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The Charitable Work of St Wulfstan's
The
restricted quantity of available evidence makes it difficult to
discuss the extent to which the hospital was committed to practical
works of charity. All that can be concluded is that any commitment
to care for the infirm diminished drastically during the fourteenth
century.
The
evidence we have seen that St Wulfstan's hospital was the recipient
of a considerable number of pious donations during the century after
its foundation indicates how well it was regarded at that time.
The support it received from the gentry of Worcester, of course,
would have been prompted more by respect for the name of the saint
and his ability to intercede for the souls of benefactors rather
than by the hospital's work with the Worcester poor; the apparently
different pattern of donation adopted by the citizens may reflect
their greater awareness of its effectiveness as a charitable institution.
Without evidence for the value of cash donations to St Wulfstan's
during the thirteenth century, however, there is no way of assessing
the degree of support that came from the city, which might reflect
the quality of the care provided. Early references to the hospital
reveal it to have been served by a mixed community, of men and women.
Thomas, the first known inmate, was tended by a woman Ysabel (Darlington
1928, p.172), and donations were at first directed to the master,
the brethren and the sisters. At least one grant was directed to
the 'fratribus et sororibus sanis et infirmis' (Marsh 1890, no.12).
Assigning approximate dates to undated deeds of the thirteenth century
is never an entirely satisfactory process; nevertheless all but
one of these references to 'sisters' appear to come from the first
half of the century. Thereafter - except for one occasion in 1407
- the community is addressed or refers to itself in purely male
terms, which prompts the conclusion that around 1250 St Wulfstan's
was re-organized: not to exclude women altogether, but to reduce
their status within the community to a level undoubtedly commensurate
with the menial tasks they performed with the sick. (Marsh 1890,
no.87) Little is known about the identity of the inmates, or how
they qualified for admittance; they were always at this time described
simply as 'infirm'. They were not lepers; royal grants of protection
of the thirteenth century are addressed to the master and brethren
of the hospital of St Wulfstan, whilst similar grants to the hospital
of St Mary without Worcester are addressed to the master and leprous
brethren (Cal Patent Rolls 1258-66, pp.394, 396).
In
1294 when the hospital received a benefaction from one William de
Molendiniis, there were then twenty-two sick persons in the infirmary.
William donated property to provide in future for three indigent
chaplains to be chosen by the bishop: they were to share in the
food of the brethren, as well as receiving provision with the inmates
(VCH Worcs.,ii p.175). Reports of the hospital's poverty begin to
occur in the late thirteenth century, as justification for exemption
from taxation (ibid.); when the character of St Wulfstan's began
to change, however, is not clear. A settlement on the hospital made
in 1369 seems, on the face of it, to show that it was still functioning.
Thomas Cartere, a wealthy citizen of Worcester, bequeathed to St
Wulfstan's his half of the manor of Pirye, in Northwick, with lands
and rents there, and property in Worcester worth 24s per annum (Marsh
1890, no.72). By agreement, this was to pay for a chaplain from
amongst the brethren to celebrate every day for ever for the souls
of Thomas and his family, and for fees to be paid each year to the
rectors of St Helen's and St Swithun's for the celebration of their
anniversaries. The 'poor' of the hospital were to receive 12d between
them every Sunday, in addition to what they already received, and
6s 8d at All Saints for fuel; on the anniversary of Thomas on 13
July the master and brethren were to receive 6s 8d, and each pauper
in the infirmary 2d. On the same day, bread made with a quarter
of wheat and rye was to be distributed to the poor. The bequest
unfortunately is unhelpful as to the nature and number of these
poor inmates.
By
1395 the hospital was granting - if it had not done so long before
- corrodies in return, we must presume, for money (Marsh 1890, no.
