 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
St. Anthony's Hospital was a medieval charitable house in the parish of St Benet Fink in the City of London. It was founded before 1254 as a cell by the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony of Vienne in France. [1]
The hospital of St. Anthony when mentioned later was certainly in the now defunct parish of St. Benet Fink (an abbreviation of "St Benedict Finch"), near today's Threadneedle Street. However, it is unlikely a synagogue had ever occupied a site in the parish of St. Benet Fink, as such Jewish places of worship were confined to the Jewry district of the City, some distance away to the east. It is possible therefore that either the brothers changed their quarters afterwards or at one time the Jews had spread beyond the Jewry. Such an outlying synagogue may have been permitted by the 1252/3 decree of King Henry III (1216-1272) that there should be no synagogues except where they existed during the reign of his father King John (1199–1216).
The brothers of St. Anthony of Vienne established a cell before 1254 on some land given to them by King Henry III, in a place previously occupied by a Jewish synagogue. In the bull of Pope Alexander V confirming the grant the place is not further described.
The house was founded to look after twelve poor men, and was governed by a Master, two priests and a schoolmaster.
The hospital appears to have been funded by ad hoc donations of alms, not by an endowment, as in 1291 the whole property within in the parish of St. Benet Fink was not worth more than the small sum of 8 shillings per annum.
One source of income, traditional to certain religious foundations dedicated to Saint Anthony the Great of Egypt, was from donated free-range pigs: any pig considered by the supervisor of the London Livestock market unfit to be killed for food was reserved for the use of the Hospital as follows: a proctor of St. Anthony's placed a collar around its neck from which hung a bell. It was then released onto the City streets to scavenge, protected by the status afforded by its bell, from molestation by the population. [2] it was a virtuous deed to feed these pigs, which quickly fattened and when ready for the table were reclaimed by the Hospital and sold or slaughtered for food. [3] The privilege appears on occasion to have been abused, as in 1311 one of the Hospital's tenants Roger de Wynchester, was forced to promise the City authorities not to claim pigs found wandering about the City, nor to put bells on "any swine but those given in charity to the house". [4]
In 1310 the brothers built a new chapel, for which they had neglected to obtain the permission of the Bishop of London. Judgement was given against the brothers in August, 1311, in the Court of Arches, when the chapel was judged to be prejudicial to the Bishop and to the parish church of St. Benet Fink, and was to be reduced to the form of a private house within eight days on pain of greater excommunication.
During the wars with France and the schism the hospital was cut off from communication with the parent house at Vienne. In 1380 the warden Geoffrey de Lymonia was excused by the antipope Clement VII from making contributions due to Vienne. In 1389 King Edward III appointed as warden one of his clerks, John Macclesfield, in place of the papal choice for the position. Pope Boniface IX confirmed his appointment on condition he should become a monk within three months, which on his failure so to do resulted in the pope making his own appointment. The pope later relented and allowed Macclesfield to hold the position for ten years.
The hospital was by then virtually a royal "free chapel" and this may account for the benefits conferred on it by Pope Boniface IX. In 1392 he granted 100 days' remission of penance to those who during seven years should visit the "House of St. Anthony" on the chief festivals connected with Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and St. Anthony, and gave alms towards the fabric of the chapel and for the maintenance of the sick and poor. In 1392 he also gave it the revenues of All Saints Church, Hereford, and of the annexed chapel of St. Martin, which had been given to the house at Vienne in 1249 by King Henry III.
Shortly before 1400 the advowson of St. Benet Fink's parish church had been donated to the Hospital by two Citizens of London, John Sauvage and Thomas Walington, and in that year the pope donated in addition that church's revenues to the Hospital. However, as later disputes between the church and Hospital attest this grant was not put into effect. In 1440 St. Benet's Church was again donated to the hospital by the Bishop of London for the maintenance of a grammar school.
Macclesfield had in fact misappropriated the Hospital's funds by disposing of much of its property and by the granting of 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. (fn. 24)
In 1429 the Master acquired adjoining land from the Abbot of St. Albans and enlarged the building and formed a garden and cemetery. The new building was uncompleted in 1441, and the Hospital was then described by King Henry VI as "wretched and almost desolate, reduced to the very verge of poverty".
In 1442 King Henry VI granted to the Hospital the manor of Pennington with pensions in Milburn, Tunworth, Charlton, and Up-Wimborne, Hampshire, in order to maintain five scholars at Oxford University, who were first to study grammar at his royal foundation of Eton College. In 1449 a bequest was made by the will of William Wyse of his brewery "Le Coupe super le hoop" in the parish of Allhallows London Wall, for the purpose of maintaining a priest to instruct the children of St. Anthony's in singing as well as praying for his soul.
During the French wars in 1414 the Alien Priories Act was signed by King Henry V which confiscated into the king's hands the English property of all French mother-houses, and the Hospital was treated henceforth as a royal free chapel. Later King Henry VI appointed the wardens and King Edward IV on two occasions granted to a third party the right to present a Master on the next vacancy. The popes evidently acquiesced with the royal confiscation as in 1446 Pope Eugenius IV gave leave to the bishops of Worcester and Norwich, the Provost of Eton and the Warden William Say, to make statutes for the Hospital and in 1447 Pope Nicholas V exempted the Hospital from all spiritual and temporal jurisdiction, especially from that of the former mother-house of St. Anthony, Vienne.
