DECLINE OF THE HOSPITALS
“_Many hospitals . . . be now for the most part decayed, and the
goods and profits of the same, by divers persons, spiritual and
temporal, withdrawn and spent to the use of others, whereby many men
and women have died in great misery for default of aid, livelihood
and succour._”
Such is the preamble to the Statute for the reformation of hospitals
(1414). Responsibility for use and abuse rested with the patron, but
more immediately with the warden into whose hands he committed the
administration. If this chapter is necessarily devoted to the seamy
side of hospital life, let no one suppose that officials were all bad,
or even all careless. There were men “in whose purity of conscience
the king confides,” chosen for “probity, character and knowledge.” Yet
upright, thrifty and faithful wardens were far from common, and it
does not sound hopeful when one and another was appointed “during good
behaviour.”
_Abuses by Patrons._—On the whole hospitals were well-treated by
their patrons. Their first founders especially showed both generosity
and care, but in many cases the descendants became indifferent and
neglected that careful selection of wardens which would have done much
to avert evils. But one of the outstanding grievances against patrons
was their claim to “maintenance” free of charge whenever they desired
it. They and the official “visitors” [p213] sometimes used these
institutions as hostelries for themselves and their retinue. In the
regulations of St. John’s, Bridgwater (1219), which the bishop drew up
for the manorial lord, it is said:—“We expressly forbid that either
the rich or powerful, whether of diocesan rank or ordinary people, or
the ministers and stewards of the patron, should lodge, sojourn or be
entertained and be a burden.” It was rather to be a _Domus libera Dei_,
founded only for the poor of Christ. The kings exercised their right to
lodge at the Maison Dieu, Dover (see Frontispiece), on their journeys
to France. The hospital made a complaint, however, when Edward, eldest
son of Edward I, was suddenly lodged there with the chancellor and
their suite by the marshal of the household.
The “corrody” was an even greater, because a permanent, burden. The
privilege of board and lodging was frequently given away by patrons
as a reward for service, but sometimes it was created by grant of the
community itself, or sold by greedy officials. This grievance marks
a period of decline. Whereas Henry III pensioned his nurses from the
Exchequer, Edward I imposed upon hospitals the maintenance of old
servants of the Crown, sending a former damsel of the queen-mother and
her man-servant to Ospringe to be maintained for life. He appointed
only to houses of royal foundation, but his son went further, demanding
admission, for example, to the episcopal hospital at Worcester. Caring
little that Bishop Wulstan was the founder, Edward II declares that
“the hospitals in the realm were founded by the king’s progenitors for
the admission of poor and weak persons, and especially of those in the
king’s service who were unable to work.” An order is sent to Oxford to
admit the king’s [p214] chaplain to St. John’s, finding him and his
clerk food, drink, robes, shoe-leather, wood, litter, and a fitting
dwelling-place. The Statute of 1314–15 condemned the tyrannous practice
of burdening religious houses in this manner.
Edward III was checked in the first year of his reign by a more
forcible enactment entitled, “There shall be no more grants of
Corrodies at the King’s Requests.” It states that many have been
hitherto grieved by such requests “which have desired them by great
threats, for their clerks and other servants, for great pensions and
corrodies.” Edward declares that he “will no more such things desire,
but where he ought”; and henceforth letters patent of this character
are less numerous. Where the demand was considered unjust, resentment
sometimes took the form of violence. Thus in 1341 the master of St.
John’s, Oxford, with eight men, assaulted and imprisoned a certain
Alice Fitz-Rauf; they carried her off by night with veiled face, threw
her into a filthy place, and so left her, having taken away the writ
requesting her reception into the hospital. More often a mild protest
was made by officials; they acquiesce “of mere courtesy,” but beg to be
excused in future. Forgetting that the courtesy of one generation may
be the custom of the next, the much-abused York hospital submits (1331)
provided the demand shall not form a precedent. Fifty years later,
a strong-minded master of that house refuses to admit a man at King
Richard’s command, replying that it was “founded for the bed-ridden and
not for the able-bodied.”
