2. REGULATIONS

The general rule of poverty, chastity and obedience was supplemented by detailed statutes. (a) _Rules concerning Payment and Property._—There are some instances of compulsory payment by statute. If the candidate at Dover satisfied the warden’s inquiries, he might be received into the community after paying 100 shillings, or more if he could. Even then gratuities were expected; half a mark was offered to the warden and half a mark distributed among the brethren and sisters. The entrance fee sounds prohibitive, but the _Liber Albus_ records a similar custom in London under the title _Breve de C solidis levandis de tenemento Leprosorum_. This edict authorized the levying of 100_s._ from lepers’ property to be delivered to their officers for their sustenance. Sometimes hospital statutes provided against this practice. Thus the chancellor’s ordinances for St. Nicholas’, York (1303), forbade the admission of any one by custom or by an agreement for money or goods, but without fear of simony the property of an in-coming brother might be received if given spontaneously and absolutely. The statutes are of special interest because evidently framed to reform abuses recently exposed; and the details of the cross-questioning by the jury and the replies of witnesses in that visitation are recorded. We learn, for example, that most of the inmates had been received for money “each for himself 20 marks more or less”; one, indeed, [p133] with the consent of the community, paid 23 marks (£15. 6_s._ 8_d._), a considerable sum in those days. Under special circumstances the patron sometimes countenanced a bargain. Thus when a healthy candidate for admission to St. Bartholomew’s, Oxford, promised repairs to the chapel, the timber of which was decayed, he was received contrary to rules by the king’s express permission (1321). The question of the property of the warden, officials and inmates now comes before us. The staff were frequently under the three-fold vow which included poverty. The rule at St. John’s, Nottingham, was as follows:— “And no one shall be a proprietor, but if any one have any property, he shall resign it to the warden or master before seven days . . . otherwise he shall be excommunicated. . . . But if it shall be found that any one has died with property, his body shall be cast out from Christian burial, and shall be buried elsewhere, his property being thrown upon him by the brethren, saying, ‘Thy money perish with thee.’” The same enactment is found at St. Mary’s, Chichester, unless, indeed, the offender make a death-bed confession. But poor people sojourning there retained their possessions, and could dispose of them by will:— “If he has anything of his own let the warden take charge of it and of his clothes, until he is restored to health; then let them be given to him without diminution, and let him depart, unless, of his own accord, he offer the whole, or part, to the house. If he die, let his goods be distributed as he hath disposed of them. If he die intestate, let his property be kept for a year, so that if any friend of the deceased shall come and prove that he has a claim upon it, justice may not be denied to him. If no one claim within the year, let it be merged into the property of the hospital.” [p134] A total renunciation of personal goods was required of the inmates of leper-hospitals in early days. Alms received by the wayside went into the common chest, as did money found within the enclosure; if picked up outside, the finder might keep it. The lepers of St. Julian’s might not appropriate or bequeath anything without the consent of the community. A singular article in the oath of admission was this:—“I will make it my study wholly to avoid all kinds of usury, as a monstrous thing, and hateful to God.” In the Dover statutes trading and usury were strictly forbidden. The leper’s clothing and furniture were all that he could call his own. In the disposal of such meagre personal effects, a precedent was found in the _heriot_—the best chattel of a deceased man due to the feudal lord. An ancient French deed relating to St. Margaret’s, Gloucester, ordains that “when a brother or sister is dead, the best cloth that he hath the parson shall have in right of heriot.” At Lynn, the bed in which he died, and his chest, if he had one, were appropriated by the hospital, as well as his best robe and hood. These rules indicate that the leper furnished his own apartment. The Office at seclusion enumerates the clothing, furniture and other articles necessary. (_Appendix A._) One of the questions asked by the official visitor of St. Mary Magdalene’s, Winchester, was whether the goods of deceased inmates went to the works of the church after the settlement of debts. In some hospitals, the rule of poverty was not held, or it was relaxed as time went on. By the will of William Manning, _lazer_, of the house of Monkbridge, York (1428), he requests that half a pound of wax be burnt over his coffin; he leaves 6_d._ to the [p135] works going on at the Minster, 6_d._ to the Knaresburgh monks, and the residue to his wife. In the old Scottish version of Troylus and Cresseid, the latter makes her testament before dying in the spital-house. She had lived in poverty, but a purse of gold had lately been thrown to her in alms. Her cup and clapper and her ornament and all her gold the leper folk should have, when she was dead, if they would bury her. The ruby ring, given her long ago by her lover, was to be carried back to him by one of her companions. Pensioners of the better class were expected to provide all necessary articles, and to contribute what they could to the funds. Money acquired during residence was