Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/271

 9< h S. II. OCT. 1,'98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

263

secrated to medicine that is to say, medicine has been continuously practised there for the space of nearly two thousand two hundred years. At present wo can scarcely say so much.

As to the genuineness of the remains of the apostle in either Benevento or Rome, it is of little moment to inquire ; in fact, perhaps, we had better not do so. But as these matters were serious in times mediaeval, I shall be pardoned if I attempt to trace the important results of mediaeval beliefs.

Both the Beneventani and the Romans believed they possessed these sacred relics, and great have oeen the controversies arising from this rivalry. Into those controversies I shall not lead readers of 'N. & Q.' For my purpose it will be sufficient to relate that in 1035 the Bishop of Benevento, on behalf of his famine-stricken subjects, came to England and sold to Emma, the queen of Canute, an arm of the holy apostle, the subject of this note. Now Canute had himself been to Apulia, and probably to Benevento, certainly to Rome, and doubts had apparently invaded his royal mind as to the subject of the prof- fered relic, for he made the Tbishop swear as to its genuineness upon the altar at Canter- bury before he permitted Queen Emma to conclude the purchase. So far as is yet known this constitutes the first incident or germ of the growth of the cult of St. Bar- tholomew in England. It is probable, though not recorded, that this apostolic relic worked distinguished miracles. In any case we find that a hospital of St. Bartholomew was founded in Chatham about 1087, the earliest of the many ^Esculapian foundations under the dedication to that saint and martyr.

The connexions between England and Rome were once more thickening. In the year 1107, in the reign of Henry I., we find for the first time an Englishman, Ulric, made cardinal, during the Pontificate of that ener- getic restorer Paschal II. In 1112 the latter Pontiff, himseff a Benedictine of S. Paolo f uori le Mura, found it necessary to repair the church of St. Adalbert on the Tiber island, as his extant inscription over the entrance declares, and rechristen it San Bartolommeo. His restorations, however, were not completed until the reign of his successor, Gelasius II.. 1131.

Now during this period we know that the pious queen of our Henry I. was busy, especially in the founding of hospitals, St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, &c., and that about the year 1118 Rahere, an Augustinian canon of St. Paul's, went on pilgrimage to Rome. The writer of his memoir (\vho, however, founds

his narrative on traditions, and himself lived a century later than Rahere) tells us that Rahere fell ill (presumably of malaria) when visiting the site of the martyrdom of St. Paul, and during his illness had a vision of St. Bartholomew, which caused him to record a vow to the effect that should he recover and return to London he would acquire a site there upon which he would found a hospital, priory, and church, to be dedicated to that apostle. I need not go further into the familiar details of the story of Rahere, nor do more than mention that Richard de Belesme, Bishop of London, and no doubt the pious hospital - loving Matilda, helped him to fulfil his vow at Smith- field. It is not to be doubted that his inspi- ration came from his visit to Rome, and had nothing to do with Benevento. The period, it has been seen, of his pilgrimage thither was contemporaneous with the rebuilding of San Bartolommeo alFIsola, and I will venture to give as a reason why he may even have been treated for his malady upoYi the island itself, that the greater hospital of S. Spirito in Saxia was then in a ruinous condition. Doubtless the shrine, to be called hence- forward San Bartolommeo, many of whose columns are those formerly belonging to the Temple of ^Esculapius, which Antoninus Pius so greatly enriched in the second cen- tury, was the talk of the city, and especially was an attraction to pilgrims taken to Ly- caonia or Isola Tibernia.

The multiplication of English hospitals dedicated to the same apostle speedily follows at Oxford, Dover, Gloucester, Newbury, and Sandwich, all belonging to the twelfth cen- tury ; and monkish verses render abundant homage to his healing powers.

ST. CLAIR BADDELEY.

THE GEORGE WORN BY CHARLES I. (See 1 st S. ii. 135.) At this reference SPERANS asked where the George was to be found, mentioning that it had been in the possession of the late Marquis Wellesley, but had been lost sight of since his death. This happened in 1842. Though SPERANS may long ago have been sick unto death from hope deferred of answer to his question, it is one of so much interest that I ask leave to put on record the little that I know of its history, with the view of eliciting more complete information from other sources.

In February, 1689, Madame de Sevigne writes to her daughter :

" Le roi d'Angleterre donna hier dans 1'eglise de Notre Dame 1'ordre de la Jarretiere k M. de Lauzun : on y lu une espece de serment, qui en fait la cr- monie, le roi lui mit le collier & 1 autre cote du notre