Notes on the hospital of St. Bartholomew, Rochester.

Date:
[1896?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the hospital of St. Bartholomew, Rochester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/24 (page 15)
    A d. 1632. Old Register Booke, fol. IS a.d. 1660. A.D. 1665. and employed to the only reparacons and buylding of the premis ses and none otherwise.” Five years afterwards, 8 Charles I., the following entry occurs • “ Memorandum, lease of the decayed Chappell renewed to Robert Perryn and Dorothy his wife.” At the time of the Restoration, Dean Hardy reserved for himself the entire management of the hospital. At all times it had been usual for the brethren to be appointed by the Dean solely ; a few instances, however, occur of appointment by the Dean and Chapter under their Common Seal. According to the usual form of appointment the brethren were “to enjoy all profits, rights, privileges, commodities, and appur- tenancies whatsoever belonging to the room and place of a brother.” In one singular instance the more limited form is used : “ The place of brother, together with all the yearly rents and profits to the same belonging.” It does not appear that any Dean before the Restoration took fines on the renewals of leases, but the practice prevailed uniformly from 1660 to 1834, all Deans receiving them for their own use during 174 years. Dean Hardy, the first who adopted the practice of taking fines on the renewals of leases of the hospital estates, at his death left large bequests to the cathedral. It having been suggested that he was prompted to do this by his conscience, uneasy at the thought of the amounts which he had received from the hospital, Dean Prat, in 1716, quaintly answers that then he would have left his bequests to the hospital and not to the cathedral, “ Sure that worthy Dean never meant to rob Peter and pay Paul, or thought that Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary (to whom the Cathedral is dedicated) could be bribed to connive at the robbing of St. Bartholomew.” Mr. Francis Barrell, the Recorder, in a letter to the Bishop retaliates on Dean Prat for praising Dean Hardy, remarking that “ it would