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 RELIGIOUS HOUSES an alderman. Brown endowed it with other land adjoining, which extended to the City boundary, and with lOOs. rent from tenements in Blanchapelton, and in various London parishes, AUhallows Staining, St. Margaret Pattens, St. Peter the Little, St. Martin Ludgate, St. Sepulchre, and St. Martin Outwich. The foundation stone was laid by Walter, archdeacon of London, June, 1 1 97, and the building was dedicated by William de Ste. Mere I'Eglise, bishop of London, 1199-1221, to the honour of God and the Blessed Virgin. The house con- sisted' of Austin canons, whose duties were religious, and lay brothers and sisters to whom the care of the sick poor was entrusted, all being under the charge of a prior. The prior and brothers acknowledged themselves subject to the bishop of London, and promised that they would not make alienations of land without his leave, which he could not, however, refuse unless it was clear that loss to the hospital would result. His permission had also to be asked in case of vacancy before the canons proceeded to elect.* The priory had only been in existence a short time when for some reason it was refounded in 1235,' and the church was moved farther to the east.' The all-important question of the water supply was settled at the end of 1277 ' by the gift to them of a spring called ' Snekockeswelle ' in Stepney by John, bishop of London, who gave them leave to inclose it and bring the water by underground pipes into the hospital precincts. The original endowment must by this time have been supplemented by numerous grants, but the income of the hospital up to 1280 evidently did not keep pace with the expenditure, since at that date the priory owed £6^ 8s.^ for meat. Apparently all difficulty on this score had not vanished in 1303, for the archbishop of Canter- bury, after a visitation, expressly stated that in his opinion the annual revenue of 300 marks ^ was sufficient to maintain the accustomed number of inmates, viz. twelve canons, five lay brothers, and seven sisters. Judging from these ordinances the administration of the priory had become rather lax. The ancient custom of allotting to the hospital a third of the convent flour supply, which the sisters afterwards dis- tributed as needed, had been abandoned ; bequests for special purposes had been diverted to other uses,^" and the lamps which at one time had been ' Lond. Epis. Reg. Baldock and Gravesend, fol. 5. • Doc. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, Liber A. fol. 12. ' Dugdale, loc. cit. ° Ibid, from Leland, Coff. ' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 29. ' Sharpe, Cal. of Letter Bk. ^,33. The prior was ordered to pay it within four years. ° Lond. Epis. Reg. Baldock and Gravesend, fol. 5. '° The legacy of Ela, countess of Warwick, is to be expended as she directed under pain of greater excom- munication and perpettlal deposition from office, viz. kept burning between the beds in the hospital had been taken away." The sisters seem to have received neither their proper portions of food ^^ nor their share of pittances, and no allow- ance was made to them for dress, which they appear to have provided for themselves out of the legacies ^' left by their charges to the priory. With regard to the canons the archbishop ordered that money was not to be given to them for clothing," but that they should be provided with clothes uniform in colour and quality, and that on receiving the new they should give up the old ; that those holding offices were to render full accounts before the whole convent,^' and that the cloistral canons and other hospital officials were not to go beyond the boundaries of the house singly or together, nor were they to ask leave of the prior to do so except for the evident utility of the priory. Their conduct indeed had not been exemplary : disobedience was not un- common,^' and scandal and prejudice to the monastery had been caused by their frequenting the houses ^^ of Alice la Faleyse and Matilda wife of Thomas, who apparently lived within the precinct. That the canons were themselves not anxious for reform is shown by the fact that in 1306 they elected as prior a certain Robert de Cerne,^* a notoriously unfit person, and as such promptly deposed by Ralph, bishop of London. Ralph then exercised the right he had in such a case by appointing the sub-prior of St. Bartholomew's, Philip de London, whose probity he knew and who he hoped would improve both the tone of the house and the administration of its temporal affairs. Philip and the canons arranged ^' that the deposed prior should receive a double allowance of bread, ale, and other food, s. per annum for his other necessaries, and a room near the infirmary, and for his servant a black loaf, a gallon of small beer, and one dish from the kitchen every day, and 55. annual wages, and that a companion should also be assigned to him. The bishopric being vacant in 1316 com- missaries of the dean and chapter of St. Paul's visited St. Mary's and issued some injunctions.**' The canons at first declined to pay procurations, though it is difficult to see on what grounds, 20;. per annum for pittance of canons, brothers, and sisters, 20/. to the poor for milk, 20/. to same for linen, and 20/. to them for wood. Lond. Epis. Reg. Baldock and Gravesend, fol. 5. " Ibid. fol. 6. " Ibid. fol. 5. " Ibid. fol. 6. The sisters are to receive h, mark annually for their clothes. Goods given or bequeathed by the sick lying in that house to the prior and con- vent shall be given up by the sisters, who are to take an oath so to do. " Ibid. fol. 5. " Ibid. fol. 6. '« Ibid. fol. 5. " Ibid. fol. 6. •» Ibid. fol. 6. " Ibid. fol. 9, 10. '" Doc. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, Liber A, fol. 73^. 531