When the pilgrim--especially the pilgrim who had been over the seas--came home, he was able to entertain his friends with stories he had seen all the rest of his life. Thus, the earliest plan of the Holy Sepulchre is one drawn by a pilgrim for the instruction of certain monks who entertained him. The pilgrims were the travellers of the time. They observed foreign manners and customs: they brought home seeds and told of strange food: they extended the boundaries of the world: they prevented the native village from becoming the whole world: they taught and encouraged men to cease from regarding a stranger as an enemy. The world was thus opened out by War, Trade, and Pilgrimage, but most of all by Pilgrimage. 20. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL. The oldest of the City Hospitals is that great and splendid Foundation which stands in Smithfield--the Smooth Field. It was first founded by one Rahere, of whom we know little or nothing except that he lived in the reign of Henry I., and that he founded the Priory and Monastery of St. Bartholomew. In the church of St. Bartholomew the Great you may see a very beautiful tomb said to be his, but the work is of a later date. It is related that while on a pilgrimage to Rome he fell ill and was like to die. And he vowed that if he were restored to health he would erect and establish a hospital for poor sick people. He did recover and he fulfilled his vow. He built the Priory of St. Bartholomew, whose church still stands in part and beside it established his hospital. The place called Smithfield was then a swampy field used for a horse fair: it was also a place of execution without the City wall. At first the hospital was a very small place. It consisted probably of two large rooms or halls, one for men and one for women--with a chapel. If it had any endowment at all it must have been very small, because the Master or Hospitaller had to go every morning to the Shambles, Newgate, in order to beg meat for the maintenance of the sick. Two hundred years later the hospital was taken in hand by Edward IV. and provided with an establishment of Master, eight brethren, priests, and four sisters, who served the sick. They were all subject to the Rule of St. Austin. After the death of Whittington, the hospital buildings were repaired by his bequests. On the dissolution of the religious houses, the Priory and Hospital of Bartholomew fell with the rest, but five years later the hospital was refounded and endowed by the King and the City. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE HALL AT PENSHURST, KENT. (_Showing the screen with minstrels' gallery over it, and the brazier for fire in the middle; built about 1340._)]