HOSPITAL INMATES
“_To the master and brethren of the hospital of St. Nicholas,
Scarborough.—Request to admit John de Burgh, chaplain, and grant
him maintenance for life, as John has been suddenly attacked by the
disease of leprosy, and has not wherewith to live and is unable
through shame to beg among Christians._” (Close Roll, 1342.)
Though a visit to a modern infirmary calls forth in us, doubtless,
passing thoughts of admiration for the buildings and the arrangements,
what draws most of us thither is the bond of brotherhood. It is the
inmates of the wards who are to us the centre of attraction. Looking
upon the sufferers, we desire to know their circumstances, their
complaints, their chance of cure. Nor is it otherwise in studying the
history of ancient institutions. The mere site of an old hospital may
become a place of real interest when we know something of those who
once dwelt there, when we _see_ the wayworn pilgrim knocking at the
gate, the infirm man bent with age, the paralysed bedridden woman, and
the stricken leper in his sombre gown, and realize what our forefathers
strove to do in the service of others.
In many cases the link between the first founder and first inmate was
very close, being the outcome of personal relations between master and
servant, feudal lord and tenant. It was so in the case of Orm, the
earliest hospital inmate whose name has been handed down to us. [p092]
This Yorkshireman, who lived near Whitby eight hundred years ago,
“was a good man and a just, but he was a leper.” The abbot, therefore,
having pity on him, founded a little asylum, in which Orm spent the
rest of his days, receiving from the abbey his portion of food and
drink. In the same way Hugh Kevelioc, Earl of Chester, built a retreat
outside Coventry for William de Anney, a knight of his household, which
was the origin of Spon hospital for the maintenance of such lepers as
should happen to be in the town.
(i) PERSONS MIRACULOUSLY CURED
In dealing with mediæval miracles it may not unnaturally be objected
that we are wandering from the paths of history into the fields of
fiction; but it is absolutely necessary to allude to them at some
length because they played so important a part in the romantic tales
of pilgrim-patients. We shall see that sufferers were constantly being
carried about in search of cure, and in some cases were undoubtedly
restored to health. This was an age of faith and therefore of infinite
possibilities. It would appear that “marvels” were worked not only
on certain nervous ailments, but on some deep-seated diseases. It is
a recognized fact that illness caused by emotion (as of grief) has
oftentimes been cured by emotion (as of hope). Possibly, too, not a
few of the persons restored to health were suffering from hysteria
and nervous affections, which complaints might be cured by change of
scene and excitement. In the _Book of the Foundation_ is the story of
a well-known man of Norwich who would not take care of his health,
and therefore “hadde lost the rest of slepe,” which alone keeps the
nature sound and whole. His [p093] insomnia became chronic, and by the
seventh year of his misfortune he became very feeble, and so thin that
his bones could be numbered. At length he betook himself to the relics
of St. Bartholomew; there, grovelling on the ground, he multiplied his
prayers and began to sleep—“and whan he hadde slepte a grete while he
roys up hole.”
On the other hand the conviction is forced upon us that many, perhaps
most, of the so-called miracles were not genuine. Some diseases might
have been feigned by astute beggars. Although experienced doctors and
skilled nurses to-day are quick to detect cases, cleverly simulating
paralysis, epilepsy, etc., the staff in a mediæval hospital would
probably not discover the deception. When one such person became the
hero of a dramatic scene of healing, the officials would joyfully
acknowledge his cure, without intention of fraud. The narratives come
down to us through monk-chroniclers, whose zeal for their home-shrines
made them lend a quick ear to that which contributed to their fame. In
those days people were uncritical and were satisfied without minute
investigation.
[Illustration: 14. ST. BARTHOLOMEW
(Twelfth-century seal)]
There is, indeed, little information about early hospital inmates
unless they were fortunate enough to receive what was universally
believed in those days to be miraculous [p094] healing. Startling
incidents are related by contemporary writers, whose vivid and
picturesque narratives suggest that they had met witnesses of the
cures related. The twelfth-century chronicler of St. Bartholomew’s,
Smithfield, gives us eyes to see some of the patients of that famous
hospital.
(1) _Patients of St. Bartholomew’s._—The cripple Wolmer, a well-known
beggar who lay daily in St. Paul’s, was a most distressing case. He
was so deformed as to be obliged to drag himself along on all fours,
supporting his hands on little wooden stools. (Cf. Pl. XX.) His story
is extracted from Dr. Norman Moore’s valuable edition of the faithful
English version of the _Liber Fundacionis_, dating about the year 1400.
