CHAPTER XV
HERMITAGES AND HOSPITALS
SPITAL-ON-THE-STREET
A little lonely hermitage it was,
Down in a dale, hard by a Forest's side,
Far from resort of people that did pass
In travel to and froe: a little wyde
There was a holy chappell edifyde,
Wherein the hermite duly went to say
His holy things each morne and eventyde.
Spenser, Faerie Queene. I. I. 34.
Spital-on-the-Street is an ancient hospital situated twelve miles north of Lincoln on the Roman Ermine Street, which had its origin in a Hermitage. The Hermits or "Eremites," dwellers in the Eremos or wilderness, commonly placed their habitats in remote spots, though some stationed themselves near the gates of a town where they could assist wayfarers with advice and gather contributions at the same time for their own support; others dwelt by lonely highways in order to extend hospitality to benighted wayfarers. A hermitage on the "Ermine Street" between Lincoln and the Humber would be of the latter sort. For the Street runs in a bee line for two-and-thirty miles through an absolutely tenantless country. Villages lie pretty continuously a few miles distant on either side, but with the exception of Spital itself the Street passes through nothing till it arrives within five miles of its termination. The hermitage would therefore be a welcome asylum to a belated traveller on a stormy night and the sound of the chapel bell, or the gleam of the hermit's rushlight through
