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A HISTORY OF LONDON maintenance of the sick and poor." In the same year he gave to the hospital the issues of the church of All Saints, Hereford, and the an- nexed chapel of St. Martin, which had been given to the house at Vienna in 1249 by Henry III." The pope in 1400 at Macclesfield's request appropriated to St. Anthony's the church of St. Benet Fink, the advowson of vi'hich had been given shortly before by John Sauvage and Thomas Walington.'* This grant, however, can have been of no effect, for in 141 7 a dispute of long standing between the hospital and the rectors of the church, touching the oblations claimed by the latter from the chapel of St. Anthony, was settled by the brethren agreeing to give the rector and his successors a pension of six marks.^' It was not until 1440 that St. Benet's was appropriated to the hospital by the bishop of London for the maintenance of the grammar school.^" The pope had, also owing to Maccles- field's representations, in 1397 issued a mandate to the bishops of England and Ireland, ordering them to recommend to the people of their dioceses those seeking alms for the hospital, and not to extort anything from them or hinder them in any other way.^' The importance of these collections will be seen when it is remem- bered that they were by far the largest means of support possessed by the house. In 1391 the hospital had been excused from a liability incurred by a former warden ' in consideration of its having no possession temporal or spiritual of much value, nor anything but the alms of the people for the maintenance of divine service, the support of the sick and the repair of the house.' ^^ From his dealings with the pope Macclesfield might be judged a zealous advocate of the cause of his preceptory. It is evident, however, that his motives were not disinterested, since Adam de Olton, presumably his successor, informed Pope Martin V that he had alienated much of the property of the house and granted pensions to his children, and other persons, and in 1424 the pope ordered the bishop of Winchester to annul such alienations as should be found unlawful.^' It may be presumed that any damage done to the finances was set right, for five years later the master acquired a messuage and garden and some land adjoining from the abbot of St. Albans to enlarge the buildings of the house and make a garden and cemetery.^* There were then four- '* Denton Reg. fol. 289. '« Ibid. fol. 290. " Cal. Pap. Letters, v, 311. Cal. Rot. Chart, and Inq. a.q.d. (Rec. Com.), 354. " Cal. of Pat. 1422-9, p. 156. " Lend. Epis. Reg. Gilbert, fol. 183. " Cal. Pap. Letters, v, 18. ^Cal. of Pat. 1388-92, p. 389. ^Denton Reg. fol. 303 ; Cal. Pap. Letters, vu, 373. ^* Cal. of Pat. 1422-9, p. 517. teen priests and clerks there, and many poor and sick who had to be lodged elsewhere. A bull of Pope Eugenius IV in December, 1 44 1, exempting the brothers from eating in the refectory and sleeping in the dormitory, shows that the new buildings for the convent were not yet finished.^' Henry VI, in June of that year, describes the house as wretched and almost desolate, reduced to the very verge of poverty, although it was under the rule of his vigilant and prudent chaplain, John Carpenter.^' The brothers doubtless found it none too easy to meet their extraordinary as well as ordinary expenses, yet it seems strange if the house were so very poor that it is never the first consideration in the grants made to it. It was for the maintenance of the school that St. Benet Fink was appropriated, and in 1442 the king granted to the brethren the manor of Pennington with pensions in Milburn, Tunworth, Charlton, and Up-Wimborne, co. Southants, to maintain at Oxford University five scholars, who were to be first instructed in the rudi- ments of grammar at Eton College." The be- quest of William Wyse in 1449 of his brewery, ' Le Coupe super le hoop,' in the parish of All- hallows London Wall, was also charged with the maintenance of a clerk to instruct the children of St. Anthony's in singing to music and plain singing, besides the usual celebrations for the testator's soul.^^ It would be interesting to know whether there is a connexion between the teach- ing of music at St. Anthony's and the establish- ment by the king's minstrels there of a fraternity in 1469.^^ The hospital had come into the king's pos- session'" under the Alien Priories Act of 1414, and was treated henceforth as a royal free chapel : Henry VI appointed the wardens," and Ed- ward IV on two occasions'^ gave the right to present on the next vacancy of the house. The connexion with the house at Vienne probably ceased after the fourteenth century. The em- ployment of the use of Sarum had been authorized in 1397, as the brothers were unable to obtain the books necessary for the celebration of service according to the rule of their order, and in 1424 the pope ordered them to celebrate service after the use of London as long as the wars lasted, because few or no canons having come '* Denton Reg. fol. 314. '^ Carres, of Bekynton (Rolls Ser.), i, 235. " Stow, Sa/r. ofLond. (ed. Strype), ii, 120. '5 Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, ii, 524. »' Cal. of Pat. 1467-77, p. 153. '° In 1409 Pope Alexander V had attempted to put in as master a canon of Vienne, but John Macclesfield still held the post in 1414. Cal. Pap. Letters, , 162 ; Cal. of Pat. 1422-9, p. 109. " See letters patent in Harl. MS. 6963, fol. 24, 68, 116. Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), v, 526^. ^ Cal. Pap. Letters, v, 4. 58.