“_Hospitals in cities, boroughs and divers other places . . . to sustain blind men and women . . . and people who have lost their goods and are fallen into great misfortune._”[13] The majority of hospitals were for the support of infirm and aged people. Such a home was called indiscriminately “hospital,” “Maison Dieu,” “almshouse” or “bedehouse.” It was, as in the case of Kingston-upon-Hull, “God’s House . . . to provide a habitation for thirteen poor men and women broken by age, misfortune or toil, who cannot gain their own livelihood.” It occupied the place now filled by almshouses, union workhouses, and homes for chronic invalids or incurables. (1) ALMSHOUSES IN CITIES One of the most ancient hospitals for permanent relief was St. John’s, Canterbury, founded about 1084, and still existing as an almshouse. (Pl. III.) Eadmer tells us that it was intended for men suffering from various infirmities and for women in ill health. The inmates are described as a hundred poor, who by reason of age and disease cannot earn their bread; and again, as a hundred brothers and sisters blind, lame, deaf and sick. It is [p016] characteristic that the earliest foundation of this type should be found in the chief cathedral city of England: every such town had a hospital in connection with the See. The prince-bishops of Durham, for example, provided houses of charity around the city and at their manors. Ralph Flambard built St. Giles’, Kepier; Philip of Poitiers founded St. James’ near Northallerton; Robert de Stichill, St. Mary’s, Greatham; and Nicholas of Farnham, St. Edmund’s, Gateshead. The most famous episcopal hospital remaining is that of St. Cross, near Winchester. (Pl. VIII.) Other charities were associated with cathedral clergy. There was a hospital for the poor in the precincts of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Before the year 1190, one of the canons gave his house for the purpose, and the Dean endowed it with certain tithes. St. Nicholas’, Salisbury, founded by the Bishop, was afterwards committed to the Dean and Chapter. The existing almshouses in Chichester and Hereford were likewise associated with those cathedrals. (2) ALMSHOUSES IN BOROUGHS