It is a far cry from Kent to Northumberland, but there existed at Bolton a hospital of St. Thomas. Within a few miles had been fought the Battle of Alnwick, a victory won, it was believed, as the result of the king’s public penance the same day (1174). The date of foundation is not recorded, but it was begun before 1225. About the same time a hospital of St. Thomas was being built at Hereford, by one of the Warennes, whose father had bitterly opposed the then unpopular Chancellor. The new devotion to St. Thomas was fanned into flame by the magnificent ceremony of 1220 on the removal of his body to its wonderful shrine. Soon after this, a hospital was founded at Bec, and the patronage annexed to the See of Norwich; it was consecrated by Bishop Pandulph, who had taken a leading part in the “Translation,” an event which was henceforth celebrated on July 7. For centuries the shrine was held in high honour. The Letter Books of Christ Church, Canterbury, record miracles in 1394 and 1445.[163] So notable was the first of these that Richard II wrote to congratulate the archbishop, acknowledging his thankfulness to “the High Sovereign Worker of miracles who has deigned to work this miracle in our days, and upon a foreigner, as though for the purpose of spreading . . . the glorious fame of His very martyr,” adding a pious wish that it might result in the conversion of those in error at a time when “our faith and belief p268 have many more enemies than they ever had time out of mind.” Such signs were, in fact, an antidote to Lollardy, as is implied by the public testimony of the Chapter to the cure of a cripple from Aberdeen in 1445.
The kings continued to pay pilgrimage visits, and even Henry VIII sent the accustomed offerings to Canterbury. His subsequent animosity towards St. Thomas was a political move, as is shown by the report of Robert Ward in 1535; having spied at the hospital of St. Thomas of Aeon a window depicting the flagellation of Henry II by monks at the shrine, he pointed out to Thomas Cromwell that Becket was slain “in that he did resist the king.” Bale afterwards alludes thus to this burning question:—
“A trayterouse knave ye can set upp for a saynte,
And a ryghteouse kynge lyke an odyouse tyrant paynte.
· · · · · ·
In your glasse wyndowes ye whyppe your naturall kynges.”[164]
In 1538 Henry thought it expedient to inform his loving subjects that notwithstanding the canonization of St. Thomas “there appeareth nothing in his life and exteriour conversation whereby he should be called a saint, but rather . . . a rebel and traitor to his prince.” Henceforth few windows remained depicting the acts of the martyr,—though one representation of the penance of Henry II is familiar to readers at the Bodleian. The name was to be no longer perpetuated; “St. Thomas the Martyr, Southwark,” becomes “Becket Spital” and then “St. Thomas the Apostle,” whilst “Thomas House” is found at Northampton. p269
All Saints.—In spite of many general references to All Saints, the invocation by itself was as rare for a hospital as it was common for a church. Leland and the Valor Ecclesiasticus give the dedication of the Stamford bede-house as “All Saints.” The founder had willed that “there be for ever a certain almshouse, commonly called William Browne’s Almshouse, for the invocation of the most glorious Virgin Mary and of All Saints, to the praise and honour of the Name Crucified.” The almsmen’s special chapel in the parish church of All Saints was in honour of the Blessed Virgin. The existing silver seal shows the Father, seated, supporting between His knees the Saviour upon the Cross, whilst the Spirit appears as a Dove.
Alternative Dedications, etc.
There is frequently an uncertainty as to the invocation, even with documentary assistance. A Close Roll entry (1214) mentions a foundation at Portsmouth in honour of Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin, St. Cross, St. Michael and All Saints. Usually the name is simply “God’s House,” but often St. John Baptist or St. Nicholas. The seal seems to suggest the original designation, for it shows a Cross, with the Divine Hand, a scroll and angels. Again, God’s House at Kingston-upon-Hull was called Holy Trinity or St. Michael’s, or from its situation “the Charterhouse hospital”; but its full title was “in honour of God, and the most glorious Virgin Mary His Mother, and St. Michael the Archangel, and all archangels, angels and holy spirits, and of St. Thomas the Martyr, and all saints of God.” It may be observed that inasmuch as the founder Michael Pole was Chancellor of England, p270 he looked to his predecessor in office St. Thomas as patron, no less than to his name-saint. By the foundation-deed of Heytesbury almshouse, it was in honour of “the Holy Trinity, and especially of Christ our Redeemer, the Blessed Virgin Mary His Mother, St. Katherine and all saints.” The almsmen wore the letters JHU. XRT. upon their gowns. The Chantry Certificate, nevertheless, gives St. John’s. The original seal shows a Cross and the name domus elimosinaria, but the post-Reformation seal has St. Katherine. Varying dedications are sometimes merely mistakes. It must, however, be remembered that occasionally hospital and chapel had different patrons, and that both were sometimes rebuilt and, re-consecrated. As civil and ecclesiastical archives continue to reveal their long-hidden information, the dedication-names of many houses will doubtless come to light, together with notices of foundations at present unknown to us.
Some seventy titles of hospitals are here recorded, as compared with over six hundred different dedications of parish churches. In some instances the patron of a charitable institution bequeathed his name to a parish. At Tweedmouth, St. Bartholomew of the hospital was powerful enough to dispossess St. Boisil, the rightful patron of the place. The parishes of St. Mary Magdalene, Colchester, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London, and St. Giles, Shrewsbury, have grown up round a former leper-house. Several modern churches, such as St. John’s, Bridgwater, occupy the site and carry on the name of an old foundation.
In conclusion, it must be observed that since the subject of England’s Patron Saints has been fully dealt with by p271 Miss Arnold-Forster, no attempt has here been made to make more than passing allusions to the lives of hospital saints. The foregoing notes on saints were suggested by her Studies in Church Dedications.
