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 corrodies[143] 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 called[144]) 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.