“A chyrche of Owre Lady that ys namyde Bedlam. And yn that place ben founde many men that ben fallyn owte of hyr wytte. And fulle honestely they ben kepte in that place; and sum ben restoryde unto hyr witte and helthe a-gayne. And sum ben a-bydyng there yn for evyr, for they ben falle soo moche owte of hem selfe that hyt ys uncurerabylle unto man.” Probably the utterly incurable were doomed to those iron chains, manacles and stocks mentioned in the inventory of 1398 and quoted at the visitation of 1403:— “Item, vj cheynes de Iren, com vj lokkes. Item iiij peir manycles de Iren. ij peir stokkys.”[22] In other parts of the country it was customary to receive persons suffering from attacks of mania into general infirmaries. At Holy Trinity, Salisbury, not only were sick persons and women in childbirth received, but mad people were to be taken care of (_furiosi custodiantur donec sensum adipiscantur_). This was at the [p034] close of the fourteenth century. In the petition for the reformation of hospitals (1414) it is stated that they exist partly to maintain those who had lost their wits and memory (_hors de lour sennes et memoire_). Many almshouse-statutes, however, prohibited their admission. A regulation concerning an endowed bed in St. John’s, Coventry (1444), declared that a candidate must be “not mad, quarrelsome, leprous, infected.” At Ewelme “no wood man” (crazy person) must be received; and an inmate becoming “madd, or woode” was to be removed from the Croydon almshouse. Such disused lazar-houses as were inhabitable might well have been utilized as places of confinement. This, indeed, was done at Holloway near Bath. At what period the lepers vacated St. Mary Magdalene’s is not known, but it was probably appropriated to the use of lunatics by Prior Cantlow, who rebuilt the chapel about 1489. At the close of the sixteenth century, St. James’, Chichester, was occupied by a sad collection of hopeless cripples, among whom were found two idiots. A hundred years later the bishop reported that this hospital was of small revenue and “hath only one poor person, but she a miserable idiot, in it.” Bethlehem Hospital was rescued by the Lord Mayor and citizens at the Dissolution of religious houses and continued its charitable work. In 1560 Queen Elizabeth issued on behalf of this house an appeal of which a facsimile may be seen in Bewes’ _Church Briefs_. “Sume be straught from there wyttes,” it declares, “thuse be kepte and mayntend in the Hospital of our Ladye of Beddelem untyle God caule them to his marcy or to ther wyttes agayne.” [Illustration: _PLATE V._ HARBLEDOWN HOSPITAL, NEAR CANTERBURY ONCE USED FOR LEPERS] FOOTNOTES: [22] Char. Com. Rep., xxxii. vi. 472. [p035] CHAPTER IV THE LAZAR-HOUSE “_For the relief of divers persons smitten with this sickness and destitute and walking at large within the realm._”[23] (Holloway, 1473.)