Cases of oppression “by divers persons spiritual and temporal” are
recorded. Even the mitred abbot of St. [p215] Albans was more than
once at fault. In 1223 the pope commanded him not to lay burdens on
the leper women of St. Mary’s by virtue of patronage; and an early
Chancery Proceeding shows that another abbot had oppressed the poor
sick brethren and feeble folk of St. Julian’s. The Rolls of Parliament
reveal that an abbot of Colchester (_temp._ Edward I) withheld the
accustomed pension and tithe from “les povere freres malades” of St.
Mary Magdalene’s; by cunning and force he abstracted their common seal
and muniments, and flung their charters into the fire. At Durham the
inmates of St. Mary Magdalene’s begged redress of grievances (_temp._
Edward II). Some previous almoner of the priory, they declared, had
defrauded them of food and clothing; he had even obtained their
muniments by bribing the guardian with the gift of a fur cloak. The
prior and convent, however, endorse the petition: “but be it known that
this complaint does not contain truth for the most part.”[134]
Monastic houses were not as zealous as formerly in the service of
the needy. The great abbey of St. Augustine, Canterbury, had built
and maintained the daughter hospital of St. Laurence; but in 1341
this is declared to be of a foundation so weak that it falls very far
short of what is sufficient for their sustenance. The lay patron of
West Somerton leper-house entrusted its custody to Butley Priory on
condition that the usual number of inmates were maintained. A later
prior withdrew the victuals and reduced the revenue from £60 to 10
marks, until after twenty years of neglect, it was said (1399) “the
place where the hospital of old time was is now desolate.” [p216]
Reading Abbey, which once cherished its charitable institutions,
treated them ill in later days. When Edward IV travelled through the
town (1479), wrongs were reported to him, including “howsys of almes
not kept”; the abbot had appropriated the endowments and destroyed the
buildings. The prior and convent of Worcester themselves suppressed
St. Mary’s, Droitwich, in 1536, and “expelled the poor people to their
utter destruction.”
Contention about patronage was another very serious evil, causing
continual litigation. The representatives of the first founder, and
those of subsequent benefactors, fell out as to their respective
claims. The Crown was ever ready to usurp patronage, on plea of
foundation, wardship, voidance of See, etc. Thus from generation to
generation, St. Leonard’s, York, was claimed by the Crown, whereas much
of its property had been a gift to the clergy of the minster by Saxon
and Norman sovereigns. A jury of 1246 decided in favour of the Dean and
Chapter against royal patronage, but subsequently the Crown recovered
it once more.[135] Such disputes were not limited to words. The See
of Winchester being void, Edward II nominated a warden to St. Cross,
afterwards declaring that he had recovered the presentation against
the bishop. The writ was seized and the arm of the king’s messenger
was broken in the contest. The practice of keeping important posts
unfilled was another abuse. A petition made in Parliament concerning
this evil (1314–15)[136] maintained that hospitals were impoverished
and destroyed during vacancy by temporary guardians, in reply to which,
remedy was promised. The warden of St. [p217] Nicholas’, Pontefract
(in Queen Philippa’s patronage), complained that during the last
voidance, goods had been lost to the value of £200.
Patrons neglected personal supervision. The founders of Ewelme inserted
in the statutes one clause concerning the imperative duty of visitation
by their representatives; for, in their experience:—
“Diuerse places of almesse had been yfounded of grete pite and
deuocion to be rewled by many ryght resonable rewlis and statutis
. . . yitte for defaute of dew execucion of the same and of dew
uisitacion and correccion of the brekers of them such sede howses
haue bene by myslyuyng and negligence ybought to grete heuynesse and
at the last to grete desolacon.”
_Abuse by Wardens and Officials._—Doubtless wardens were responsible
for the chief part of maladministration. Misrule by incapable and
untrustworthy men was as frequent as it was fatal. The masters and
their deputies had not the moral qualities of wisdom and honesty to fit
them for so difficult a post. Master Hugh, warden of St. John and St.
