The hospitals of Kent : (St Nicholas at Harbledown, St Lawrence near Canterbury, and St James's near Canterbury) / Arthur Hussey.
- Arthur Hussey
- Date:
- 1909
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The hospitals of Kent : (St Nicholas at Harbledown, St Lawrence near Canterbury, and St James's near Canterbury) / Arthur Hussey. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![his shoulders, nd balances in his left hand, weighing souls. ‘The other windows in the chancel exhibit the patron saints of the United Kingdom, and three female saints, the Virgin Mary, St. Anne, and St. Elizabeth. The window in the tower is a memorial window by the same artists, representing St. Hilda of Whitby, with a brass tablet at the base: ‘Ad Dei gloriam et in memoriam Hilde Marix Franciseee Erskine Cole, que in vitam intravit sempiternam, Jan. XXIII, A.D. MDCCCXCVIII, wtat 22.” The whole of the remaining windows are to be filled with stained glass next year, when the church will be a gem. The tower contains a fine clock with skeleton face, which chimes the quarters and strikes the hours. ‘The works‘are in a glass case on the floor. Tt was executed by Mr. Newey, clockinaker, York, and given by Mr, J. W. Fearnsides, a barrister jn London, in memory of his sister, who died at Wetwang in 1895 at the early age of twenty, It contains every modern improve- ment, ‘The beautiful Norman font, dating about A.D, 1130, is ornamented with inter- lacing semicircular arches. A List of the Vicars, dating from A.D. 1301, has recently been placed in the nave. Che ibospitals of Kent. I.—ST, NICHOLAS AT HARBLE- DOWN. By ARTHUR Hussey, 4 ne = Nn the county of Kent there were Rig hats a thirteen of those hospitals usually bed Cs called leper hospitals, whose in- mates were not only lepers, but those suffering from cancer of the face, scrofulous sores, or neglected skin erup- tions, ete. Medieval leprosy was a far more serious disease than the leprosy spoken of in the Bible, and was not caused by the intercourse with the [ast at the time of the Crusades, as leprosy existed in this country before the first Crusade. It has been said that the peasantry of the country were leprosy and scurvy, caused by the long diet of salted meat without vegetables during the winter months, : The General Council held at the Lateran in March, 1179, by Canon XI. ordered that lepers “unable to live with sound persons, or to attend church with them, or to get buried in the same churchyard, or have the ininistrations of the proper priest,” were to have their own priests, churches, and church- yards, and their lands were to be exempt from tithe. The Council of London, in the year 1200, required that they should be kept apart, and the Church committed them to the care of the faithful, who built for them hospitals, where they were looked after, protected, and comforted. These hospitals, in various parts of England, are against a popular idea that those low side windows found in so many parish churches were for the use of lepers. However, many of these leper hospitals were probably ordinary refuges for sick and infirm poor, as in some the proportion was one leper to three or four non-leprous in- mates. As early as the end of the thirteenth century the /epvosé were disappearing or being displaced, even from those hospitals where the intentions of the founder were explicit (History of Lpidemics in Britain, bya ts Creighton, M.D.).. Thus at St. Nicholas, Harbledown, in the time of Archbishop Theobald (1139-1161), the inmates are called the sick (“ufirints), not lepers; whilst in the rules drawn up in 1298 they are not called lepers; and in 1375 and after corrodies were granted to bury,. were received not only monks who were afflicted with leprosy or other con- tagious diseases, but also-the poor relatives of any monk who was in want. At the Hospital of St. James, at Thanington, in 1305, 2 Rose de Mereworth was admitted, who js not called a leper; whilst at New Romney, by the year 1363, “no lepers were to be met with,” so that the. hospital was empty. ; Hospitals for lepers were seryed by a staff of chaplains, clerks, and sometimes women attendants, but nothing is said of spreading the disease by contagion. Persons con- sidered Ieprous were shunned, partly from biblical tradition and the repulsive appear- ance of such persons. St. NicuoLas AT HARBLEDOWN. This hospital at 1farbledown, about a mile west of the city of Canterbury, was founded in the year 1071 by Archbishop Lanfranc for the relief of lepers, both men and women. It was therefore the first leper hospital in Kent, that of St. Bartholomew at Chatham being founded in 1078. Gervase of Canterbury, in his Zives of the Archlishops, says that Lanfrand founded the (of Canterbury), aud made a hospital for lepers, in which church he instituted priests (clericos), that the aforesaid sick, both the living and the dead (w/u/'s et defunctis), might have spiritual ministrations, and further he assigned food and income to the same sick (vol. ii., p. 368). When first built, this hospital was situated in the border of the Blean Forest or wood, and in early times was called the ‘‘ Hospital. in the Forest of Blean.”, The hospital and its lands were, and are at the present day, a parish. | Ralph de Turbine, who had been Bishop of Rochester (1108-1114), and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury (1114-1122), granted to this hospital in the year rrr4 one penny a day out of the Manor of Lyminge, to provide milk for the lepers (LDrocesan History of Canterbury, p. 112). In 1534 this hospital had 15s, yearly from the Archbishop of Canterbury out of his Manor of Lyminge (Valor Leclesiasticus). mother (William and Matilda), his wife, Matilda (daughter of Malcolm III., King of Scotland), and William, his son, granted to this Hospital of St. Nicholas ten perches of land from the wood about the hospital (Z/ree Archiepiscopal Hospitals of Canterbury, by John Duncombe, 1785). Among the Charte Antique (circa 1099) in the cathedral library at Canterbury, is one of; Theobald, by the grace of God, Arch- bishop of England (1139-1161), etc., to all the Hundred of Westgate, know that I have given, granted, and warranted to Robert de Water, my sergeant, the land of Laborna, which is held by Wolurona, the sister of Esbern, the priest, with the wood and all other things pertaining to that land, that Adeline the niece of the aforesaid Wolurona had given to her in marriage. Paying every year from that same land for all services and customs to the sick (¢zfirmis) of Herebaldun a silver marc [13s. 4d.], except the royal rights which that land contributes. Where- fore the aforesaid Robert shall quietly and freely hold that land, like as Esbern the brother of Wolurona quietly held.—Witnesses Philip the chancellor (1139), Ralph Dunett, Alan de Well, clerk, Peter Scriptor, William de Bec, steward, Walter de Wingeham, Nigel son of Godfrey, and many others.” Henry Il. granted between the years 1160 and 1164 a charter of protection, and also gave ‘to the lepers of Herbandone, that they should have every day a pack-horse load of wood, from out of the wood called Sorotta.”’ The same king in 1173 gave to this Hospital 20 marcs (413 6s. $d.) a year from the fee- farm rents of the City of Canterbury until he should assign land that should be worth that amount, Henry IT., sailing from Barfleur, landed at Southampton, July 8, 1174, and on the morrow set out for Canterbury to do penance at the tomb of Archbishop Becket. When he came near enough—that is, at Harble- down—to see the church in which the body of the blessed martyr was buried, he alighted from his horse and walked on foot to the parish church of St. Dunstan, where he put on a penitential robe, and with bare feet’ walked to the tomb of the martyr (July 12), and received the discipline from the Bishops, monks, and priests (Roger de Hoveden), Henry III. in 1217 issued a writ for the payment of the 20 marcs a year out of the city of Canterbury, and the arrears then due, which had been first given in 1173, The Manor of Densted in the Parish of Chartham was given in 47 Henry III. (1262-1263) to this hospital by Hamo de Crevecceur, the lord of that fee, to hold in perpetual alms (Zenures of Kent, by C. J. Elton, p, 263). This was the Hamo de](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33448383_0001.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