divided, a portion being retained by the individual; at his death, either half his goods or the whole belonged to the community. The Heytesbury statutes directed:— “that euery poreman in his first Admyssion all such moueable goodes as he hath, pottis, pannys, pewter vessel, beddyng, and other necessaries, if he haue eny such thynges, to bryng hit within into the hous. And if he haue eny quycke catell, that hit be made monay of. And halfe the saide monay to be conuerted to y^e use of y^e hous, and y^e other halfe to y^e poreman to haue to his own propre use.” The goods of a deceased member were distributed to those who should “happe to overlyve,” whether “gownes, hodys, cotys, skertys, hosyn or shone.” It was ordained at Higham Ferrers that when an almsman died, his goods were taken into the storehouse, and either dealt out to the other poor men, or sold to a new inmate for the benefit of the rest. (b) _Rules of Conduct._—Social intercourse within the house and with the outside world was clearly defined. Among [p136] habited brethren and sisters, the sexes were rigidly separated, excepting at worship or work. In the case of inmates who were not professed, men and women seem to have lived a common life, meeting in refectory, day room, etc. As to the intercourse of lepers with the outside world, there was a curious admixture of strictness and laxity. The ordinances of early lazar-houses show that the theory of contagion had little place in their economy. They recognized that the untainted need not be harmed by slight communication with the infected. When visitors came from a distance to Sherburn they were permitted to stay overnight. The lepers of St. Julian’s were allowed to see friends—“if an honest man and true come there, for the purpose of visiting an infirm brother, let him have access to him, that they may mutually discourse on that which is meet”—but no woman was admitted except a mother, sister or other honest matron. The general public was protected, inmates not being permitted to frequent the high-road or speak to passers-by (1344). At the time of seclusion, the leper was forbidden henceforth to enter church, market or tavern. At St. Julian’s, the mill and bakehouse were likewise forbidden. The statutes of Lynn required that the infirm should not enter the quire, cellar, kitchen or precincts, but keep the places assigned in church, hall and court. So long as they did not eat or drink outside their own walls, lepers might roam within a defined area. The Reading lepers might never go out without a companion. At Harbledown they might not wander without permission, which was granted for useful business, moderate recreation, and in the event of the grievous sickness or death of parents and friends. [p137] Such rules were more a matter of discipline than of public health. It was not merely lepers who were required to keep within bounds, for ordinary almsmen had similar restrictions. At Croydon they were forbidden to walk or gaze in the streets, nor might they go out of sight of home, excepting to church. The rules of St. Katherine’s, Rochester, were drawn up by the innkeeper Symond Potyn. He stipulates that if the almsmen buy ale, it shall be consumed at home:— “also that none of them haunt the tauerne to go to ale, but when theie have talent or desier to drynke, theire shall bye theare drynke, and bringe yt to the spitell; “also that none of them be debator, baretor, dronkelew, nor rybawde of his tounge.”[86] If any thus offend, the prior with twain good men of Eastgate shall go to the Vicar of St. Nicholas’ and the founder’s heirs, who “shall put them oute of the same spittle for euermore, withoute anie thing takinge with them but theare clothinge and their bedde.” (c) _Supervision._—In ecclesiastical hospitals, the approved method of maintaining order was by weekly chapter, at which correction was to be justly administered without severity or favour. The injunctions at St. John’s, Nottingham, were as follows:— “They shall meet at least once in each week in chapter, and excesses shall be there regularly proclaimed and corrected by warden or master; and the chapter shall be held without talking or noise, and those who have transgressed shall humbly and obediently undergo canonical discipline.” [p138] At stated periods of a month or a quarter, the statutes were openly recited, usually in the vulgar tongue. After the revision of the ordinance of St. Nicholas’, York, it was ordered that the keepers should read the articles aloud in their church on the eve of St. Nicholas. Internal authority was vested in the warden, whose power was sometimes absolute; but in the case of hospitals dependent upon a religious house, grave offences were taken to head-quarters. For external supervision, the hospital was dependent upon the patron or his agents, who were supposed to inspect the premises, accounts, etc., yearly. This civil visitation was frequently neglected, especially that of the chancellor on behalf of the Crown. Abuses were apt to accumulate until a royal commission of inquiry and reformation became obligatory. Where an institution was under the commonalty, their representatives acted as visitors. At Bridport (1265), the town administered the endowment of the manorial lord; the provosts conducted a yearly investigation whether the brethren and lepers were well treated and the chaplains lived honestly. In London, there were officials who daily inspected the lazar-houses; these “overseers” and “foremen” seem to have been busy citizens who undertook this work on behalf of the corporation (1389). As late as 1536 a gentleman was appointed to the office of visitor of “the spyttel-howses or lazar cotes about thys Citye.”