Thomas’ at Stamford, reduced it to such a condition that he petitioned
for liberty to resign (1299). The abbot of Peterborough committed it
to a neighbouring rector until “through the blessing of God its most
high guardian, it shall arrive at a more flourishing estate.” After
four months, however, Hugh was restored to office, and matters became
worse. He defrauded the poor of their alms, locked up the rooms where
strangers and sick should have been accommodated, and neglected the
chapel. Meanwhile the mild abbot died; a new superior interfered and
Hugh was again deposed. But having enlisted the mediation of the bishop
and archdeacon, he, after a solemn oath of “reformation of all my
excesses,” [p218] was actually entrusted for the third time with the
wardenship.[137]
A more interesting figure is the incorrigible Thomas de
Goldyngton—warden of St. Nicholas’, Carlisle, and St. Leonard’s,
Derby—who appears upon the roll as a flagrant offender, although a
keen medical man. In 1341 he is perilously near forfeiting his Crown
appointments for acting as leech to Scottish rebels; in 1348 he
“exercises the office of the surgery of the commonalty [of Derby],
neglects the duties of the wardenship and has dissipated and consumed
the goods and alienated the lands to the great decay of the hospital.”
Thomas had been previously warned after sundry visitations, for
instance (1343): “the king commands the master at his peril to observe
all the rules, constitutions and ordinances of the hospital [Carlisle]
in their entirety.”[138] It seems doubtful whether this energetic
person ever became an exemplary house-surgeon and physician at that
mediæval royal infirmary of Derby.
The staff like the warden defied authority, as is shown by visitation
reports. The brethren and sisters of St. Nicholas’, York, were
cross-questioned by the jury. The general evidence was that they were
living as they pleased, carrying on business, omitting services,
and wandering. The sisters mostly confessed to knowing nothing, but
one deposed that the brethren were disobedient; whilst the chaplain
reported that “all are disobedient and do not observe humility.”[139]
Community life was doubtless trying to the temper, and there were
occasionally disturbances serious enough [p219] to reach the king’s
ears. Throughout the reign of Edward II, the name of Nicholas de Staple
occurs periodically on Close Rolls. Brother Nicholas first appears as
an official of the Maison Dieu, Ospringe, who had become intolerable to
his fellows. The king, in response to an appeal, orders him to transfer
himself promptly to St. John’s, Oxford, to remain until further notice:
“the king wishing to avoid damages and dangers and dilapidations of
the goods of the hospital that, it is feared, will arise if Nicholas
remain there any longer, on account of the dissensions between him and
the other brethren.” The disturber of the peace retires from parchment
publicity for thirteen years, when an order is sent to retain him for
life as a chaplain-brother. Finally, after a visit of twenty years
to Oxford (whither he was “lately sent to stay for some time”), the
life-sentence is remitted, and he is allowed to return to Ospringe.
Two years before Nicholas vanishes, Oxford becomes a reformatory for
another Ospringe brother, Thomas Urre, whom the king caused to be
amoved on account of bad conduct, and because he excited all manner
of disputes. Small wonder that a subsequent visitation of St. John’s
should reveal misrule, dissolute living, disobedient and quarrelsome
brothers, sisters and ministers.
A few years later, the household at Newton in Holderness is in a like
condition, witness the following entry:—
“Commission . . . to make inquisition and certify the king whether,
as he is informed, William Lulleman, chaplain, (who pretends to be
deaf and for that cause has at the king’s request been admitted to
his hospital of Newton to have his sustenance there,) is sometimes
lunatic and mad, and daily stirs up dissension between the brothers
and sisters of the hospital, and [p220] so threatens them and the
poor residing there, and bears himself so importunately that he
cannot have his conversation among the master and brethren, nor can
the brethren and sisters live in peace while he is conversant among
them.”[140]
The offender was then removed, but imagine with what feelings the
warden of Newton received the king’s messenger four years later, and
unfastening the roll read as follows:—
“To the master and brethren, etc. Request to admit William Lulleman
of Bernleye, chaplain, who is detained by severe sickness, and to
give him maintenance for life.”{140}
Edward III, wishing to guard against the reception of unworthy
men, forbade the master of Ospringe to admit any brother without
special orders; and he removed one for notorious excesses and
disobediences.[141] St. Thomas’, Birmingham, was found in a miserable
plight, because “vile reprobates assumed the habit that they might
continue their abominable lives _sub velamine Religiositatis_, and then
forsake it, and cause themselves to be called hermits.”[142] No clerk
could be ordained without a “title,” but hospitals were apt to offer
this to unproved persons, which was fatal to the tone of the household.
