RELIGIOUS HOUSES The first seal of the thirteenth century '^^ is dark green, and bears on the obverse a represen- tation of the Agnus Dei to the right. Legend : — sigill' ospitalis : dei The reverse is a smaller pointed oval counterseal, and represents the prior, standing on a corbel, holding a book. Legend : — S WILLI I PORIS . NOVI . HOSPIT EPI . LO . EX PTA A seal of 1298'" is also dark green. It is a pointed oval, and represents the Virgin, crown on head, seated on a throne, holding the Child on her right arm, and a sceptre fleur-de-lizd in her left hand. In the field on the left is a kneeling worshipper. Legend : — IGILL DOM A pointed oval seal of the fourteenth cen- tury '^* has a representation of the Assumption of the Virgin. She is crowned, and stands on a cherub, surrounded by rays and cherubs, in a canopied niche with a small canopied niche on each side containing a sainted bishop. In the base, on a carved corbel, is a shield of arms : a cross moline voided for Brune, the founder. Legend : — siGiLLV : coE : Novi : hospitalis : be MARIE : EXTRA : BYSSHOPPISGATE : LCD 23. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY W^ITHIN CRIPPLEGATE The hospital of St. Mary within Cripplegate owed its origin to the compassion felt by William Elsing, mercer of London, for the blind beggars who wan- dered about the City without refuge of any sort. On some land belonging to him in the parishes of St. Alphage and St. Mary^ he established, in 1 331, a hospital that was intended to accommo- date 100 persons of both sexes, but appears to have started with thirty-two inmates. By the founder's wish blind or paralysed priests were to be received in preference to any other people.^ The government of the hospital and the per- formance of the religious duties for which the house was in part founded were entrusted to five secular priests, of whom one was to be the custos or warden. As the dean and chapter of St. Paul's had appropriated to the uses of the "• Add. Chart. 10657. "' Ibid. 10647. '" B.M. Seals, Ixviii, 55. A similar seal is attached to the acknowledgement of the supremacy. Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 623. ' Cott. Chart, v, 2, printed in Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 704, 706. See also Sharpe, Cal. oflVlUs, i, 562. Stow, Surv. of Land. (ed. Strypc), iii, 73, says that he founded the hospital in a place where there had been a nunnery. ' Dugdale, op. cit.-vi, 706. hospital the church of St. Mary Aldermanbury,' of which they were patrons, they were to have the nomination of the warden and two of the priests, the appointment of the other two resting with Elsing and his assigns. The warden was also to swear fealty to the dean and chapter and pay the pension of a mark due of old from the church of St. Mary Aldermanbury, and a second pension of half a mark in sign of the subjection of the hospital. Elsing laid down certain rules to be observed by the priests : they were not to hold any other preferment ; the warden was to render an account of the revenues before two of his fellows every year ; a complete suit of the same colour for all (including tunic, upper tunic, mantle, and hood), the price of which in the case of the warden was not to exceed 40J., and in that of the others 30^., was to be given to each every year, and a sum of money for other necessaries ; there were also detailed regulations as to religious services in the chapel, and as to the visits to be paid to the sick in the hospital. The original endowment consisted of tenements in the parishes of St. Lawrence Jewry, St. Mary Aldermanbury, St. Alphage,* and St. Martin Ironmonger Lane, to which were soon added some in the parish of AUhallows Honey Lane.* Elsing, finding that the resources of the hospital were still too slender for its work — for shortly after the foundation there were sixty beds there — petitioned the king in council to be allowed to bestow upon it land or rent to the value of
- ^40, and was permitted to purchase land worth
Within a few years of this foundation Elsing became doubtful as to the wisdom of his choice of secular canons. He may already have had proof that the hospital would suffer, as he said, through the seculars being permitted to wander about the City, and through their care for tem- poral things; and in February, 1337-8, he peti- tioned the bishop of London that regulars might be put in their place.' The bishop, after con- sultation with the dean and chapter of St. Paul's, effected the change in 1340,* ordering that henceforth there should be there at least five Austin Canons, and that the number should be increased as the resources of the house grew. 'In 1 33 I. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 17. Papal confirmation was given in 1397. Cal. of Pap. Letters, v, 10. ' Among these were tenements in Philip Lane bought by Elsing from Robert de Cherringe. Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, i, 362. ' Cal. of Pot. 1343-5, P- 1 1 3- These were con- firmed by the king to the new foundation, 1343, but they were acquired while the hospital was still a college of secular priests. « Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 401. ' Cott. Chart, xi, 33. ' Ibid. V, 10, printed in Dugdale, op. cit. vi, 707. The king's confirmation is dated April, 1342. Cal. of Pat. 1340-3, p. 415. 535
