There was another reason why St. Thomas became the tutelary Saint of London. The Mediæval enthusiasm over their Saints was liable to wane and fade away, and even to vanish. The old Saxon Saints—where were they? The shrine of St. Erkenwald still blazed with golden vessels and tapers of wax, but miracles were rare: there were still churches dedicated to St. Ethelburga, St. Osyth, St. Swithin, not to speak of the Danes, St. Olaf and St. Magnus, but no one looked any longer for miracles. As the faded images in a fifteenth-century rood screen now appear to the modern ecclesiologist, so the figures of their Saxon saints in the thirteenth century had become mere _umbræ_, shadows of the past. The shrine of Edward the Confessor was still splendid, but the King’s miracles were no longer, so to speak, quoted by the pilgrims and the miracle-mongers. The city wanted a new Saint. Heaven gave them one—all their own—in Thomas of Chepe. Therefore, on the day when the Lord Mayor was sworn at the Exchequer, he repaired to the chapel of St. Thomas Acon with the Aldermen; after prayer and praise at his altar, they formed a procession and thence marched to St. Paul’s, where they went to the Pardon Churchyard in the precinct of St. Paul’s, where were buried Gilbert Becket and his wife; and thence they marched back to St. Thomas Acon, where every one offered a penny. Let us consider how such a Foundation as this, not one of the richest, yet always a prosperous House, was enriched and maintained. In the first place, the original endowment was ample, if not plentiful, for the expenses of a modest number of Brethren. But the bequests of grateful or penitent or pious citizens speedily began to pour in. During the three hundred and fifty years of its existence, there never quite ceased, though the violence diminished, a continual stream of gifts. Thus, during the period from 1262 to 1535 (Sharpe’s _Wills_), about forty perpetual chantries were founded. These bequests show the affection of the citizens for their Saint. But there were greater and more important gifts. Henry the Third, Edward the First, Geoffrey FitzPeter, the Earl of Essex, Edward the Third, Henry the Sixth, were all benefactors to this Hospital. The Mayor and Commonalty were visitors of the House; the Mercers’ Company, on a vacancy in the Mastership, had the right to nominate two or three of the Convent, from whom the brethren were to choose their master.