St. John’s, Ely, was usually governed by clergy under rule, but in
1454 the Bishop of Dunkeld was collated to the mastership, because no
regulars could be found capable of effecting its recovery from ruin and
wretchedness.
The decline of hospitals was largely owing to the fact that many
wardens were non-residents and pluralists. It was actually possible to
represent one as having died; [p221] several appointments are revoked
because the master is discovered to be “alive and well,” so that it was
by “false suggestion that the office was reported as void.” Meanwhile
such men were being supported from the hospital funds; an absentee
governor of God’s House, Southampton, took his share of the best of its
goods, living at its expense in a private mansion in the country. The
king nominated to Crown foundations men constantly employed on service
elsewhere, and a mastership was a mere stepping-stone to preferment.
Not only did clergy hold a benefice and hospital together, but
sometimes one man held no less than three hospitals. About 1350, the
“lack of clergy by reason of the pestilence” was a serious matter. On
this plea the Bishop of Winchester appointed his nephew, a youth in his
eighteenth year, as warden at Portsmouth; before long the latter held
also the mastership of St. Cross, an archdeaconry, and two canonries.
Such practices, begun of necessity, were continued in the century of
lax Church life which followed. “One of the boys of the king’s chapel”
was given the wardenship of Ilford hospital in 1405. The mischief
that happened through the plurality and non-residence of parochial
and hospital clergy was at length insisted on in Parliament, when
in response to the petition of the Commons, reformation was ordered
(1425). St. Nicholas’, Pontefract, had been “ruled by secular masters,
some of whom hardly ever went there”; but in 1438 the management was
undertaken by the prior of Nostell.
Dispensations from Rome were answerable for many bad appointments,
as is shown by entries in the papal registers of 1427. The master of
Newton Garth, for [p222] example, was Thomas Bourgchier—“who is in
his sixteenth year only, is of a race of great nobles, and holds the
said hospital, without cure, wont to be assigned to secular clerks”;
moreover it was granted that after his twentieth year he might hold two
houses, resigning or exchanging them at will. This youthful official
seems to have been following in the footsteps of his ambitious namesake
and contemporary, who secured constant promotion and finally “wore the
mitre full fifty-one years,” and died Primate and Cardinal. Well might
the founders of Ewelme almshouse provide that, if possible, the master
should be “a degreed man passed thirty winters of age.”
Money was at the root of most ill-doing. Among the articles concerning
ecclesiastical reform set forth by Henry V and published by the
University of Oxford is one (No. 42) _De Reformatione hospitalium_,
stating that the poor and needy of the hospitals have been cast out,
whilst the officials convert the goods to their own purposes. The roll
of “evil dispenders” is a long one.
St. Leonard’s, York, is a notable example of the reduction of income
by abuse and misfortune. In Canon Raine’s lecture upon its history,
he gives extracts from its account-books, which are here given in
brief. The receipts for the year 1369–1370 amounted to over £1,369, the
expenditure to £938. By 1409 the income had fallen to £546. The number
of patients declined proportionably, falling from 224 in 1370 to 199
in 1377; and though it rose to 206 in 1423, it was reduced to 127 in
1462. From these facts several conclusions are drawn. The industrial
and self-supporting character of the hospital was relaxed because war
and pestilence left England shorthanded; land was uncultivated and
the hospital lost its thraves of [p223] corn. All this is true, but
much of the misery lay at the door of the wardens. One unscrupulous
master made 500 marks yearly by the traffic in pensions; in 1391 the
hospital was “charged with corrodies[143] sold and given, oppressed by
the excessive expenditure of its heads, and laden with debt, so that
its remaining revenues are insufficient to support master, brethren
and sisters or the poor and needy inmates, whereby the hospital is
threatened with extinction.” On another occasion the poor “Cremettes”
(as the inmates were called[144]) made a petition to the king because
their master had put the chalices and ornaments of the hospital in
pledge, etc. There are preserved in the Record Office a number of
documents relating to visitations of this house; these confirm the
evidence of contemporary Patent Rolls.