78). In 1396 Richard Russel and Margaret his wife were granted sustenance
for life, at a level specified as that granted to the others in
the infirmary; they received, too, a chamber formerly occupied by
John Sodman and his wife, beneath that of Agnes Rommushore (Marsh
1890, no.79*). There is no way of telling whether these others,
too, had purchased their places in the hospital; clearly, however,
whatever their circumstances, with their own apartments they were
not the indigent sick and dying. A further six such grants survive,
four of them to married couples, and one specifying that the grant
had been made in return for a cash payment (Marsh 1890, nos.80,
82, 83, 85, 87, 93). These people could be described as poor only
inasmuch as they had transferred perhaps all or most of their assets
to the hospital in return for guaranteed support for what remained
of their lives. And there was no necessity for the maintenance to
be provided within the hospital. In 1403 Ralph Symondes and his
wife Alicia were given a life tenancy of a house in Worcester, together
with a total of 27s 4d in annual rents to be paid from specified
lands on which they had a right to distrain if the rents were not
paid (Marsh 1890, no.94). That the grant was called a corrody goes
to illustrate how little any of these maintenance agreements had
to do with charitable care for the old, and how far they were a
commercial transaction from which the recipients gained security
and from which the hospital hoped in due course to profit. But what
remains unclear is how far there was a long-term policy of filling
St Wulfstan's with paying corrodians. All the surviving grants were
made by the same master, William More or Dylewe, between 1395 and
1407: is this accident of survival, or a temporary policy pursued
for whatever reason by a single master?
The
reforming of the hospital by Bishop Bourchier in 1441 (VCH Worcs.,ii
p.176) leaves little doubt that the policy of granting of corrodies
had gone much further than the few cases we have seen, and had been
in operation over a much longer period. The bishop was very critical
of past mismanagement of the house, and insisted that in future
no corrodies should be granted. In future, the establishment of
the hospital was to consist of a master, two chaplains, five poor
brethren and two sisters. The master was to be appointed by the
bishop, and was to be an priest - or was to become so within a year
of appointment. The two chaplains were to celebrate for the souls
of the hospital's founders and benefactors, and were to receive
a stipend and their keep, whilst the inmates were each to receive
7d a week. This arrangement stood until the dissolution of the hospital
in 1540, and it is only for this last phase of the life of St Wulfstan's
that there is evidence for the disposal of its revenues.
Two
accounts prepared by the bailiff of St Wulfstan's survive from the
1480s: one from 1483 and the other from 1487 (Marsh 1890, pp.111-25).
For the first year a total income of nearly £130 was recorded, but
much of that was due to medieval accounting methods. Allowances
for decay of rent and for rents paid out came to nearly £19, and
£30 consisted of arrears. By 1487 this latter figure had become
£62 - an indication firstly that these arrears could not be collected,
and secondly that the total of arrears was growing by a rough average
of £8 in each accounting year. In other words, the actual income
that the bailiff accounted for in 1483, and which came to £82, was
an optimistic total; the sum that in the event he was able to collect
was closer to £74. Of this, £3 8s 4d went in fees and wages paid
to the hospital's professional servants, £1 11s 1d in repairs to
the Worcester properties, 10s 3d in expenses connected with the
obits delebrated for the family of Thomas Cartere, 18s 3d in chapel
expenses, and £10 13s 4d was paid in stipends to the two chaplains.
Thus some £57 remained, of which £10 12s 4d was the total allowed
for the maintenance of the seven poor inmates (which was 7d more
than the total of 1d each per day laid down in 1441). In the course
of the year £40 had been paid to the bishop, leaving probably £6.
In 1487 total income had fallen somewhat to a reported £78 12s 4d,
of which again a proportion presumably would have proved impossible
to collect, so that the hospital's income was nearer £70. Expenses
came to £17 7s 11¸d, and £10 0s 8d was the total this year of the
seven paupers' stipends; of the notionally remaining £51 3s 8¸d
(but in reality no more than £43), £45 5s was paid out this year
to the 'lord' - whom we must take to have been the bishop.
Not
the least remarkable aspect of these accounts is the absence of
any provision made for the master of the hospital. There was no
salary that might be his, no sum allotted for food and drink that
might have supplied his table. The large sum paid to the 'lord'
in 1487 was not paid to the master, as we might expect, but to the
bishop, for this was specified four years before. Two possibilities
remain: that there were other rents, not accounted for here, which
had been assigned to the master for his stipend and the expenses
of his household; alternatively, that the master was now paid by
the bishop. Whilst both are possible, it is the latter that under
the circumstances is the more likely. It would explain why the apparent
surplus of income in these two years was paid to the bishop, for
these two measures together constituted a mechanism to prevent peculation
on the part of the masters. The strict nature of the constitution
as laid down in 1441 specified both the number of the hospital's
personnel and their stipends, and so in effect established a rigid
annual budget; after that date, the master had no control over expenditure
as it was now governed by the pre-determined level of provision.