The Hospital did not exist for long as an independent house and in 1475 was annexed and appropriated to the College of St. George, Windsor Castle. It was at that time a profitable enterprise, with receipts in 1478–9 of £539 19 shillings exceeding expenses by £96 4 shillings 10 pence. "From the accounts it may be gathered that the surplus was not obtained by stinting the inmates of food". [5]
Largely due to financing by Sir John Tate, an Alderman of the City of London, the church was rebuilt in 1499 on the old now enlarged site.
St. Anthony's pigs still existed in 1525 and in 1537 an agent of St. Anthony's was recorded collecting offerings and selling hallowed bells for cattle.
At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Hospital was despoiled, not as was usual by the crown, but by a prebendary of Windsor named Johnson, who gave each almsman in compensation for the loss of his room a weekly pension of 1 shilling. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) the church was let to French Protestants.
In 1565 the Hospital possessed lands including the following: :
John Stow (1524–1605) in his 1598 Survey of London wrote of St Anthony's Hospital thus: [6]
This goodly foundation having a free schoole and almes houses for poore men (builded of hard stone) adjoyning to the west end of the church, was of olde time confirmed by Henry the Sixt, in the year 1447. The outward work of this new church was finished in the year 1501, the said John Tate deceased about the year 1514, and was there buried in a monument by him prepared, as appeareth by an indenture tripartite made between the said John Tate, the Deane of Windsor, and William Milbourn, chamberlaine." (Stow, 1st edition, p. 145).
Thom's editorial comment: Pigs have long been placed under the protection of St. Anthony. "The bristled hogges doth Anthonie preserve and cherish well," says Barnabe Googe in The Popish Kingdom, fol. 95. And in The World of Wonders is the following epigram upon the subject:
Walter Thornbury in his Old and New London (1872), wrote as follows: [7]
The following served as masters of St Anthony's Hospital: [10]
Harlington is a district of Hayes the London Borough of Hillingdon and one of five historic parishes partly developed into London Heathrow Airport and associated businesses, the one most heavily developed being Harmondsworth. It is centred 13.6 miles (21.9 km) west of Charing Cross. The district adjoins Hayes to the north and shares a railway station with the larger district, which is its post town, on the Great Western Main Line. It is in the west of the county of Greater London and until 1965 it was in the south-west corner of the historic county of Middlesex.
John Taylor was Master of the Rolls of the Court of Chancery from 1527 to 1534, following a successful career as a priest and civil servant.
Sutton Courtenay is a village and civil parish on the River Thames 2 miles (3 km) south of Abingdon-on-Thames and 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Didcot. Historically part of Berkshire, it has been administered as part of Oxfordshire since the 1974 boundary changes. The 2011 census recorded the parish's population as 2,421. Sutton Courtenay is home to some important structures, such as The Abbey, the Manor House, All Saints' Church, a twelfth-century Norman hall, the Sutton Bridge, and Didcot power station.
Robert Fabyan was a London draper, Sheriff and Alderman, and author of Fabyan's Chronicle.
Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford was an English knight and landowner, from 1400 to 1414 a Member of the House of Commons, of which he became Speaker, then was an Admiral and peer.
Peter Courtenay was Bishop of Exeter (1478–87) and Bishop of Winchester (1487-92), and also had a successful political career during the tumultuous years of the Wars of the Roses.
Nuneham Courtenay is a village and civil parish about 5 miles (8 km) SSE of Oxford. It occupies several miles close to the east bank of the River Thames.
The Hospital Brothers of Saint Anthony, Order of Saint Anthony or Canons Regular of Saint Anthony of Vienne, also Antonines or Antonites, were a congregation in the Roman Catholic church, founded in c. 1095, with the purpose of caring for those suffering from the common medieval disease of Saint Anthony's fire. The mother abbey was the abbey of Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye.
St. Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange was a church and parish in the City of London located on Bartholomew Lane, off Threadneedle Street. Recorded since the 13th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, then rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. The rebuilt church was demolished in 1840.
St Benet Gracechurch, so called because a haymarket existed nearby (Cobb), was a parish church in the City of London. First recorded in the 11th century, it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666 and rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher Wren. The church was demolished in 1868.
St Benet Fink was a church and parish in the City of London located on what is now Threadneedle Street. Recorded since the 13th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666, then rebuilt to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. The Wren church was demolished between 1841 and 1846.
St Benet Sherehog, additionally dedicated to St Osyth, was a medieval parish church built before the year 1111, on a site now occupied by No 1 Poultry in Cordwainer Ward, in what was then the wool-dealing district of the City of London. A shere hog is a castrated ram after its first shearing.
St Mary Woolchurch Haw was a parish church in the City of London, destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666 and not rebuilt. It came within the ward of Walbrook.
Dittisham is a village and civil parish in the South Hams district of the English county of Devon. It is situated on the west bank of the tidal River Dart, some 2 miles (3.2 km) upstream of Dartmouth.
St Benet Fink, Tottenham, is an Anglican church in Tottenham, London.
Sir William Courtenay"The Great", of Powderham in Devon, was a leading member of the Devon gentry and a courtier of King Henry VIII having been from September 1512 one of the king's Esquires of the Body. He served as Sheriff of Devon three times: from February to November 1522, 1525/26, and 1533/34. He was elected Knight of the Shire for Devon in 1529.
William Benet was an English ambassador.
The Bohun swan, also known as the Bucks Swan, was a heraldic badge used originally in England by the mediaeval noble family of de Bohun, Earls of Hereford, and Earls of Essex.
Sir John Tate was twice Lord Mayor of London and a Member of Parliament.
John Samuel Alder FRIBA was a British architect known for his church buildings.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)