Money was at the root of most ill-doing. Among the articles concerning ecclesiastical reform set forth by Henry V and published by the University of Oxford is one (No. 42) De Reformatione hospitalium, stating that the poor and needy of the hospitals have been cast out, whilst the officials convert the goods to their own purposes. The roll of “evil dispenders” is a long one.
St. Leonard’s, York, is a notable example of the reduction of income by abuse and misfortune. In Canon Raine’s lecture upon its history, he gives extracts from its account-books, which are here given in brief. The receipts for the year 1369–1370 amounted to over £1,369, the expenditure to £938. By 1409 the income had fallen to £546. The number of patients declined proportionably, falling from 224 in 1370 to 199 in 1377; and though it rose to 206 in 1423, it was reduced to 127 in 1462. From these facts several conclusions are drawn. The industrial and self-supporting character of the hospital was relaxed because war and pestilence left England shorthanded; land was uncultivated and the hospital lost its thraves of p223 corn. All this is true, but much of the misery lay at the door of the wardens. One unscrupulous master made 500 marks yearly by the traffic in pensions; in 1391 the hospital was “charged with corrodies[143] sold and given, oppressed by the excessive expenditure of its heads, and laden with debt, so that its remaining revenues are insufficient to support master, brethren and sisters or the poor and needy inmates, whereby the hospital is threatened with extinction.” On another occasion the poor “Cremettes” (as the inmates were called[144]) made a petition to the king because their master had put the chalices and ornaments of the hospital in pledge, etc. There are preserved in the Record Office a number of documents relating to visitations of this house; these confirm the evidence of contemporary Patent Rolls.
At Gloucester the sale of pensions, jewels, corn, and even of beds, is reported; bed-money was extracted from the poor (20s. from one, and 6s. 8d. from another, who had lost his legs). Part of St. Bartholomew’s was unroofed, pigs had access to it, the inmates lacked food and clothing, whilst the utmost depravity prevailed in the household (1380). One extravagant warden of God’s House, Portsmouth, spent eight or nine hundred marks yearly, yet kept no hospitality:—
“butt the master will not obey to that and so seruys the powr pepull at hys pleysure, that ys, with uere cowrse bred and smaller drynke, wiche ys contrary to all good consyens.”
When a warden was to be elected to the Maison Dieu, Dover (1533), a certain John de Ponte announced to Cromwell:—“The master is dead, and a great benefice p224 is fallen unto the king, with which you may oblige your friends or take it yourself, and I will serve the same.” If such was the prevalent tone of those in authority, it is small wonder that Brinklow wrote about the year 1536:—“I heare that the masters of your hospitals be so fat that the pore be kept leane and bare inough.” There is strong censure upon the administration of the London hospitals in the petition for their re-foundation (1538); they had been provided to relieve the poor, but “nowe a smalle nomber of chanons, preestes and monks be founden for theyr own synguler proffytt lucre and commodytye onely,” and these do not regard “the myserable people lyeing in the streete offendyng every clene person passyng by the way.” About the year 1536, Robert Copland, in The hye way to the Spyttell hous, says:—
“For I haue sene at sondry hospytalles
That many haue lyen dead without the walles
And for lacke of socour haue dyed wretchedly
Vnto your foundacyon I thynke contrary.
Moche people resorte here and have lodgyng,
But yet I maruell greatly of one thyng
That in the nyght so many lodge without.”
Many charitable institutions were in a languishing condition. Some, of course, had never been endowed, whilst others had only slender resources. Frequently the depreciation in money had caused a shrinkage in a once-adequate revenue; sometimes the land had been filched away by neighbouring landowners. Writing of Sherborne, Leland observes that the almshouse “stondith yet, but men get most of the land by pece meales.” He notes the dilapidated state of houses here and there; at Beverley “ther was an Hospital of St. Nicholas, but p225 it is dekayid,” and at St. Michael’s, Warwick, “the Buildings of the House are sore decayed.” The condition of St. John’s, Lutterworth, described in the Certificate of 1545, was such that no hospitality was kept;[145] there were “noe pore men within the same Hospytal remaynyng or inhabityng; and the house, with the chapel, gretly in decaye and ruyne.” At Stoke-upon-Trent, it appeared that there was a priest called master of St. Loye’s hospital, but he did not know to what intent or deed of charity it was founded.[146] Frequently the possessions had dwindled until they barely sufficed to support a chaplain, and no charity was distributed. The Certificate of St. John’s, Calne, states that abuse is apparent, because there are no paupers, but all profits go to the master; these, however, only amounted to 66s. 5d. St. John’s, Bedford, was worth 20s. a year, and “there is found neuer a poore person nor hath not ben by the space of many yeres.” In some cases the foundation had entirely dropped out of existence, as at Winchcombe, where Leland notes that “now the Name onely of Spittle remaineth.”
The Statute of 1545 stated that it was well known that the governors and wardens of hospitals, or the greatest number of them, did not exercise due authority nor expend the revenues in alms according to the foundation. The avowed object of the Act was “to reduce and bring them into a more decent and convenient order.
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