The crying need for the permanent relief of genuine distress made itself heard. Langland, the poet of the people, called attention to the necessity of rebuilding hospitals. In his _Vision_ “Truth” begs rich merchants to put their profits to good uses and “amenden meson-dieux” therewith. In 1410, and again in 1414, the Commons suggested that new almshouses might be founded if some ecclesiastical property were confiscated. Although this was not done, many were provided through private liberality. By the redistribution of wealth and the rise of the middle classes, a fresh impetus was given to building. The chantry system also had an increasingly powerful influence upon the charity of this period. The newer foundations, even more explicitly than the older, were “bede-houses” or houses of prayer. All [p030] charitable foundations were to a certain extent chantries. Many, alas! were solely on this account marked with the stigma of superstition, and fell under the two Acts for the dissolution of chantries: the plea of usefulness, however, happily prevailed in several cases.[20] For a time the work of building almshouses ceased, but revived after a while. In 1583 Philip Stubbes complained that although in some places the poor were relieved in hospitals, yet more provision was required:— “For the supplie whereof, would God there might be in euerie parish an almes house erected, that the poore (such as are poore indeede) might be maintained, helped, and relieued. For until the true poore indeed be better provided for, let them neuer thinke to please God.”[21] FOOTNOTES: [13] Rolls of Parl. 2 Hen. V, Vol. IV, p. 19b Petitions, No. III. [14] St. John’s, Bedford, was intended only for townsmen; all such applying to the master for relief were to be received, but “all poore folkes dwellyng without the same town to be expulsed and put out.” _Chantry Cert._ (ed. J. E. Brown). [15] Pat. 9 Hen. IV, Pt. i. m. 8. [16] Tovey, _Anglia Judaica_, 227. [17] Chron. and Mem. 44, iii. 262. [18] Pat. 8 Edw. I, m. 17. [19] Bishop Drokensford’s Reg. p. 268. [20] See Chapter XVI. [21] Anatomie of Abuses, Pt. II, 43. [p031] CHAPTER III HOSPITALS FOR THE INSANE “_Hospitals . . . to maintain men and women who had lost their wits and memory._” (Rolls of Parliament, 1414.) Little is known regarding the extent and treatment of insanity during the Middle Ages. Persons “vexed with a demon” were taken to holy places in the hope that the “fiends” might be cast out. An early thirteenth-century window at Canterbury shows a poor maniac dragged by his friends to the health-giving shrine of St. Thomas. He is tied with ropes, and they belabour him with blows from birch-rods. In the second scene he appears in his right mind, returning thanks, all instruments of discipline cast away. Even in the sixteenth century we read of pilgrimage by lunatics, especially to certain holy wells.