“En Rencesvals si est Carles entrez;
* * *
Rollanz remeint pur les altres guarder.
* * *
Halt sunt li pui e tenebrus e grant,
Li val parfunt e les ewes curranz.
* * *
Li gentilz quens, qu’il fut morz cunquerant.”
“La Chanson de Roland,” édition, Léon Gautier.
The fact that the conventual Hospital of St. Mary Roncevall was founded at the village of Charing in the time of Henry III, and that it continued to exist till the dissolution of the religious houses by Henry VIII, is well known to students of the history of London; but, so far as the writer is aware, no definite attempt had been made to collect the remaining records of this interesting medical foundation before 1907, when the story of the Convent and its Hospital was published privately.[[1]] Nevertheless, the influence of the Convent and the Hospital which it established was considerable during the three centuries of their existence in England. The name which the Convent in London received from the Mother House served to revive the memories of perilous journeys and of timely succour in the minds of many who had travelled abroad in France and Spain engaged either in warlike or peaceful affairs, the name of Roncevall in many forms came to be used as a family designation in various parts of England;[[2]] and Chaucer refers to the existence of the Convent in a way that shows that the reference required no explanation to his readers. After the dissolution of the alien priories the fraternity owed its continued existence to the recognition of the charitable assistance it rendered to “the poor people flocking to the Hospital.”