There is frequently an uncertainty as to the invocation, even with documentary assistance. A Close Roll entry (1214) mentions a foundation at Portsmouth in honour of Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin, St. Cross, St. Michael and All Saints. Usually the name is simply “God’s House,” but often St. John Baptist or St. Nicholas. The seal seems to suggest the original designation, for it shows a Cross, with the Divine Hand, a scroll and angels. Again, God’s House at Kingston-upon-Hull was called Holy Trinity or St. Michael’s, or from its situation “the Charterhouse hospital”; but its full title was “in honour of God, and the most glorious Virgin Mary His Mother, and St. Michael the Archangel, and all archangels, angels and holy spirits, and of St. Thomas the Martyr, and all saints of God.” It may be observed that inasmuch as the founder Michael Pole was Chancellor of England, [p270] he looked to his predecessor in office St. Thomas as patron, no less than to his name-saint. By the foundation-deed of Heytesbury almshouse, it was in honour of “the Holy Trinity, and especially of Christ our Redeemer, the Blessed Virgin Mary His Mother, St. Katherine and all saints.” The almsmen wore the letters JHU. XRT. upon their gowns. The Chantry Certificate, nevertheless, gives St. John’s. The original seal shows a Cross and the name _domus elimosinaria_, but the post-Reformation seal has St. Katherine. Varying dedications are sometimes merely mistakes. It must, however, be remembered that occasionally hospital and chapel had different patrons, and that both were sometimes rebuilt and, re-consecrated. As civil and ecclesiastical archives continue to reveal their long-hidden information, the dedication-names of many houses will doubtless come to light, together with notices of foundations at present unknown to us. * * * * * Some seventy titles of hospitals are here recorded, as compared with over six hundred different dedications of parish churches. In some instances the patron of a charitable institution bequeathed his name to a parish. At Tweedmouth, St. Bartholomew of the hospital was powerful enough to dispossess St. Boisil, the rightful patron of the place. The parishes of St. Mary Magdalene, Colchester, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London, and St. Giles, Shrewsbury, have grown up round a former leper-house. Several modern churches, such as St. John’s, Bridgwater, occupy the site and carry on the name of an old foundation. In conclusion, it must be observed that since the subject of England’s Patron Saints has been fully dealt with by [p271] Miss Arnold-Forster, no attempt has here been made to make more than passing allusions to the lives of hospital saints. The foregoing notes on saints were suggested by her _Studies in Church Dedications_. [Illustration: 37. SEAL OF THE HOSPITAL OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, ROCHESTER] FOOTNOTES: [158] Pat. 14 Hen. VI, pt. i. m. 4. [159] Pat. 16 Hen. VI, pt. ii. m. 17.