to understand . . . that you, guided by divine inspiration, having sold all you did possess, have erected a certain hospital and chappel . . . where you have chose to exhibit a perpetual offering to your creator.”[61]