A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of PlagueCreighton, Charles
History
A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of Plague
Creighton, Charles
Epidemics -- Great Britain -- History
To these samples, which are also the chief instances of English
leper-hospitals, may be added two or three more to bring out another side
of the matter. In the cases already given, it has been seen that the
provision for the clerical staff was either a very liberal one at first or
became so in course of time. The hospitals, whether leprous or other, were
for the most part dependencies of the abbeys, affording occupation and
residence to so many more monks, just as if they had been “cells” of the
abbey. The enormous disproportion of the clerical staff to the inmates of
hospitals (not, however, leprous) is seen in the instances of St Giles’s
at Norwich, St Saviour’s at Bury and St Cross at Winchester. The provision
was about six for the poor and half-a-dozen for the monks. But even the
purely nosocomial part of these charities was in not a few instances for
the immediate relief of the monasteries themselves. St Bartholomew’s at
Chatham, one of the earliest foundations usually counted among the
leper-hospitals, was for sick or infirm monks. The hospital at
Basingstoke, endowed by Merton College, Oxford, was for incurably sick
fellows and scholars of Merton itself. The leper-hospital at Ilford in
Essex was founded about 1180 by the rich abbey of Barking, for the leprous
tenants and servants of the abbey, the provision being for a secular
master, a leprous master, thirteen leprous brethren, two chaplains and a
clerk. St Lawrence’s at Canterbury (1137) was for leprous monks or for the
poor parents and relations of monks. St Peter’s at Bury St Edmunds,
founded by abbot Anselm in the reign of Henry I., was for priests and
others when they grew old, infirm, leprous, or diseased.
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