[♦] PLATE XVI.

THE WARDEN’S HOUSE, SHERBURN

HOSPITAL OF ST. GILES, KEPIER

[♦] p143

CHAPTER X THE HOUSEHOLD AND ITS MEMBERS

“No more brethren or sisters shall be admitted than are necessary to serve the infirm and to keep the goods of the house.” (St. John’s, Nottingham.)

THE hospital family varied widely in size and in the arrangement of its component parts, but this chapter, like the preceding, is concerned chiefly with the type of institution which had a definite organization. The establishments for infected persons will first be considered.

(i) THE LEPER HOUSEHOLD

(a) The Master.—“The guidance of souls is the art of arts,” says St. Gregory: particularly difficult is the guidance of souls in ailing bodies. Lanfranc realized that men of special gifts should be selected for the care of his Harbledown lepers. He not only arranged to supply all they might need on account of the nature of their illness, but appointed men to fulfil this work “of whose skill, gentleness and patience no one could have any doubt.” The Oxford statutes ordained that the master be “a compassionate priest of good life and conversation, who shall reside personally and shall celebrate mass daily, humbly and devoutly.” He was required to visit the infirm, to console them as far as possible, and confer upon them the Sacraments of the Church.[88] The priest p144 serving lepers was permitted to dispense rites which did not pertain to other unbeneficed clergy; thus the Bishop of London commanded the lepers’ chaplain at Ilford to hear their confessions, to absolve the contrite, to administer the Eucharist and Extreme Unction. The ideal man to fill the unpleasant post of lepers’ guardian as pictured in foundation deeds and statutes was hard to find: men of the type of St. Hugh and Father Damien—separated indeed by seven centuries, but alike in devotion—are rare. Two Archbishops of Canterbury witness to the scarcity in a deed referring to Harbledown (1371, 1402). After stating that clergy are required to celebrate the divine offices in St. Nicholas’ Church, the document declares:—