Formerly, all needy people were admitted into the hospital, mental invalids being herded together with those weak or diseased in body. From the chronicle of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, we learn that in the twelfth century mad people were constantly received as well as the deaf, dumb, blind, palsied and crippled. One young man lost “his resonable wyttys” on his journey to London. He wandered about running, not knowing whither he went. Arriving in London, he was brought to the hospital and “ther yn shorte space his witte [p032] was recoueryd.” Another patient was taken with the “fallynge euill” [epilepsy], which is described as a sickness hindering the operation of the senses. It would seem that persons subject to fits were sometimes placed in a lazar-house, for at St. Bartholomew’s, Rochester (1342), was one patient “struck with the epilepsy disease.” The public did not make itself responsible for the custody of the lunatic, whose own people were required to guard him and others from harm. One of the “Customs of Bristol” (1344) orders that the goods and chattels of demented men be delivered to their friends until they come to a good state of mind (_ad bonam memoriam_). The sad condition of “lunatick lollers” is described by Langland, who speaks compassionately of this class of wanderers. In London, the question of making special provision for the insane came to the front about this time, for in 1369 one Denton intended to found a hospital “for poor priests and others, men and women, who in that city suddenly fell into a frenzy (_in frenesim_) and lost their memory,” but his plan was not carried out. Stow mentions that the earliest asylum for distraught and lunatic persons was near Charing Cross, “but it was said, that some time a king of England, not liking such a kind of people to remain so near his palace, caused them to be removed farther off, to Bethlem without Bishopsgate.” St. Mary of Bethlehem was the most famous refuge for the mentally disordered. In 1403 there were confined six men deprived of reason (_mente capti_), and three other sick, one of whom was a paralytic patient who had been lying in the hospital for over two years. The good work [p033] done in the institution was fully recognized. A bequest was made in 1419 to the sick and insane of St. Mary de Bedlam. A Patent Roll entry of 1437 speaks of “the succour of demented lunatics” and others, and of the necessity of cutting down these works of piety unless speedy help were forthcoming. The then town clerk, John Carpenter, recalled this need and remembered in his will (1441) “the poor madmen of Bethlehem.” Another citizen, Stephen Forster, desired his executors to lay out ten pounds in food and clothing for the poor people “detained” there. Gregory, citizen and mayor, describes in his _Historical Collections_ (about 1451) this asylum and its work of mercy, and it is satisfactory to hear that some were there restored to a sound mind:—