CHAPTER XIII HOSPITAL FUNDS
“To the which hospitals the founders have given largely of their moveable goods for the building of the same, and a great part of their lands and tenements therewith to sustain impotent men and women.”
(Parliament of Leicester.)
ENDOWMENTS were to a certain extent supplied by the patron, but were supplemented by public charity. The emoluments included gifts of money, food and fuel, grants of property, admission fees, the profits of fairs, and collections. Receipts in kind are seldom recorded, and the changing scale of values would involve points beyond the scope of this volume. Particulars may be found in the extant manuscripts of certain hospitals and abbeys, in Valor Ecclesiasticus, etc. Extracts from the account-books of St. Leonard’s, York, have been published in a lecture by Canon Raine. The finance of such an institution, with scattered and extensive property, necessitated a department which required a special clerk to superintend it, and the exchequer had its particular seal. Reports of the Historical MSS. Commission give details of the working expenses of hospitals at Southampton and Winchester.