For him to be paid a fixed salary, and to be denied control of any
un-assigned revenues of the hospital, would have completed the separation
of his duties as warden of the house from any responsibility for
its finances.
The
bailiffs' accounts make no specific division between the spiritualities
of the house and its temporal income. Everything is included, so
that along with rents and tithes we find the sum of £2 received
in each year from the sale of 'indulgences of St Gudwal' in Herefordshire.
The Valor Ecclesiasticus (1835, iii, pp.228-9) of fifty years later
placed a yearly value of £66 8s 11d on the temporalities, and assessed
the spiritualities at £13 3s 7d. Most of this came in the form of
tithes from the parish church of Claines, which had been granted
to St Wulfstan's between 1234, when the bishop acquired them from
the church of St Helen, and 1291 (VCH Worcs.,iii p.306; Astle, etc.
1802, 239). There were tithes from the parish of Crowle, too, leaving
just £1 received in oblations to the image of St Gudwal and other
images in the hospital chapel. The proceeds of the chapel were not
included in the bailiffs' accounts, but the tithes were: there is
no doubt that all the revenues of St Wulfstan's were accounted for
by the bailiffs.
Expenditure
as recorded in the Valor follows the pattern of the 1480s, demonstrating
how closely the 1441 constitution was still being followed in the
1530s. Professional fees - to the bailiff, steward and auditor -
were £4 6s 8d, £9 13s 4d was allotted for the stipend of the two
priests, 9s for the Cartere family obits, 8s for bread distributed
to the poor of Worcester under Thomas Cartere's foundation, and
£10 19s for the seven paupers, totalling in all £25 16s 0d (Valor
Ecclesiasticus, iii, pp.228-9). There remained, as before, a notional
surplus of £53 16s 6d from which the master's stipend and expenses
would have been paid; but was any of this surplus devoted to the
relief of poverty, or the care of the sick? Previous writers have
generally assumed so, although without any evidence. Neither were
the inmates of St Wulfstan's the very poor we might imagine them
to have been. John Leland, visiting Worcester soon after the Hospital's
suppression in 1540, described them as 'dyvers marchant men of Worcester
fawlyn in decaye and age' (Smith 1907-10, v, p.91). No reference
to the infirmary comes from this last period of the hospital's existence,
although had residential care for the poor and infirm still been
seen as its responsibility it would surely have been mentioned in
1441 when the future conduct of the affairs of the house was decided.
One is forced to conclude that during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries the charitable work of St Wulfstan's was restricted to
the single dole of bread established by Thomas Cartere, and to the
care of the seven inmates - the cost of which together amounted
to no more than one- seventh of the hospital's revenues. The priests
who served the chapel were maintained with another seventh; whatever
was left of the remaining five-sevenths or so after the master's
stipend had been paid and administrative costs met was presumably
the bishop's to dispose of as he saw fit. From the latter part of
the fifteenth century onwards, the office of master was a largely
honorific one given to high officials of the episcopal household;
the hospital buildings, which were rebuilt about this time (Marsh
1890, p.8) and which have survived to the present day, are most
notable for their magnificent public rooms and clearly provided
such men with a fitting town house.
It is therefore not surprising
that at the end of the Middle Ages St Wulfstan's had long ceased
to be the recipient of pious donations. The last recorded grant
to the hospital came in 1433, and like Thomas Cartere's of 64 years
before it was a donation of land to endow a chantry. Richard Oseney,
a leading citizen of Worcester, gave six cottages in St Peter's
Lane, worth 24s 6d per annum, in return for prayers for his health
during his lifetime and after his death a commendation during the
mass celebrated annually on the anniversary of Thomas Cartere and
his family (Marsh 1890, nos.99, 100). There is no sign that Oseney's
gift was prompted by any charitable work the hospital performed;
it was the existence of another chantry on to which his own might
be grafted that persuaded him to his choice. It is not impossible,
moreover, that he was related to Cartere. Just as emphatically,
there were no more bequests to St Wulfstan's. Of the surviving wills
of Worcester citizens made between 1337 and 1495 only two contained
a bequest for the hospital, in striking contrast to the numerous
bequests to the Greyfriars, the Blackfriars, and the Cistercian
nuns of Whiston.
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