 
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:—
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:—
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:—
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 corrodies143 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 called144) 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 (20s. from one, and 6s. 8d. 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:—
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:—
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 66s. 5d. St. John’s, Bedford, was worth 20s. 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. |
|
