APPENDIX X
THE PAPEY
“The Hospital of Le Papey was founded in the year 1442, by Thomas Symminesson, William Cleve, William Barnaby, and John Stafford, priests in the diocese of London. Symminesson, otherwise written Symmesson, and Symson, was Rector of All Saints, or All Hallows, on the Wall; Cleve was priest of the charity of St. John Baptist in the church of St. Mary Aldermary; Barnaby was a chantry priest in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul; and of Stafford I know no more than that he was a priest in the city of London. The Hospital was founded for those of their own Order whom age or sickness disabled from the active performance of the duties of their function.” (Late Rev. Thomas Hugo in London and Midd. Archæological Soc., vol. v.)
“The name of the Hospital was derived from that of the church which, as we shall see, was appropriated to it, ordinarily known as St. Augustine’s de Papey.” (Ibid. 187.)
“The charter of foundation is as follows. It will supply various particulars of interest which I have hitherto omitted for the sake of brevity.
To all the sons of our Holy Mother the Church to whom and to whose knowledge these letters or the contents of them shall come, and those whom the writing underneath do touch or shall hereafter touch, Thomas Symminesson, Parson [vicar or curate, note in margin] of the Parish Church of All Saints at the Wall of the City of London, together with the Church of St. Augustine Pappey, of the same city, by ordinary authority, and for true, lawful, and honest causes, joined, annexed, and incorporated to the same Church of All Saints; and William Cleve, chaplain of the Chantry founded at the altar of St. John Baptist in the Church of the Blessed Mary of Aldermary Church of London; and William Barnaby, one of the chaplains of the Chantry in the Cathedral Church of S. Paul in London; and John Stafford, chaplain of the City of London, send greeting in our Lord everlasting.
Know you all by these presents that the most excellent prince in Christ, and our Lord and Master, the famous Henry the Sixth, King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, of his special grace, sure knowledge, and mere motion, by advice and assent of this great council, by his letters patents, the tenor of which is underwritten, to us and to others hath graciously granted and given license for him and his heirs, as much as in him is, that we three, or any two of us, may begin, make, found, ordain, unite and establish, in the honour of St. Charity and S. John Evangelist, a certain perpetual Fraternity of Brotherhood, as well of ourselves and other Chaplains of Chantries and hirelings [conducts, note in margin] as of other honest men whatsoever, in some place convenient and honest of the said City which we shall provide for that purpose, for the relief and sustaining of poor priests destroyed [decayed, in margin] through poverty and detained by diseases, having nothing to live on, but, as well to the great displeasure of God as the reproach to the Clergy and shame to Holy Church, do miserably beg, to pray devoutly as well for the healthy state and happy prosperity of our said lord the king and kingdom of England, and of the nobility and peers, of the Brethren also and Sisters of the Fraternity aforesaid and also for the souls of all the Faithful Departed, as in the aforesaid royal letters patent, to which and the contents of the same we refer you, and which in the same here inserted is more fully contained.
Wherefore we, William Cleve, William Barnaby, and John Stafford, the Chaplains aforesaid,—considering that the premises are good, godly, and meritorious, and firmly minding effectually to perform and surely to fulfil them, and to found such aforesaid perpetual Fraternity, in the Name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the Glorious Virgin Mary, St. Charity, and St. John Evangelist, in whose honour the aforesaid Fraternity by the King’s license given and granted, as is said, is founded and ordained [the rights of all and singular persons interested ... in this part given and conceded], begin and proceed after this order.” (Ibid.)
“As so little is known of this ancient church and parish of St. Augustine, I may perhaps be doing some of my readers a service, by giving them here all the information which is believed to be extant, in addition to that already included in the present memoir. Stow says that an Earl of Oxford had his inn within its boundaries, and that the last will of Agnes, Lady Bardolph, anno 1403, was dated from thence in these words: ‘Hospitio, &c., from the Inn of the Habitation of the Earl of Oxford, in the parish of St. Augustine’s de Papey, London.’ When or by whom the church was founded I know not. But the names of the rectors, so far as they are preserved in the episcopal registers, are as follows:
Stephen de Benytone, clerk, presented by the prior and convent of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, xiij Kal. April (20 March), 1321-2.
Roger Oxecumb, ————?
Adam Long, priest, by the death of R. O., presented by the same, 21 October, 1372.
Adam Nunne, chaplain, by the death of A. L., presented by the same, 19 January, 1395-6.
I presume that he was the last rector. When he died, or otherwise vacated his benefice, I have no means of determining. But, on his avoidance, the church seems, as already mentioned, to have been too poor to be worth accepting, and was incorporated accordingly in the manner described. May I suggest, though with considerable hesitation, that the little graveyard still noticeable in Camomile Street, and once used as a place of sepulture by the neighbouring but not adjoining parish of St. Martin Outwich, still marks the site of this ancient church?” (Ibid.)
“The brethren of the hospital were selected for their age and infirmities. Poor they necessarily were on admission, and the slender revenues of the house were barely sufficient to supply the common needs of human existence. With the exception of their home and the benefactions previously recorded, I know not of any property belonging to them, save the following:—First, a tenement at Baynard’s Castle, which is incidentally mentioned in a memorandum in the Cottonian MS., of which a literal copy here follows:—
Of the vaute in our ten’t at Baynd castell—
Be it Remembryd that in or howse at Baynd Castell ys a drawght of the which the entry into the vaute. ys. vj. fote fro the Reredoce of the Chy’ney beneth in the Kechyn and ij. fote & di’ fro the wall-plate or ground sell of the est syde of the sayd Kechyn.
Then there were six cottages or chambers in Panyer Alley, in the parish of St. Michael-le-Querne, belonging to them; and two messuages in the same alley, some particulars of which I have found in the Patent Roll of the 17th of Elizabeth.” (Ibid.)
“The church was pulled down, and on its site ‘one Grey, an apothecary, built a stall and a hayloft.’ At the time that Stow wrote his ‘survey,’ in or about the year 1598, a dwelling-house occupied the site of the church, and the churchyard was turned into a garden plot. The priests’ house would appear to have been kept standing, and the names of Mr. Morris, of Essex, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Mr. Barrett, also of Essex, are mentioned as those of its tenants.
The last record that I can supply of the outraged and pillaged brethren, thus banished from their ancient home, is that contained in the pension book of Cardinal Pole, where four of them are enumerated as then, 1556, living and receiving pensions:—Robert Ffoxe, who, it will be remembered, had been the last master, receiving a yearly pension of lxvj s. viij d.; Richard Bee and George Stroger, the last wardens, each with a pension of liij s. iiij d.; and John Mardocke, with one of xl s. Two of the six who witnessed the suppression of their house, Richard Birchall and John Barrett, had, it would appear, died during the interval.” (Ibid.)