At Gloucester the sale of pensions, jewels, corn, and even of beds,
is reported; bed-money was extracted from the poor (20_s._ from one,
and 6_s._ 8_d._ from another, who had lost his legs). Part of St.
Bartholomew’s was unroofed, pigs had access to it, the inmates lacked
food and clothing, whilst the utmost depravity prevailed in the
household (1380). One extravagant warden of God’s House, Portsmouth,
spent eight or nine hundred marks yearly, yet kept no hospitality:—
“butt the master will not obey to that and so seruys the powr pepull
at hys pleysure, that ys, with uere cowrse bred and smaller drynke,
wiche ys contrary to all good consyens.”
When a warden was to be elected to the Maison Dieu, Dover (1533), a
certain John de Ponte announced to Cromwell:—“The master is dead, and
a great benefice [p224] is fallen unto the king, with which you may
oblige your friends or take it yourself, and I will serve the same.” If
such was the prevalent tone of those in authority, it is small wonder
that Brinklow wrote about the year 1536:—“I heare that the masters of
your hospitals be so fat that the pore be kept leane and bare inough.”
There is strong censure upon the administration of the London hospitals
in the petition for their re-foundation (1538); they had been provided
to relieve the poor, but “nowe a smalle nomber of chanons, preestes and
monks be founden for theyr own synguler proffytt lucre and commodytye
onely,” and these do not regard “the myserable people lyeing in the
streete offendyng every clene person passyng by the way.” About the
year 1536, Robert Copland, in _The hye way to the Spyttell hous_, says:—
“For I haue sene at sondry hospytalles
That many haue lyen dead without the walles
And for lacke of socour haue dyed wretchedly
Vnto your foundacyon I thynke contrary.
Moche people resorte here and have lodgyng,
But yet I maruell greatly of one thyng
That in the nyght so many lodge without.”
Many charitable institutions were in a languishing condition. Some,
of course, had never been endowed, whilst others had only slender
resources. Frequently the depreciation in money had caused a shrinkage
in a once-adequate revenue; sometimes the land had been filched away by
neighbouring landowners. Writing of Sherborne, Leland observes that the
almshouse “stondith yet, but men get most of the land by pece meales.”
He notes the dilapidated state of houses here and there; at Beverley
“ther was an Hospital of St. Nicholas, but [p225] it is dekayid,”
and at St. Michael’s, Warwick, “the Buildings of the House are sore
decayed.” The condition of St. John’s, Lutterworth, described in the
Certificate of 1545, was such that no hospitality was kept;[145] there
were “noe pore men within the same Hospytal remaynyng or inhabityng;
and the house, with the chapel, gretly in decaye and ruyne.” At
Stoke-upon-Trent, it appeared that there was a priest called master
of St. Loye’s hospital, but he did not know to what intent or deed of
charity it was founded.[146] Frequently the possessions had dwindled
until they barely sufficed to support a chaplain, and no charity was
distributed. The Certificate of St. John’s, Calne, states that abuse
is apparent, because there are no paupers, but all profits go to the
master; these, however, only amounted to 66_s._ 5_d._ St. John’s,
Bedford, was worth 20_s._ a year, and “there is found neuer a poore
person nor hath not ben by the space of many yeres.” In some cases the
foundation had entirely dropped out of existence, as at Winchcombe,
where Leland notes that “now the Name onely of Spittle remaineth.”
The Statute of 1545 stated that it was well known that the governors
and wardens of hospitals, or the greatest number of them, did not
exercise due authority nor expend the revenues in alms according to the
foundation. The avowed object of the Act was “to reduce and bring them
into a more decent and convenient order.
[p226]