CHAPTER VI

ST. BARTHOLOMEW

The Hospital and the Priory of St. Bartholomew were distinct and separate foundations, of which the former was governed by the latter. The traditional history of this foundation is one of those remarkable stories which belong to a period when things material and things imagined were mixed together, and the visions of a brain, disordered by sickness, or by fasting, or by loneliness, were even more real than the tangible realities of man and matter. In the time of Henry the First there lived about the Court one Rahere, who was a knight, or a minstrel, a gentleman, or a jester, a man of noble extraction, or of obscure origin, whichever you please, for the histories differ. Either before or after his “conversion” Rahere is said to have occupied the stall of Chamberlayne’s Wood at St. Paul’s. It was a time in which there was a great deal of what modern Evangelicals used to call “conviction of sin.” Rahere was one of those so convinced. Like many others at that time, when a wave of religious emotion swept over the whole country, Rahere yearned to deepen his newly found sense of religion by going on pilgrimage. The going on pilgrimage, as a part of mediæval life, has been treated in another place. Rahere, it is enough to say, followed the common custom of the time when he went on pilgrimage to Rome. This was in 1120. Now, on arriving at Rome, or on the way, he was seized with a malarious fever, insomuch that he was like to die. He therefore prayed to St. Bartholomew, promising to found a Hospital for the poor, should he by the help of the Saint be permitted to recover. Now the bones of St. Bartholomew were found in India, A.D. 1113, only seven years before Rahere’s arrival, and, being brought over to Rome, were placed on an island of the Tiber, where had formerly stood a temple to Æsculapius. Probably Rahere had quite recently visited this place; we remember the eagerness with which the mediæval folk ran after every new saint, or every new discovery of relics. However that may be, he had a Vision, in which the Saint appeared to him, and granted his recovery on the conditions promised by the supplicant. Rahere, therefore, on his return, proceeded to found the hospital. But the Saint appeared to him: would he do more? Would he found also a Religious House? The spot—Smithfield, the smooth field—was part of the fenny flat that lay north of London Wall: a barren heath covered with springs and ponds, and set with occasional clumps of trees. Horse races were held here, a weekly horse fair, there were stables and grooms and people to look after the horses, they were a rough and rude folk, living without the jurisdiction of the City, and they had no Church nor any religious people among them; it was the place also on which executions were held, and it was accounted infamous. Rahere obeyed the Saint in this respect as well; he erected his hospital, beginning the building in 1123, with the assistance of Richard de Belmeis, then Bishop of London, and the King himself.

Rahere next proceeded to found the Priory of St. Bartholomew beside the Hospital. The House received its first Charter from Henry the First in 1133. In this Charter the King orders his successors to defend the House as jealously as their own crown. The Priory has long since disappeared, with the exception of part of the Church, but the Hospital exists to this day, enlarged and richly endowed, a perennial fountain of life and health, while the church of the Priory, such part of it as still remains, is the noblest mediæval monument left to London. The Hospital, according to the custom of the time, consisted of a double Hall, or a single Hall with aisles. Between the aisles, or at the end of the Hall, was the Chapel. In either aisle were the beds of the sick: the men on one side, the women on the other. As the patients were brought in, they were put to bed—two, four, even eight in one bed—without any regard to the kind of disease from which they suffered, so that in case of contagion or infection the other occupants of the bed were certain to catch it. One wonders how, in these circumstances, any one ever came out of the Hospital at all, and how any one could expect to recover. But all diseases were not infectious or contagious; and as for the patient, he was probably, from long experience of dirt and confined air, secure as regards many things which would now be fatal; then there was food for him; there was nursing of a kind; if one were thirsty he could drink; if one were hungry he could eat; the sisters were gentle and pitiful; the physician was always in readiness; his remedies were strange and wonderful, but the groundwork was the old wife’s knowledge of herbs and their uses—lore not to be despised;—moreover, the chief terror of death was removed, because the priest was always in the hospital with the last offices of the Church to fortify the dying. The Hall was spacious, lofty, and well lit—a paradise to a fever-stricken wretch from a hovel without chimney, floor, or window; the beds were soft and clean—as cleanliness was then understood; the way of death was made easy, even if the recovery of health were denied.

