Charities -- Great Britain; Hospitals -- Great Britain; Hospitals, Medieval; Leprosy -- England
ST. JOHN EVANGELIST & ST. JOHN BAPTIST appear in conjunction at Exeter,
Sherborne, Newport Pagnell, Northampton, and Leicester. The original
and usual title at Exeter was St. John Baptist; but in 1354 Bishop
John de Grandisson, a benefactor, mentions “St. John the Baptist
and Fore-runner of Christ and St. John His Evangelist and Apostle.”
The seal of Northampton shows both saints with their symbols, and
the appellations BAPTI and EWA are placed over the figures. On the
Leicester seal the eagle of the Apostle is shown, and the scroll in
its talons may represent the _Ecce Agnus Dei_. When “St. John” occurs,
the dedication commonly proves to be to the Baptist; and even where
the Evangelist is expressly named, some later document reverts to his
namesake, e.g. Blyth, Burford, Castle Donington, Cirencester.
[Illustration: 33. SEAL OF ST. MARK’S, BRISTOL]
ST. MATTHEW, ST. MARK, and ST. LUKE were not uncommemorated. “The
house of St. Matthew” at Maiden Bradley, which occurs on one Patent
Roll (1242), was commonly called St. Mary’s; the double dedication is
mentioned in the Obituary Roll of Prior Elchester of Durham (1484),
viz.: _Eccles. B. Mar. et S. Math. Ap._ The fair, granted [p255] in
1215, was upon the vigil and feast of St. Matthew the Apostle. The
name of St. Mark’s, Bristol, is preserved in the existing chapel of
the hospital; the seal (Fig. 33) shows the saint writing his gospel,
the lion by his side. “The lepers of St. Luke the Evangelist at the
bridge-end of Beghton” are mentioned in 1334, but the locality is not
identified. There was also a hospital of St. Luke at Gorleston.
ST. ANDREW; _St. Thomas_; ST. STEPHEN.—There were dedications to St.
Andrew at Flixton, Denwall, Cokesford, and Hythe. It seems probable
that the last named was a re-foundation of St. Bartholomew’s, for “St.
Andrew” only occurs during the few years following its restoration
by Hamo, Bishop of Rochester, of which See that saint was patron.
It is improbable that any of the hospitals of St. Thomas were under
the patronage of that Apostle, although Tanner erroneously gives an
instance at Birmingham. They sprang up when St. Thomas the Martyr
of Canterbury was of paramount popularity. The ambiguous “St.
Thomas-on-the-Green” at Sherborne, for example, is referred to by
Leland as the “free chapel of Thomas Becket.” St. Stephen, the almoner
of the Early Church, was the appropriate patron of several houses of
charity, including three in the eastern counties. One was at Bury St.
Edmunds, where there were preserved in the abbey “certain drops of St.
Stephen’s blood which sprung from him at such time as he was stoned.”
The seals of Norwich and Hempton show their patron respectively as
martyr and minister.
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