“There was an sykeman Wolmer be name with greuous and longe langoure
depressid, and wrecchid to almen that hym behylde apperyd, his feit
destitute of naturall myght hyng down, hys legges cleuyd to his
thyis, part of his fyngerys returnyd to the hande, restynge alwey
uppon two lytyll stolys, the quantite of his body, to hym onerous, he
drew aftir hym. . . .”
For thirty winters Wolmer remained in this sad condition, until at
length he was borne by his friends in a basket to the newly-founded
hospital of St. Bartholomew, where his cure was wrought by a miracle as
he lay extended before the altar in the church:—
“. . . and by and by euery crokidness of his body a litill &
litill losid, he strecchid un to grownde his membris & so anoon
auawntynge hym self up warde, all his membris yn naturale ordir was
disposid. . . .”
The scene of this incident was, presumably, that noble building which
we still see (Fig. 11), and which was then [p095] fresh from the hand
of the Norman architect and masons.
Aldwyn, a carpenter from Dunwich, once occupied a place in St.
Bartholomew’s. His limbs were as twisted and useless as those of
Wolmer; his sinews being contracted, he could use neither hand nor
foot. Brought by sea to London, the cripple was “put yn the hospitall
of pore men,” where awhile he was sustained. Bit by bit he regained
power in his hands, and when discharged was able to exercise his craft
once more.
Again the veil of centuries is lifted and we see the founder himself
personally interested in the patients. A woman was brought into the
hospital whose tongue was so terribly swollen that she could not close
her mouth. Rahere offered to God and to his patron prayer on her behalf
and then applied his remedy:—
“And he reuolvynge his relikys that he hadde of the Crosse, he depid
them yn water & wysshe the tonge of the pacient ther with, & with the
tree of lyif, that ys with the same signe of the crosse, paynted the
tokyn of the crosse upon the same tonge. And yn the same howre all
the swellynge wente his way, & the woman gladde & hole went home to
here owne.”
Perhaps the most startling cure was that of a maid deaf, dumb, blind
of both eyes and crippled. Brought by her parents to the festival of
St. Bartholomew in the year 1173, she was delivered from every bond of
sickness. Anon she went “joyfull skippyng forth”; her eyes clear, her
hearing repaired, “she ran to the table of the holy awter, spredyng
owte bothe handys to heuyn and so she that a litill beforne was dum
joyng in laude of God [p096] perfitly sowndyd her wordes”; then weeping
for joy she went to her parents affirming herself free from all
infirmity.
In the foregoing narratives it will be noticed that hospital and shrine
were adjacent. This convenient combination not being found elsewhere,
incurable patients were carried to pilgrimage-places. Two of the
chief wonder-workers were St. Godric of Finchale and St. Thomas of
Canterbury, who both died in 1170. Reginald of Durham narrates the cure
by their instrumentality of three inmates from northern hospitals.[62]
(2) _The Paralytic Girl and the Crippled Youth._—A young woman who had
lost the use of one side by paralysis, was brought from the hospital
of Sedgefield (near Durham) to Finchale, where the same night she
recovered health. The poor cripple of York was not cured so rapidly.
Utterly powerless, his arms and feet twisted after the manner of
knotted ropes, this most wretched youth had spent years in St. Peter’s
hospital. At length he betook himself as best he could to Canterbury,
where he received from St. Thomas health on one side of his body.
It grieved him that he was not worthy to be completely cured, but
learning from many witnesses the fame of St. Godric, he hastened to
his sepulchre; falling down there, he lay in weakness for some time,
then, rising up, found the other side of his body absolutely recovered.
The lad returned home whole and upright, and this notable miracle was
attested by many who knew him, and by the procurator of the hospital.
(3) _A Leper Maiden._—The touching tale of a girl who was eventually
released from the lazar-house near [p097] Darlington (Bathelspitel) is
also related by Reginald, and transcribed by Longstaffe.
“There is a vill in the bishopric called Hailtune
[Haughton-le-Skerne] in which dwelt a widow and her only daughter
who was grievously tormented with a most loathsome leprosy. The
mother remarried a man who soon began to view the poor girl with the
greatest horror, and to torment and execrate her. . . . She fled for
aid to the priest of the vill, who, moved with compassion, procured
by his entreaties the admission of the damsel to the hospital of
Dernigntune [Darlington], which was almost three miles distant, and
was called Badele.”