Rahere himself became the first Prior of his monastery; he died September 20, 1144, and was buried in the Church; the canopied tomb of the fifteenth century, which still stands in the Chancel of St. Bartholomew the Great, is said to cover the dust of the Founder, whose effigy may be twelfth-century work. On the tomb are figured two monks reading in Bibles open at the fifty-first chapter of Isaiah and the third verse:—

“For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.”

It would be difficult to find a more appropriate text. There are four shields on the tomb, being those of England, London, the Hospital, and the Priory. The tomb itself was desecrated by workmen in 1864. One of the leather sandals was taken off Rahere’s foot, and lost for thirty years; it has now been recovered, and is placed with other things in a small glass case in the church.

Rahere joined the order of Canons Regular of St. Augustine, who were great builders and architects, and, among other things, practised medicine.

Those of the original buildings which remain are small portions of the choir of the church, from which the whole has been restored, and perhaps a portion or fragments of the transepts. The nave has long since been destroyed; the transepts are later. Originally there were an apsidal Lady Chapel and two apsidal side chapels: that on the north side is dedicated to St. Bartholomew; that on the south to St. Stephen. When Rahere died there were thirteen canons for the new Foundation, a number increased to thirty-five under his successor. There can be no doubt, therefore, of the success of the House. The canons were not subject to duty in the Hospital. For the service of the sick there was another Foundation, consisting of a Hospitaller with eight Brothers and four Sisters, under the rule of the Prior. Rahere’s buildings were largely extended by his successor. About the same time was built the gateway into Smithfield, which still, most fortunately, stands, having escaped vandal, builder, landlord, and every danger. The present west front is, of course, modern, and the churchyard occupies the site of the former nave.

In this Priory happened that most disgraceful scene of violence in which the Archbishop of Canterbury, an alien of Provence, was the chief aggressor, when he visited the Priory in defiance of the rights of the Bishop of London and replied to remonstrance by violence. This prelate was Boniface, uncle of Queen Eleanor of Provence, who had been brought to this country with so many of his countrymen and preferred to the highest place that the realm had to offer (see vol. i. p. 29).

We have in this episode a graphic and most suggestive picture of the exasperation caused by the admission of aliens to the offices and dignities which, above all, required a knowledge of the country and its institutions and its prejudices. The rights and privileges of ecclesiastics and of Religious Houses were defended with the greatest possible jealousy and tenacity. It was clearly a privilege of this House that their visitor was the Bishop of London, and that the Archbishop had no right to intrude himself into the House. That he did so is proof of an attempt at encroachment, of which an Englishman would have been incapable. But observe, as well, the arrogance of the Prelate. He seizes the Sub-prior and hurls him against a pillar; the Canons run to his rescue, and the Archbishop is thrown on his back ignominiously, betraying the fact that he is armed beneath his episcopal robes. And his men, his followers, are themselves strangers and aliens—men of Provence, like himself.

It may be observed, as well, that the citizens had their own standard of episcopal duties, if the words are correctly reported. “He is no winner of souls,” they cry: “he is an exacter of money, whom neither God nor any lawful or free election did bring to this promotion.” That the ideal of the people was so far above the practice of the prelates in such cases as this shows, it might be fairly argued, that the parish priest of Chaucer, drawn a hundred and fifty years later, existed already in the thirteenth century.

The restored plan of the Priory is here reproduced by permission of the Rev. Sir Borradaile Savory, Bart.

