1. ENDOWMENTS
(a) Endowments in money.—The earliest subscriptions are recorded in the Pipe Rolls, consisting of royal alms p179 (Eleemosynæ Constitutæ) paid by the Sheriff of the county from the profits of Crown lands. Three entries in the year 1158 will serve as specimens:—
- Infirmis de Dudstan. xxs.
- Infirmis super Montem. lxs.
- Infirmis de Lundon. lxs.
At first sight this seems not to concern hospitals; but a closer examination proves that sums are being paid to sick communities—in fact to lazar-houses. For the lepers of Gloucester dwelt in the suburb of Dudstan, and the infected inmates of St. Mary Magdalene’s, Winchester, were known locally as “the infirm people upon the hill”—now Maun Hill. The grant was paid out of the farm of the city until, in 1442, the citizens were unable to contribute that and other sums on account of pestilence and depopulation. The infirm of London were the lepers of St. Giles’; and the sixty shillings, originally granted by Henry I and Maud, was still paid in Henry VII’s reign, for a writ of 1486 refers “to the hospitallers of St. Giles for their annuity of lxs.” Between the years 1158 and 1178 subscriptions were paid to infirmi at the following places:—
- Regular payments—
- “Dudstan,”
- Hecham,
- Hereford,
- Lincoln,
- London,
- Maldon,
- Newport,
- Richmond,
- Rochester,
- St. Albans,
- St. Edmunds,
- Shrewsbury,
- “Super Montem.”
- Occasional payments—
- Barnstaple,
- Barnwell or Stourbridge,
- Bradley,
- Burton Lazars,
- Chichester,
- Clattercot,
- Derby,
- Canterbury and Harbledown,
- Ely,
- Ilford,
- Leicester,
- Liteport,
- Newark,
- Northampton,
- Oxford,
- Saltwood, and
- Windsor.