A representation of a mediæval hospital shows the double hall, the priest is administering the last rites of the Church to one patient, the sisters are sewing up the body of another just dead, mass is being sung at the altar, a visitor is kneeling in prayer. Such is Rahere’s first hospital, such was every mediæval hospital.
Little is recorded of the Hospital between the Foundation and the Dissolution. In the reign of Henry the Third one Katherine, widow of William Hardell, obtained a grant of a small plot of ground, twenty feet each way, for the purpose of building an anchorite’s cell next to the “chapel of St. Bartholomew”—was that the chapel of the Hospital or the stately church of the Priory? It was the special duty of the anchorite to pray for the prosperity of the House and for the souls of those within it. Perhaps he may have prayed for both Hospital and Priory. In the reign of Edward the Third the Hospital was “confirmed” by the King. In the year 1423 Whittington’s executors repaired the buildings; and in the same year we learn that the Hospital possessed a library, because Sir John Wakening, once a priest in the House, enriched their library by the gift of a beautiful Bible.
In the Collections of a London Citizen[21] is the following notice of the Hospital:—
“Bartholomew ys Spetylle. Hyt ys aplace of grete comforte to pore men as for hyr loggyng, and yn specyalle unto yong wymmen that have mysse done that ben whythe chylde. There they ben delyveryde, and unto the tyme of purtfycacyon they have mete and drynke of the placys coste and fulle honestely gydyd and kepte. And in ys moche as the place maye they kepe hyr conselle and hyr worschyppe, God graunte that they doo so hyr owne worschippe that have a-fendyde. Amen.”
ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE LESS
From the Grangerised edition of Brayley’s London and Middlesex in the Guildhall Library.
Referring to the very copious notes in my hands, I make the following additions to the history which precedes:—
The Charter of Henry the First, 1133, granting the Foundation of the Priory, and addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to Gilbert the Universal, Bishop of London, was printed in 1891 by Dr. Norman Moore from the copy in the Record Office. The reader desirous of more detailed information on this House is also referred to Dr. Norman Moore’s work on the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. There is a great quantity of literature on the subject of this House. The following list is by no means exhaustive, but it will serve:—Papers may be consulted in the Vetusta Monumenta, vol. ii.; in the Transactions of St. Paul’s Eccl. Soc. vol. ii.; Archæologia, vols. xv. and xix.; Notes and Queries—see Indices; the Antiquary—see Indices; the Reliquary—see Indices; the L. and Midd. Arch. Soc. vols. i., ii., iii.; Journal of Brit. Architects, i., xxx., xli.; Archæolog. Journal, vols. xli. and xlviii.
In 1362 we find a dispute between the Canons of the Priory and the Brethren of the Hospital concerning the list of the sick. In 1433 the Bishop of London issues ordinances for the better management of the Priory. Another dispute between the Priory and certain persons in the Diocese of Lincoln was thought important enough to demand a Papal commission, the Commissioners being the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, to decide upon it. The Prior and Canons complained in 1310 of the offal thrown out into the Fleet at Holborn Bridge. They succeeded in getting an Ordinance, but as to its enforcement history is mute. We find them, later on, petitioning against the making of holes and ditches in Smithfield—the petition, referring to some temporary grievance, shows that the Priory considered itself as in some sort the guardian of Smithfield. It seems, since the claim is set up in other cases, to have been a custom, in the election of a new Prior, to grant a Pension to one of the King’s clerks. John de Herclaston, clerk, in 1316, addresses a letter to the Prior and Canons claiming such a pension by right of custom. In the same year a certain Nicholas de la Marche begs the Prior to admit him into their House, “because he is an old servant of the King and infirm.” In 1530 we find that one Thomas Cornwall, convicted of heresy, who had been condemned to wear a faggot broidered on his sleeve—a pleasing reminder of orthodoxy—was sent to perpetual custody in the House of St. Bartholomew for disobeying the sentence. The story opens up a large field for hopeless inquiry. How many prisoners for heresy were there in the Houses at the time of the Dissolution? Were they all permitted to go at large? Is there any evidence as to the subsequent history of any of them? As regards Thomas Cornwall, if he was placed “in penance,” i.e. on bread and water, in a solitary cell, he did not, probably, survive to see the Dissolution of his Prison. On the other hand, if he did, it is not very likely that he saw his own private heresy any the nearer to becoming the creed of the Catholic Church.