In 1410 the church was rebuilt “almost anew.” The apse of the east end was removed; a square east end terminating with two large windows was inserted; the Norman Lady Chapel was taken down and the present one erected with a crypt; the Norman Clerestory was taken down and replaced by the present one; the Norman capitals were changed; the stone screen under the North Transept was inserted, probably to give strength to the piers. A Chantry Chapel was built on the north side of the north aisle. In wills of this period St. Katherine’s Chapel is referred to, also a Pardon churchyard. A stone pulpit was put up in the choir. A peal of five bells was given to the church in 1520 by one Thomas Bullesden. This is the oldest peal in London, and the bells are dedicated respectively to St. Bartholomew, St. Anna, St. Peter, St. Katherine, St. Johannes Baptista.

The last Prior but one was Bolton (1506-1522). He built the oriel window on the south side of the Choir. His rebus of a Bolt-in-Tun is in the centre panel. The same rebus is found in the spandril of the door leading into the Vestry Room, and in the brickwork of Canonbury Tower, Islington, which was also built by Bolton. This Tower, with buildings now destroyed, standing in extensive grounds, the boundaries of which can still be made out, was apparently a summer residence of the Canons.

To return to the Hospital, Rahere’s first Hospitaller was Alfune, who built St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, also outside the walls. Alfune used to go into the shambles every morning begging scraps and bits of meat for the sick men and women. He had under his orders eight Brothers of the Hospital, who were priests as well as physicians, and four sisters.

A representation of a mediæval hospital shows the double hall, the priest is administering the last rites of the Church to one patient, the sisters are sewing up the body of another just dead, mass is being sung at the altar, a visitor is kneeling in prayer. Such is Rahere’s first hospital, such was every mediæval hospital.

Little is recorded of the Hospital between the Foundation and the Dissolution. In the reign of Henry the Third one Katherine, widow of William Hardell, obtained a grant of a small plot of ground, twenty feet each way, for the purpose of building an anchorite’s cell next to the “chapel of St. Bartholomew”—was that the chapel of the Hospital or the stately church of the Priory? It was the special duty of the anchorite to pray for the prosperity of the House and for the souls of those within it. Perhaps he may have prayed for both Hospital and Priory. In the reign of Edward the Third the Hospital was “confirmed” by the King. In the year 1423 Whittington’s executors repaired the buildings; and in the same year we learn that the Hospital possessed a library, because Sir John Wakening, once a priest in the House, enriched their library by the gift of a beautiful Bible.

In the _Collections of a London Citizen_[21] is the following notice of the Hospital:—

“Bartholomew ys Spetylle. Hyt ys aplace of grete comforte to pore men as for hyr loggyng, and yn specyalle unto yong wymmen that have mysse done that ben whythe chylde. There they ben delyveryde, and unto the tyme of purtfycacyon they have mete and drynke of the placys coste and fulle honestely gydyd and kepte. And in ys moche as the place maye they kepe hyr conselle and hyr worschyppe, God graunte that they doo so hyr owne worschippe that have a-fendyde. Amen.”

Referring to the very copious notes in my hands, I make the following additions to the history which precedes:—

The Charter of Henry the First, 1133, granting the Foundation of the Priory, and addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to Gilbert the Universal, Bishop of London, was printed in 1891 by Dr. Norman Moore from the copy in the Record Office. The reader desirous of more detailed information on this House is also referred to Dr. Norman Moore’s work on the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. There is a great quantity of literature on the subject of this House. The following list is by no means exhaustive, but it will serve:—Papers may be consulted in the _Vetusta Monumenta_, vol. ii.; in the _Transactions of St. Paul’s Eccl. Soc._ vol. ii.; _Archæologia_, vols. xv. and xix.; _Notes and Queries_—see Indices; the _Antiquary_—see Indices; the _Reliquary_—see Indices; the _L. and Midd. Arch. Soc._ vols. i., ii., iii.; _Journal of Brit. Architects_, i., xxx., xli.; _Archæolog. Journal_, vols. xli. and xlviii.