There the maiden remained three years, growing daily worse. After
describing her horrible symptoms and wasted frame, the chronicler
narrates her marvellous cure at Finchale. Thrice did the devoted mother
take her thither until the clemency of St. Godric was outpoured and
“he settled and removed the noxious humours.” When at length the girl
threw back the close hood, her mother beheld her perfectly sound. The
scene of this pitiful arrival and glad departure was that beautiful
spot at the bend of the river Weir, now marked by picturesque ruins.
The complete recovery was attested by all, including the sheriff and
the kind priest, Normanrus. We reluctantly lose sight of the delivered
damsel, wondering whether the cruel step-father received her less
roughly when she got home. It is simply recorded that never did the
disease return, and that she lived long to extol the power given by God
to His servant Godric.
(4) _A Taunton Monk._—Seldom do we know the after-life of such
patients, but a touching picture shows us one cleansed of his leprosy,
serving his former fellow-inmates. This was John King, a monk of
Taunton Priory. Prior [p098] Stephen tells how he was smitten with
terrible and manifest leprosy, on which account he was transferred to
a certain house of poor people, where he stayed for more than a year
among the brethren. The prior’s letter, after declaring how the fame of
St. Thomas was growing throughout the world, refers to divers miracles,
by one of which John was completely cured. Returning from Canterbury,
he was authorized to gather alms for his former companions:—
“We . . . earnestly implore your loving good will for the love of God
and St. Thomas, that you listen to the dutiful prayer of our brother
John, wonderfully restored to health by God, if you have power to
grant it. For he earnestly begs you to help by your labour and your
alms the poverty of those sick men whose company he enjoyed so
long.”[63]
Two similar instances of service are recorded. Nicholas, a cripple
child cured at St. Bartholomew’s, was sent for a while to serve in
the kitchen,—“for the yifte of his helth, he yave the seruyce of his
body.” In the same way a blind man who had been miraculously cured by
the merit of St. Wulstan (1221), afterwards took upon himself the habit
of a professed brother in the hospital of that saint in Worcester. He
had been a pugilist and had lost his sight in a duel, but having become
a peaceable brother of mercy, he lived there honourably for a long
while.[64]
(ii) CROWN PENSIONERS
Leaving the chronicles, and turning to state records, we find that
the sick, impotent and leprous were recipients of royal favour. An
early grant of maintenance was [p099] made in 1235 to Helen, a blind
woman of Faversham whom Henry III caused to be received as a sister
at Ospringe hospital. Similar grants were made from time to time to
faithful retainers, veteran soldiers or converted Jews (who were the
king’s wards).
_Old Servants, Soldiers, etc._—The most interesting pensioners were
veterans who had served in Scotland and France. The year of the battle
of Bannockburn (1314), a man was sent to Brackley whose hand had been
inhumanly cut off by Scotch rebels.[65] There are several instances of
persons maimed in the wars who were sent for maintenance to various
hospitals. One of the many grants of Richard II was made—“out of
regard for Good Friday”—to an aged servant, that he should be one of
the king’s thirteen poor bedemen of St. Giles’, Wilton. Another of
Richard II’s retainers, a yeoman, was generously offered maintenance at
Puckeshall by Henry IV.[66]
_Jewish Converts._—The House of Converts was akin to a modern
industrial home for destitute Jewish Christians, inmates being kept
busily employed in school and workshop. During the century following
the foundation of these “hospitals,” many converts are named, _Eve_,
for instance, was received at Oxford, and _Christiana_ in London.
Usually admitted after baptism, they were enrolled under their new
names. _Philip_ had been baptized upon St. Philip and St. James’ Day,
and _Robert Grosseteste_ was possibly godson of the bishop. Converts
were brought from all parts. We find John and William of Lincoln,
Isabel of Bristol and her boy, [p100] Isabel of Cambridge, Emma of
Ipswich, etc.[67] A century later pensioners must have been immigrants,
since all Jews resident in England had been expelled in 1290. A Flemish
Jew, baptized at Antwerp in the presence of Edward III, was granted
permission to dwell in the London institution with a life-pension of
2_d._ a day:—
“Inasmuch as our beloved Edward of Brussels has recently abandoned
the superstitious errors of Judaism . . . and because we rejoice in
Christ over his conversion, and lest he should recede from the path
of truth upon which he has entered, because of poverty . . . we have
granted to him a suitable home in our House of Converts.”
