The Mediæval Hospitals of England

by Rotha Mary Clay

“having speciall and singulor deuotion to the Church of the glorious Virgin at Bethlehem, where the same Virgin brought forth our Saviour incarnate . . . and where [to] the same Child to us there borne, the Chiualrie of the heavenly Company sang the new Hymne Gloria in excelsis Deo.”

The Holy Innocents were commemorated in the ancient leper-house outside Lincoln. The existing chapel of an almshouse in Bristol built “in the honour of God and the Three Kings of Cologne” (Leland’s fanam trium regum) is the sole witness in the way of dedication in England to the veneration of the Magi. The title is said to have been the choice of an Abbot of Tewkesbury at the close of the fifteenth century. p248

Holy Cross and Holy Sepulchre.—Names commemorating the Death and Burial of the Saviour are not infrequent. The history of St. Cross, Winchester, touches that of the Knights of Jerusalem, with whom both name and badge are connected. (See p. [207].) On the common seal the master and priests are shown kneeling at the foot of the Cross; the descent from the Cross is depicted upon the walls of the church. This dedication is also appropriately associated with the hospitals usually known as St. Mary Magdalene’s at Stourbridge and near Bath, the fairs of which houses were held on the festivals of the Invention and Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The chapel of St. Thomas of Acon in Cheapside—under the Knights Templars—was dedicated to St. Cross. The church attached to St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, was probably named out of veneration for the relics of “the tree of life” which the founder used in healing (see p. [95]); and once exemptions were granted “out of the king’s reverence for the Holy Cross, in honour of which the church of the hospital of St. Bartholomew is dedicated.”[159]

The connection between St. Helen and the Holy Cross is best told in reference to the hospital at Colchester. Although authentic records only carry its history back to 1251, an illustrious antiquity is claimed in an episcopal indulgence purporting to be issued about 1406. The tradition is quoted (but with modernized spelling) from the Antiquarian Repertory:—

“Moreover, in the year of our Lord 670, Constantine, the son of the blessed and holy woman Saint Elyn, sent his mother unto Jerusalem to inquire of the Holy Cross that our Saviour Christ Jesu died upon, likewise as it was shewed to him by p249 token in the air and also by revelation of the Holy Ghost. Then the holy woman, seeing the Will of Almighty God, departed out of the town of Colchester where she was born (there where the said hospital is founded in the honour of Almighty God, the holy Cross and St. Elyn) and took her journey unto Jerusalem and there . . . did win the same Cross. . . . Then the holy victorious woman gave laud and loving to God and took one part of the Holy Cross and closed it with gold and sent it to her hospital to Colchester evermore to be abiding, with her ring, her girdle, and her purse, with other 24 curious reliques.”

Finally, after relating a visit of St. Thomas of Canterbury to that house, the story of the relic, inciting to devotion, pilgrimage visits and contributions, is brought up to date:—

“Also in the year of our Lord 1401, there came thieves unto the hospital by night and brake up the locks where the glorious relique was, and took it away . . . then they took the blessed Holy Cross (as it was, closed in gold the weight of 21 ounces) and cast it into the pond, but it would not sink . . . and so the folks that did pursue took it up and brought it home to the place again.”

This Colchester foundation was associated with the gild of St. Cross (p. [18]) and other gilds of that name maintained charities at Stratford-on-Avon, Abingdon and Hedon. In the latter place the hospital of St. Sepulchre gave its title to Newton St. Sepulchre. There were pilgrim-houses at Nottingham and Stamford with the same dedication.

St. John Baptist, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Lazarus.—The cult of these saints is intertwined with the history of the Religious Military Orders of Jerusalem. The work of the Knights Hospitallers was to care for sick and p250 needy pilgrims. They maintained two important infirmaries at Jerusalem, St. John’s for men, and St. Mary Magdalene’s for women. Grateful guests returning from pilgrimage bore the report of these houses far and wide; thus it came to pass that, throughout Europe, hospitals unconnected with the order were founded, and by force of association consecrated in honour of these saints. That of St. John Baptist, Lechlade, is referred to in one deed as “St. John of Jerusalem.” Such “houses of St. John” were usually for travellers. One writer remarks that almost every town had a place to accommodate the sick and wayfarers, and that they “were invariably dedicated to St. John Baptist in connection with his wandering life.” Although this saint did not monopolize the protection of strangers, he was certainly adopted as patron by some hundred hospitals (excluding commanderies of the Order of St. John).

Lanfranc’s foundation in his cathedral city was placed by him under the patronage of St. John Baptist, on one of whose festivals (August 29) the archbishop had been consecrated. The hospital at Thetford kept a fair on that day called “The Decollation of St. John Baptist”; but the lepers of Harting celebrated their wake on June 24, “The Nativity of St. John Baptist.” The strange customs connected with this latter festival were especially observed in houses of which he was patron; in memory of St. John Baptist it was usual at Sherborne for a garland to be hung up on Midsummer Eve at the door of St. John’s, which the almsmen watched till morning.