In 1362 we find a dispute between the Canons of the Priory and the Brethren of the Hospital concerning the list of the sick. In 1433 the Bishop of London issues ordinances for the better management of the Priory. Another dispute between the Priory and certain persons in the Diocese of Lincoln was thought important enough to demand a Papal commission, the Commissioners being the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, to decide upon it. The Prior and Canons complained in 1310 of the offal thrown out into the Fleet at Holborn Bridge. They succeeded in getting an Ordinance, but as to its enforcement history is mute. We find them, later on, petitioning against the making of holes and ditches in Smithfield—the petition, referring to some temporary grievance, shows that the Priory considered itself as in some sort the guardian of Smithfield. It seems, since the claim is set up in other cases, to have been a custom, in the election of a new Prior, to grant a Pension to one of the King’s clerks. John de Herclaston, clerk, in 1316, addresses a letter to the Prior and Canons claiming such a pension by right of custom. In the same year a certain Nicholas de la Marche begs the Prior to admit him into their House, “because he is an old servant of the King and infirm.” In 1530 we find that one Thomas Cornwall, convicted of heresy, who had been condemned to wear a faggot broidered on his sleeve—a pleasing reminder of orthodoxy—was sent to perpetual custody in the House of St. Bartholomew for disobeying the sentence. The story opens up a large field for hopeless inquiry. How many prisoners for heresy were there in the Houses at the time of the Dissolution? Were they all permitted to go at large? Is there any evidence as to the subsequent history of any of them? As regards Thomas Cornwall, if he was placed “in penance,” _i.e._ on bread and water, in a solitary cell, he did not, probably, survive to see the Dissolution of his Prison. On the other hand, if he did, it is not very likely that he saw his own private heresy any the nearer to becoming the creed of the Catholic Church.

Of St. Bartholomew’s Fair an account will be found in another place. (See _London in the Eighteenth Century_, p. 465 _et seq._)

On October 25, 1540, Fuller, the last Prior, surrendered the House. The revenue was then £773: 0: 1-1/2; the net income was £693: 0: 10-3/4. The nave was destroyed, and the stones were used by the King for other buildings.

The Priory buildings, consisting of the Prior’s house, the Infirmary, the Dormitory, the Refectory, the cloisters, kitchens, stables, and gardens, were sold to Sir Richard Rich for £1064. The site of the nave, eighty-seven feet in length, became a churchyard, and the choir became a Parish Church. The King appointed the first Rector, after which the patronage belonged to Sir Richard Rich as his successor.

Sir Richard Rich, as Lord Chancellor, presided at the trial of Anne Askew, and, according to report, assisted with his own hands in her torture. He was also present at her execution.

In 1516 Queen Mary gave the Priory to the Black Friars, who lived here until their expulsion in 1559 by Elizabeth.

In _Londina Illustrata_ it is said that the old Parish Church adjoined the Priory Church; that when the Black Friars were turned out, the Priory Church, together with the old Parish Church, was made the Parish Church. In that case the old Parish Church must have been part of the structure of the Priory Church. The account is confused, because the writer goes on to relate that the old Parish Church was pulled down, except the steeple of wood, which became ruinous, and was taken down in 1628, the present tower being then erected.

The Great Fire was happily stopped before it could cross Smithfield.

In 1697 Hogarth was baptized in this church.

In 1863 Restoration was begun. The Lady Chapel had been converted first into a dwelling-house and next into a fringe manufactory; part of the factory projected into the church, and was supported by an iron girder and two iron columns. In the north Transept was a blacksmith’s forge; in the south the boys’ school.

The following is an account of the most interesting Restoration—may one who is no architect be permitted to say the most valuable?—as set forth in the papers prepared for the reopening of the Lady Chapel on May 18, 1897:—

At the commencement of the Restoration in 1863, the floor was lowered to its original level, the pews removed, a dry area formed round the outside of the Church, and the walls and piers, which had perished, were made good. The Apse was also completed on the ground-floor level by the insertion of the two central piers, the storey above being occupied by a fringe manufactory. Some £5000 in all was collected and expended. (Late Rev. J. Abbiss, M.A., Rector.)