Theobald de Turkie, “a convert to the Catholic Faith,” was afterwards
received, together with pensioners from Spain, Portugal, France, and
Italy. A chamber was granted to Agnes, an orphan Jewess of tender
age and destitute of friends, the child of a convert-godson of
Edward II. A later inmate, of whose circumstances we would fain know
more, was Elizabeth, daughter of Rabbi Moyses, called “bishop of the
Jews” (1399). Converts frequently had royal sponsors. Henry V stood
godfather to Henry Stratford, who lived in the _Domus Conversorum_
from 1416–1441. There was a certain risk in being called after the
sovereign, nor was it unknown for the king’s converts to change their
names. As late as 1532 Katharine of Aragon and Princess Mary stood
sponsor to two Jewesses.
(iii) INMATES OF SOME LAZAR-HOUSES
(1) _Lincoln Invalids._—Near Lincoln is a spot still pointed out as
the “Lepers’ Field.” Formerly it was known as the Mallardry or as Holy
Innocents’ hospital. [p101] Had one visited this place in the days of
Edward I, ten of the king’s servants—lepers or decrepit persons—would
have been found there, together with two chaplains and certain
brethren and sisters. Thomas, a maimed clerk, was one of the staff,
but after thirty years he incurred the jealousy of his companions, who
endeavoured to ruin his character while he was absent on business.
Brother Thomas appealed to the king, and justice was administered
(1278). Some time afterwards the household became so quarrelsome that
the king issued a writ, and a visitation was held in 1291 to set
matters straight. In 1290 William le Forester was admitted to the
lepers’ quarters, his open-air life not having saved him from disease.
Dionysia, a widow, took up her abode as a sister the same year, and
remained until her death, when another leper was assigned her place.
An old servant of the house past work was admitted as pensioner, and
also a blind and aged retainer whose faithfulness had reduced him to
poverty, he having served in Scotland and having moreover lost all his
horses, waggons and goods in the Welsh rebellion. But strangest of
all the residents in the hospital of Holy Innocents was the condemned
criminal Margaret Everard. She was not a leper, but had once been
numbered among the dead. Mistress Everard, of Burgh-by-Waynflete, was
a widow, convicted of “harbouring a thief, namely, Robert her son,
and hanged on the gallows without the south gate of Lincoln.” Now the
law did not provide interment for its victims, but it seems that the
Knights Hospitallers of Maltby paid a yearly sum to the lepers for
undertaking this work of mercy at Canwick.[68] On this memorable [p102]
occasion, however, the body being cut down and already removed near
the place of burial—the lepers’ churchyard—the woman “was seen to draw
a breath and revive.” We learn from a Patent Roll entry (1284) that
pardon was afterwards granted to Margaret “because her recovery is
ascribed to a miracle, and she has lived two years and more in the said
hospital.”
(2) _The Lancastrian falconer and Yorkist yeoman._—A certain Arnald
Knyght, who had been falconer to Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI,
caused a habitation to be built for himself on the site of the hospital
by the Whiteditch, near Rochester, in order that there he might spend
his days in divine service. In consideration of his age and of his
infirmity of leprosy, Henry VI granted to Arnald and Geraldine his
wife not only the building recently erected, but the lands and rents
of St. Nicholas’ hospital. Edward IV afterwards granted a parcel of
land between Highgate and Holloway to a certain leper-yeoman “to the
intent that he may build a hospital for the relief of divers persons
smitten with this sickness and destitute.” This man—half-founder,
half-inmate—soon succumbed, for a record four years later states that
“the new lazar-house at Highgate which the king lately caused to be
made for William Pole . . . now deceased” was granted for life to
another leper, Robert Wylson, a saddler, who had served well “in divers
fields and elsewhere.”[69]
(3) _The Mayor of Exeter._—Shortly before 1458, St. Mary Magdalene’s,
Exeter, had a prominent inmate in the sometime mayor, Richard Orenge.
In 1438 Richard William, [p103] _alias_ Richard Orenge, is mentioned
as a tailor; he is also described as being a man of French extraction
and of noble family. Once he had been official patron of the asylum,
but when the blow fell, he threw in his lot with those to whom he had
formerly been bountiful. There, Izacke says, he finished his days and
was buried in the chapel.
[Illustration: 15. SEAL OF KNIGHTSBRIDGE HOSPITAL]
(4) _Two Norfolk lepers._—We learn incidentally through a lawsuit
that about the year 1475 the vicar of Foulsham, Thomas Wood, was in
seclusion in a London lazar-house:—“and nowe it is said God hathe
visited the seid parsone with the sekenes of lepre and is in the
Spitell howse of knygtyes brygge beside Westminster.”[70] Why the
priest came up from the country to Knightsbridge does not appear; it
would seem, however, that the Norfolk manor was temporarily in the
king’s hands, so that possibly the crown bailiff procured his removal.
