Of pilgrim, patient and pensioner, little can be recorded. Temporary inmates came and went, receiving refreshment and relief according to their needs. Some of the resident p157 poor were chronic invalids, but others were not too infirm to help themselves and assist others.
The frequent attendance at prayers certainly gave the almsfolk constant occupation, and they were required to be busy at worship or work. The poor men of Croydon were charged “to occupy themsilf in praying and in beding, in hering honest talking, or in labours with there bodies and hands.” Inmates at Ewelme must be restful and peaceable, attending to prayer, reading or work; their outdoor employment was to “kepe clene the closter and the quadrate abowte the welle fro wedis and all odyr unclennesse.” (Pl. XVII.) It was directed at Higham Ferrers that in springtime each poor man should help to dig and dress the garden, or if absent, give the dressers a penny a day. In the same way, at Sandwich, an inmate’s allowance was stopped if he failed to render such service as he could. Those brothers at Ewelme who were “holer in body, strenger and mightier” were commanded to “fauer and soccour and diligently minister to them that be seke and febill in all behofull tyme.
[♦] p158
CHAPTER XI THE CARE OF THE SOUL
“The brothers and sisters must pray continually, or be engaged in work, that the devil may not find them with nothing to do.”
(Statutes of St. Mary’s, Chichester.)
THE daily life in a hospital was essentially a religious life. From warden to pauper, all were expected to pay strict attention to the faith and give themselves to devotion. “The brethren and sisters serving God” were fully occupied with prayer and work. “A representation of a mediæval hospital shows the double hall, the priest is administering the last rites of the Church to one patient, the sisters are sewing up the body of another just dead, mass is being sung at the altar, a visitor is kneeling in prayer.”[99]
1. THE SERVICES
The offices consisted of mass and the canonical hours. All who could rise attended the chapel on bended knees, the bedridden worshipping simultaneously. Even sick people could join in the intercessions; thus the master of St. John Baptist’s, Bath, agreed that the name of a late canon of Wells should be daily recited before the brethren, sisters and poor in the infirmary (1259).
[♦] PLATE XVIII. ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL, CHICHESTER