ST. ANTHONY’S
The Hospital of St. Anthony stood in Threadneedle Street, exactly
opposite Finch Lane. It was originally a cell to the House of St.
Anthony in Vienne, and was founded as such in the reign of Henry
the Third. According to Stow, the Jews had built a synagogue there,
which was taken from them and converted into a church dedicated to
the Virgin. This church became the Chapel of the Hospital. The House
consisted of a master, two priests—afterwards enlarged to fourteen,—and
twelve poor men. To the ground thus occupied there was afterwards added
a Messuage, with a garden which, under the mastership of John Carpenter
(1441), was made into a school and an almshouse. The school received
from Henry the Sixth certain manors for the maintenance of five poor
scholars at Oxford, allowing ten pence a week for every scholar. This,
making allowance for the present value of money, would not mean more
than ten shillings a week, which would make a very bare subsistence for
a young and hungry student. The general stipend of a chantry priest,
which, I suppose, was the lowest form of preferment, was £6 a year, or
about 28d. a week.
Henry the Fifth, in the suppression of alien Houses, gave this House
its independence. In the year 1474 Edward the Fourth granted the House
the same establishment as that of St. Anthony of Vienne, and in 1485
the House was annexed to, and incorporated with, the College of St.
George of Windsor. Other gifts and bequests fell to the Society of
St. Anthony’s. In 1411 one John Sauvage, desiring to be buried in the
church of St. Anthony, and before the altar of St. Katherine, left all
his lands and tenements to the Master and Brethren of the Hospital,
with the usual conditions as to observing his obit. In 1435 Thomas
Knolles, grocer, bequeathed to Friar John Snell, warden, preceptor,
or Master of the House of St. Anthony, a shop in the parish of St.
Benedict Fynk for the maintenance of a lamp to burn in the chancel of
the church of the said House, and for the observance of the obit—not
of himself, but of the said warden; a great, and perhaps unique,
mark of friendship thus to provide for a friend’s safe and speedy
passage through purgatory, rather than his own. In 1484 William Wyse,
barber, left his brewery, “le coupe super le Hoop,” in the parish of
Allhallows-in-the-Wall, in order to maintain a clerk to instruct the
children of St. Anthony’s in singing to music (_in cantico organico_)
and in plain chant (_in plano cantico_), and to provide for special
prayers on behalf of John Carpenter, Bishop of Worcester, the first
Master of the School, with the Collect, “Rege quæsumus, Domine,
famulum tuum” while he lives, and upon his death, that beginning “Deus
qui inter apostolos.”
A curious privilege is recorded of this House. When the Inspectors of
Markets found a pig that was unfit for food, as being too lean, or too
old, or from any other cause not proper to be killed, they marked it as
such by slitting the animal’s ears. Then the Proctors of St. Anthony’s
took possession of the creature, and tied a bill round its neck to
denote their ownership. These pigs, and no others, were allowed to run
about the streets, and to feed on what they could find, or what was
given them. If they grew fat and well, they were killed for the use of
the Hospital. But no one ventured to touch them. “But,” says Stow, “if
any one gave them bread, they would keep watch for, and daily follow,
these donors, whining till they had something given them.” Whereupon
was raised a Proverb, “Such an one will follow such an one and whine as
it were an Anthony Pig.”
The school was at one time equal in reputation to that of St. Paul, and
turned out as many scholars and Bishops—among them Sir Thomas More,
Archbishop Heath, and Archbishop Whitgift. It fell into decay after
the annexation to St. George’s, Windsor. One Johnson, a Prebendary of
Windsor, and Master of St. Anthony’s, seems to have taken advantage of
his position to ruin the House. He turned out the bedesmen, dissolved
the choir, conveyed away the plate, and sold the bells. Then the school
speedily fell into decay.
Once a year—on the 15th of September,—while the school was flourishing,
the boys marched in procession from Mile End along Aldgate, down
Cornhill to Stocks Market, and thence to Austin Friars, with flags
flying and drums beating.
After the Dissolution the church was given to the Walloons, or French
Protestants, who kept it, having rebuilt it after the Fire, to recent
times.
The school, which was not closed in 1561, was carried on as a Parish
Grammar School until the Great Fire destroyed it. Afterwards it was not
rebuilt.
It is pleasing to note that the Dissolution of the Houses did not
deprive the scholars or the bedesmen of their endowments. In the year
1565 the collector of the rents of the House of St. Anthony shows in
his accounts the sum of £17, devoted to the instruction of the scholars
in grammar, and £31: 4s. for the stipends of twelve poor persons for
one year at the weekly charge of 1s. for each. Also 2s. was paid, as
usual, to “le skavinger.”