The municipal control of charity is an ancient custom. Before burgesses were called to Parliament, townsmen of Exeter, Northampton, Nottingham and Wallingford were trustees of the hospitals of St. John in those places. The leper-houses of Lynn and Southampton were also early instances of municipal administration. In the reign of Edward I the hospitals in Scarborough were declared to have been “founded by burgesses of the town of old.” During the fourteenth century, if not before, the “keepers” of Beverley, the “jurats” of Hythe, [p017] and the commonalties of Bedford, Gloucester, Huntingdon, Pevensey, Sandwich, Wilton, etc., controlled almshouses in those towns.[14] Old deeds of the Winchester corporation refer to Devenish’s hospital as “oure hous of Synt John.” Freemen had an advantage, if not a monopoly, when seeking entrance into houses under municipal supervision. The “Customals” of Rye and Winchelsea show that men and women “who have been in good love and fame all their time, and have neither goods nor chattels whereof to live” were received without payment into the hospitals of the town. Bubwith’s almshouse, Wells, was to receive men so poor that they could not live except by begging, and so decrepit that they were unable to beg from door to door. Reduced burgesses were assigned “the more honourable places and beds.” At St. Ursula’s, Chester, candidates were preferred who had been one of “the twenty-four,” or the widows of aldermen and common council-men. In some towns charities were not directly connected with the municipality but with local trustees. St. Katherine’s, Rochester, was under the governance and correction of the parish priest, the city bailiff and the founder’s heirs. Davy of Croydon put his almshouse under the vicar and other townsmen, answerable ultimately to the Mercers’ Company, and provided that his pensioners should be “householderers or trewe laborers” from within four miles, preference being given to residents of long standing, if of good character and destitute. [p018] (3) GILD ALMSHOUSES