A history of the Hospital of St. John in Northampton / by R.M. Serjeantson.

  • Serjeantson, R. M.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of the Hospital of St. John in Northampton / by R.M. Serjeantson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    135/150 (page 91)
    There is anotlier early impression of this same Seal in the British Museum. It is of light brown wax, much damaged, and is attached to a Charter dated 1203. (Harl. Charters, 84 D. 18). Dedications to the two St. Johns in conjunction are not common, but are found in Hospitals at Exeter, Newport Pagnell, Sherborne, Northampton and Leicester ; and in the church of Groonibridge, Kent. The Seal now in use dates from the time of Charles I. It is poorly executed, and represents St. John the Baptist seated, and partially draped. His left hand rests upon a lamb (to which he points with the first finger of his right hand), and over his right shoulder is a cross. Over his head is a rude representation of clouds, from which proceed rays of light which fall on the Saint’s head. Round the margin is the following legend :— “SIGIL. HOSPITAL. Sti JOHANNIS BAPTISTJi]. IN VILLA NORTHAMPTON EX FUND. CAR. REG. 1630.” (Seal of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist in Northampton of the foundation of King Charles, 1630). Addenda. It has been stated by a well-known modern writer that litigation was one of the amusements of the Religious Orders, and served to break the monotony of their lives, and gave them something to think about ! This of course is somewhat of an exaggeration, but the most cursory examination of any of the ancient A.ssize or De Banco Rolls will shew at a glance that lawsuits, in which “ the Religious ” were interested parties, were extremely common. The Hospital of St. John was no exceiAion to the rule, and a few examples are given below of suits in which the House was engaged during the 13th and 14th centuries. They have been extracted by the present writer from a number of De Banco and Assize Rolls, which have never been printed or calendared, and which are therefore not easily accessible to the orflinary reader. The first example here given is complicated by the fact that tlie Master of the Hospital had prosecuted a man in a “Court Christian,” or Ecclesias- tical Court, though the matter in dispute was only cognisable by a lay tribunal. At the Assizes held at Nortliampton on tlie morrow of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, 31 Henry III. (June 25th, 1247) before Roger de