Lancaster College was founded by Henry the Fourth and the executors of John of Gaunt in connection with the Cathedral: the College buildings were also in the Parish of St. Gregory.
Another College in connection with the Cathedral was that of the Minor Canons, founded by Richard the Second. They had houses adjoining the Precinct and a Common Hall within the Precinct.
The College of St. Lawrence Poulteney, in connection with that church, consisted of a Master or Warden, thirteen priests, clerks, and choristers.
In Dowgate stood a small college of Priests called Jesus Commons: Stow says that it was a “House well furnished with Brass, Pewter, Napery, Plate, etc., besides a fair Library well stored with books: all which of old time were given to a number of priests that should keep Commons there.” Evidently a quiet and peaceful College, not unlike All Souls, Oxford.
St. James’ in the Fields, a hospital founded from time immemorial, for leprous virgins of the City, was suppressed by Henry the Eighth. St. James’s Palace stands upon its site.
St. Mary Rouncevall or Runcevall, at Charing Cross, a hospital, suppressed as an alien House by Henry the Fifth, was refounded as a Brotherhood by Edward the Fourth, provided with new statutes for a Master, Wardens, Brethren, and Sisters by Henry the Seventh, and suppressed again by Edward the Sixth. Northumberland House, with its gardens, used to occupy exactly the Precinct of St. Mary Rouncevall. It was built, as Northampton House, in the year 1614.
Beside this House was a modest Hermitage, named after St. Catherine, founded by Edward the First (see also Appendix XI.).
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
FRATERNITIES
We must not forget the Fraternities. There was not, I believe, a single Parish Church which had not its Fraternity. Except for purposes of war, when all marched under order of the King, the first attempt at union was the Parish Fraternity. The Parish Church has always been the natural centre round which gathered the temporal as well as the spiritual concerns of the Parish. The Fraternity, dedicated to the Patron Saint of the Parish, was a union of all for the protection of all: the members maintained those who were sick and old, educated and apprenticed the orphans, protected the widows, celebrated masses for the dead. They formed themselves into one family. How, then, do we find so many Fraternities belonging to separate trades? Two explanations are possible. One, that the parishes became entirely composed of men practising the same trade, with their families: the other that a large proportion of men engaged in one trade lived in the parish. In the former case, the Fraternity of the Parish Church became the Fraternity of one trade: in the other case it was reasonable that men carrying on the same trade should live as much together as possible, for convenience, use of tools, acquisition of raw material, and regulation as to production: that they should break off from one common parish Fraternity and constitute their own Fraternity for their own advantage.