“As to other hospitals, which he of another foundation and patronage than of the King, the Ordinaries shall enquire of the manner of the foundation, estate and governance of the same . . . and make thereof correction and reformation according to the laws of Holy Church, as to them belongeth.”
(Parliament of Leicester.)
ATTENTION having been already called to the internal constitution of hospitals, we must now consider their relation to those in authority. The position of such a house was necessarily complicated; there arose a difficulty in reconciling its subordinate, yet partly independent character. We must see, first, how its welfare depended to a certain extent on king and bishop; secondly, its position with regard to the parochial system; and thirdly, how far it was affected by monasticism.
(i) RELATIONS WITH THE KING AND THE BISHOP
The hospitals of England have never been exclusively in the hands of Church or State. The relations which they bore to each may be subdivided under the headings of Constitution, Jurisdiction and Finance.
(a) Constitution.—As we have seen, the Church, usually represented by the diocesan bishop, was responsible for the rule and statutes by which a hospital was guided.
(b) Jurisdiction.—In the province of administration, visitation and reform, king and bishop played their p195 respective parts. Speaking generally, the bishop was administrator, and the king protector; to the former, matters of religious observance and conduct were referred, to the latter, questions of temporal privilege, immunity from taxation, etc. Both had rights as “visitors.” Faithfully conducted, ecclesiastical visitation might be of great use, but owing to the huge extent of dioceses, it was infrequent and inadequate, and where the king was patron, the diocesan bishop’s visitation was prohibited. Under Henry III, the royal almoner undertook the keeping of Crown hospitals, but afterwards this duty fell to the Chancellor, who alone had the right of visitation; the diocesan bishop had no jurisdiction in such houses except by special arrangement, as in the Statute directing that ordinaries “by virtue of the king’s commission to them directed” shall take inquisitions and return them into chancery. Royal interposition was not customary unless the king were patron; thus an order to inquire into waste at certain hospitals was cancelled because the king had erred in believing that they were founded by his progenitors. When investigations were commanded, they were committed to a local jury, who were to find by inquisition on oath of the good men of the county how far rules had been observed, and they possessed full power “to deal with the hospital as well in the head as in the members.” Detailed accounts of such special visitations may be found among Chancery Miscellanea in the Record Office.
(c) Finance.—The Lateran Council of 1179 decreed that leper-communities should not pay tithe from gardens and orchards, nor of the increase of cattle, and this was ratified in the Provincial Council of Westminster in 1200. The p196 Church wished to go a step further and ordain that neither lazar-house, Domus Dei nor poor hospital should pay taxes, which was set forth by Gregory X; entries upon Papal Registers in 1278 declare that certain English houses, including Ospringe, should share this immunity. But the decree was not necessarily accepted in England, remission of taxation being a royal prerogative; Ospringe was a Crown hospital to which exemption was renewed from time to time of the king’s grace. In the cases of lazar-houses, a curious distinction was made, witnessing incidentally to national independence—“And let not the goods of lepers be taxed where they are governed by a leper” (par Sovereyn meseal). This rule occurs in the First Statute of Westminster (3 Edw. I),[118] and afterwards in rolls and writs dated 1297, 1307, etc.[119] It was evidently in allusion to this custom that, in remitting a wool-tax, it is stated that St. Bartholomew’s, Rochester, was governed by a leprous prior (1342), but a few years later the king granted it freedom from taxation for ever. Many houses were freed by charter from local and general contributions and tolls.
Land-tenure may be included under finance. Before the enactment of the Statute De Religiosis, benefactors met with no hindrance in promoting any plan for endowment, but after 1279 permission was sought “to alienate land in mortmain.” On payment of a small fine, communities were empowered to accept property to a certain value. This developed into the “licence to found” named in fourteenth-century rolls, and subsequently into incorporation. p197
(ii) RELATIONS WITH THE PARISH PRIEST
Before the foundation of a hospital chapel, special permission was required from the bishop, with a guarantee that it should not interfere with the parochial system. It was necessary clearly to define privileges, lest friction should arise. Grants in civil and ecclesiastical registers include “a chapel, bell and chaplain,” oblations, sepulture and “the cure of souls.”