One of the latest leper-inmates whose name is recorded ended his days
at Walsingham. The patron of the Spital-house left it in 1491 to John
Ederyche, a leper of Norwich, and Cecily his wife, stipulating that
after their decease, one or two lepers—“men of good conversation and
honest disposition”—should be maintained there. [p104]
(iv) SOLITARY OUTCASTS
It must not be supposed that there were no lepers save those living
in community. To use the old phrase, there was the man who dwelt in a
several house and he who was forced to join the congregation without
the camp. To lepers “whether recluses or living together” the Bishop of
Norwich bequeathed five pounds (1256). Hermit-lazar and hospital-lazar
alike fulfilled the legal requirement of separation. It may be noticed
that the service at seclusion implies that the outcast may dwell alone.
In early records, before the king habitually imposed “corrodies” on
charitable institutions, pensioners are named who were not inhabiting
lazar-houses. Philip the clerk was assigned a tenement in Portsmouth,
which was afterwards granted to God’s House on condition that Philip
was maintained for life, or that provision was made for him to go to
the Holy Land (1236). Long afterwards, in 1394, Richard II pensioned a
groom of the scullery from the Exchequer, but provided for one of his
esquires in a hospital.[71]
In hermitage and hospital alike service was rendered to the leper in
his loneliness. The little cell and chapel at Roche in Cornwall is said
to have been a place of seclusion for one “diseased with a grievous
leprosy.” Since no leper might draw from a spring, his daughter Gundred
fetched him water from the well and daily ministered to his wants.
Mediæval poems tell of solitary or wandering lepers as well as of those
residing in communities. In the romance _Amis and Amiloun_, the gentle
knight is stricken with [p105] leprosy. His lady fair and bright
expels him from his own chamber. He eats at the far end of the high
table until the lady refuses to feed a _mesel_ at her board—“he is so
foule a thing.” His presence becoming intolerable, a little lodge is
built half a mile from the gate. The child Owen alone is found to serve
Sir Amiloun, fetching food for his master until he is denied succour
and driven away. Knight and page betake themselves to a shelter near
a neighbouring market-town, and depend for a time upon the alms of
passers-by. The next stage is that of wandering beggars.[72]
In the _Testament of Cresseid_ the leper-heroine begged to go in secret
wise to the hospital, where, being of noble kin, they took her in with
the better will. She was conveyed thither by her father, who daily
sent her part of his alms. But Cresseid could not be resigned to her
affliction, and in a dark corner of the house alone, weeping, she made
her moan. A leper-lady, an old inmate, tries in vain to reconcile her
to her fate—it is useless to spurn herself against the wall, and tears
do but double her woe—but in vain:—
“Thus chiding with her drerie destenye,
Weiping scho woik the nicht fra end to end.”
This “Complaynt of Cresseid” is affecting in its description of the
lamentable lot of a woman whose high estate is turned into dour
darkness: for her bower a leper-lodge; for her bed a bunch of straw;
for wine and meat mouldy bread and sour cider. Her beautiful face is
deformed, and her carolling voice, hideous as a rook’s. Under these sad
conditions, Cresseid dwells for the rest of her life in the spital.[73]
FOOTNOTES:
[62] Surtees Soc., Vol. 20, pp. 376, 432–3, 456–7.
[63] Chron. and Mem., 67, i. 428–9.
[64] Chron. and Mem., 36, iv. p. 413.
[65] Close 8 Edw. II, m. 35 _d_.
[66] Pat. 8 Ric. II, pt. ii. m. 22; 9 Hen. IV, pt. ii. m. 14.
[67] Close Rolls _passim_.
[68] P.R.O. Chanc. Misc. Bundle 20, No. 10.
[69] Pat. 21 Hen. VI, pt. i. m. 35, pt. ii. m. 16; 12 Edw. IV, pt. ii.
m. 6; 17 Edw. IV, pt. i. m. 1.
[70] P.R.O., Early Chancery Proceedings, Bundle 60, No. 93.
[71] Pat. 20 Hen. III, m. 13; 17 Ric. II, pt. ii. m. 14.
[72] H. M. Weber, _Metrical Romances_, II, 269.
[73] R. Henryson, _Testament of Cresseid_ (Bannatyne Club).
[p106]