“Hospitals . . . founded to the honour of God and of His glorious Mother.” (Parliament of Leicester.)
THE words “God’s House,” and “Maison Dieu” were familiar enough in mediæval England. A hospital was the house of God, for therein Christ was received in the person of the needy:—“I was a stranger and ye took Me in, sick, and ye visited Me.” It was also built in His Name and to His honour, for the principle underlying all dedications was, says Hooker, that they “were consecrated unto none but the Lord only.” But with God’s Name that of one of His saints was often associated, and by this the hospital was commonly called; thus a charter of Basingstoke ran:—“I have given and granted to God and to the glorious Virgin His Mother, and to my venerable patron St. John the Baptist the house called St. John.”
The Holy Trinity.—Hospitals bearing this title are not very numerous, though it often occurs as first of a group. There are a few single dedications early in the thirteenth century, which may be partly attributed to the institution of the Feast of Trinity by St. Thomas of Canterbury. Two hundred years later it was a fairly common p245 dedication for almshouses. The seals depict various symbols. The “majesty” representing the Three Persons, occurs at Walsoken; the Almighty seated upon a rainbow (Salisbury); our Lord enthroned (Berkeley); whilst a triple cross ornaments the Dunwich seal. Bonde’s almsmen at Coventry bore upon their gowns “the cognizance of the Trinity.”
The Holy Saviour; Christ; Corpus Christi.—The Second Person of the Godhead is seldom commemorated, but the dedication to the Blessed Trinity was regarded as synonymous, for the almshouse at Arundel occurs indifferently as Christ’s or Holy Trinity. The Maison Dieu at York, commonly called Trinity, was properly that of the Holy Jesus—or Christ—and the Blessed Virgin, and the chantry certificate is headed “The Hospital of the Name of Jhesus and Our Blessyd Ladye.” St. Saviour was the invocation of houses at Norwich and Bury, and the fair in connection with the latter charity was held at the feast of the Transfiguration. “Ye masendew of Chryste” at Kingston-upon-Hull was originally “Corpus Christi,” but it is remarkable to find that rarely-preserved dedication-name upon an Elizabethan table of rules. The seal of the Holloway hospital, near London, shows Christ (with the orb) and St. Anthony.
The Holy Ghost.—This sacred title, closely associated with the mediæval charities of Germany and famous in Rome, was rarely used in England. At Sandon (Surrey) was a hospital “commonly called of the Holy Ghost,”[158] though an alternative name occurs. A hidden dedication is sometimes revealed, for the houses usually known as St. Thomas’, Canterbury, St. Margaret’s, Taunton, p246 St. John’s, Warwick, and St. John’s, Hereford, are mentioned once in documents as being built in honour of the Holy Ghost as well as of the saints named; all the above instances refer to the years 1334–1353. At Lyme there was the suggestive commemoration of the “Blessed Virgin and Holy Spirit.”
The Annunciation; St. Gabriel; St. Michael; The Holy Angels.—Two fourteenth-century foundations at Leicester and Nottingham commemorate the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin. The seal of the former house depicts St. Gabriel delivering his salutation. A kindred thought underlies the dedication “to our lady St. Mary the Mother of Christ and to St. Gabriel the Archangel” at Brough. (It is noteworthy that the parish church was St. Michael’s.) Another institution, built by Bishop Bronescombe of Exeter, who had a special devotion to the Archangel, left its name to Clist Gabriel. The more ancient dedication to St. Michael occurs at Whitby and elsewhere in Yorkshire. Michael de la Pole founded an almshouse at Kingston-upon-Hull, partly in honour of “St. Michael the Archangel and all archangels, angels and holy spirits.” A fraternity at Brentford commemorated “The Nine Orders of Holy Angels,” and in the Valor it is termed hospitalis Angelorum.
The Blessed Virgin; The Three Kings of Cologne; The Holy Innocents.—The statement referring to hospitals in general as “founded to the honour of God and of His glorious Mother” explains more than one difficult point. First, numerous as are the dedications to St. Mary, they are fewer than those of some other saints, for instance, St. Mary Magdalene. Secondly, a certain number of houses are set down as having two patrons, yet the second p247 saint appears to eclipse the Blessed Virgin; that of Newport in Essex (given as St. Mary and St. Leonard) usually bore St. Leonard’s name and kept its fair on his festival. In many such cases there was in truth no double dedication; and although gifts were made by charter to found a hospital at Bristol “in honour of God, St. Mary and St. Mark”, later documents omit the formula and call it “the house of St. Mark.”
[♦] PLATE XXVII. HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY THE VIRGIN, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE
On the other hand many houses were dedicated solely in honour of the Blessed Virgin, including five important institutions in London alone. In addition to St. Mary (without Bishopsgate), St. Mary of Roncevalles (Charing Cross) and Our Lady of Elsyng (Cripplegate), there was St. Mary’s hospital or the House of Converts,—a witness to the doctrine of the Incarnate Christ,—and St. Mary of Bethlehem, a name chosen on account of the founder’s intense reverence for the holy Nativity. Stow quotes the deed of gift made by Simon, “son of Mary”:—