In 1884-86 the Fringe Factory, which projected twenty feet into the east end of the Church, and which covered the remains of the Crypt and Lady Chapel, was purchased for £6500.

The Apse was restored at the sole charge of the Patron, the Rev. Canon Phillips. The Church was re-roofed.

The Blacksmith’s Forge, occupying the site of the North Transept, was purchased. The restored portions were reopened on November 30, 1886. (Late Rev. W. Panckridge, M.A., Rector.)

In 1887-92 the South Transept.—The temporary Vestry, which occupied the upper portion of the South Transept Arch, was removed. The Norman Arch on the north side, and the Transition Norman Arch on the south side, were uncovered and brought to light, together with much other work of considerable interest. One bay was added to provide a Baptistery, and to form a suitable approach on the south side of the Church. The Transept now covers about half of the site of the original Transept. It was opened on March 14, 1891.

The Boys’ School was removed from the North Triforium, and new Schools were built adjoining the Church. A Working Men’s Club was built beneath the Schools, at the sole charge of the Rector.

A Memorial Screen was erected beneath the Organ Loft to the late Rector, the Rev. Wm. Panckridge, M.A.

In 1892-93 the north Transept—the Blacksmith’s Forge—was removed, and a shallow Transept rebuilt, giving abutment to the great arches of the Crossing, and providing a Morning chapel, and uncovering much old work. This Transept was opened on June 5, 1893.

A north Porch was built, giving access to the Church from Cloth Fair, and providing a room for the Mission Worker.

A west Porch was built with a room over. The west Front was newly faced with flint and stone, and the approach widened.

A new Pulpit was erected, the gift of the late Sextoness.

A new Organ Case was erected, the gift of Mr. Henry Thomas Withers, in memory of his brother, the late Frederick John Withers.

The north and south Triforia were opened out. The Peal of Bells was re-hung, and the Bell Tower repaired.

In 1895 the Crypt was restored and reopened as a Mortuary Chapel.

In 1897 the Lady Chapel was restored, and was opened as a Morning Chapel by the Bishop of London on May 18, 1897.

Mr. (now Sir) Aston Webb, the Architect in charge of the Work, was guided throughout by the sound principles: (1) never to remove from its position any worked stone.

(2) To add no new work except such as is necessitated by the requirements of the day.

(3) To make new work harmonise with the old, but to differentiate it so that those who come after may never mistake the work of any one century for that of any other.

And, finally, to bear in mind the direction contained in Rahere’s Vision—“Having in Him trust, do thou of the cost of the building doubt thee nought, only give thy diligence, and my part shall be to provide the necessaries, direct, build, and complete the work.” (Rev. Sir Borradaile Savory, Bart., M.A., Rector.)

_The Hospital of Saint Bartholomew’s_, when it was suppressed, at the same time was valued at a yearly revenue of £35: 5: 7. We make an observation on this hospital similar to that suggested by St. Mary’s Spital. How could the House, we ask, consisting of a Master, eight brethren, and four sisters, be kept on £35: 5: 7 a year? and on what funds were the sick people received and treated? There must have been some organised method of getting subscriptions, donations, alms, and gifts in kind. The story of what happened when the place was taken over by the City shows that voluntary and organised help for the sick was surely no new thing.

“Then also were orders devised for the relief of the poor, the inhabitants were all called to their parish churches, where by Sir Richard Dobbes, then Mayor, their several aldermen, or other grave citizens, they were by eloquent orations persuaded how great and how many commodities would ensue unto them and their City if the poor of divers sorts, which they named, were taken from out their streets, lanes, and alleys, and were bestowed and provided for in hospitals abroad, etc. Therefore was every man moved liberally to grant, what they would impart towards the preparing and furnishing of such hospitals, and also what they would contribute weekly towards their maintenance for a time, which they said should not be past one year, or twain, until they were better furnished of endowment: to make short, ever many granted liberally, according to his ability: books were drawn of the relief in every ward of the city towards the new hospitals.”