CHAPTER XV

HERMITAGES AND HOSPITALS

SPITAL-ON-THE-STREET

A little lonely hermitage it was, Down in a dale, hard by a Forest’s side, Far from resort of people that did pass In travel to and froe: a little wyde There was a holy chappell edifyde, Wherein the hermite duly went to say His holy things each morne and eventyde.

SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_. I. I. 34.

_Spital-on-the-Street_ is an ancient hospital situated twelve miles north of Lincoln on the Roman Ermine Street, which had its origin in a Hermitage. The Hermits or “Eremites,” dwellers in the Eremos or wilderness, commonly placed their habitats in remote spots, though some stationed themselves near the gates of a town where they could assist wayfarers with advice and gather contributions at the same time for their own support; others dwelt by lonely highways in order to extend hospitality to benighted wayfarers. A hermitage on the “Ermine Street” between Lincoln and the Humber would be of the latter sort. For the Street runs in a bee line for two-and-thirty miles through an absolutely tenantless country. Villages lie pretty continuously a few miles distant on either side, but with the exception of Spital itself the Street passes through nothing till it arrives within five miles of its termination. The hermitage would therefore be a welcome asylum to a belated traveller on a stormy night and the sound of the chapel bell, or the gleam of the hermit’s rushlight through the darkness would be just salvation to him. Probably such a picture was in Shakespeare’s mind when he wrote:—

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

The chapel attached to the hermitage was one of four churches in Lincolnshire dedicated to St. Edmund King and Martyr.[4] A licence was granted by Edward II. for land and rent to be appropriated by the Vicar of Tealby for the payment of the chaplain; and, by a document signed at Tealby in the year 1323 and witnessed by nearly all the dignitaries of the Cathedral of Lincoln, the foundation was placed under the jurisdiction of the Lincoln Dean and Chapter. Ten years later we find the hermitage called “_Spital_-on-the-Street,” so that its uses had already been enlarged, though we have no documentary evidence of this. All we know of, is the building of a house for the chaplain by John of Harrington in 1333.

[Sidenote: THOMAS DE ASTON]

In 1396 Richard II., “at the request of his dear cousin John de Bellomonte, grants to Master Thomas de Aston, Canon of Lincoln, leave to newly build a house adjoining the west side of the chapel of St. Edmund the King and Martyr at Spitell o’ the Street, for the residence of William Wyhom the Chaplain and of certain poor persons there resident and their successors,” and before the end of the fourteenth century it had buildings sufficient for the maintenance of these poor persons. As such it escaped in Henry VIII.’s time, but in the sixteenth century the property was seized by Elizabeth for her own use in the most barefaced manner and sold by her. The Sessions for the Kirton division of Lindsey were for many years held in the chapel, but subsequently it fell into disrepair and was pulled down by Sir William Wray in 1594, and a new sessions house built close by, on which was this Latin couplet,

Hæc domus odit amat punit conservat honorat Nequitiam pacem crimina jura bonos.

In 1660 Dr. Mapletoft, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, being appointed Sub-Dean of Lincoln and also Master of the Spital Hospital, at once rebuilt the chapel and set to work to improve the revenue, and when he became Dean of Ely in 1668, he retained his Mastership of Spital, and so well did he and his next-but-one successor, Chancellor Mandeville do their work, that, whereas it had sunk to a master and two poor persons to whom he paid 2_s._ each, they restored it to its complement of seven poor people and bought land for it, which so increased in value that, when the Charity Commissioners took the Spital in hand in the reign of Queen Victoria, the revenues were estimated at £959, which was nearly all of it being misappropriated.

[Illustration: _Wykeham Chapel, near Spalding._]

[Sidenote: THE NEW SCHEME]

[Sidenote: MAPLETOFT’S INSCRIPTION]

In 1858 a new scheme was drawn up, and now seven alms-people of each sex receive £20 a year, and besides other annual payments £5,500 has been spent out of the Spital funds on the Grammar School at Lincoln and on founding and maintaining a middle-class school at Market-Rasen called after the Spital’s founder _The De Aston School_. Of the old hospital at Spital only the chapel built by Mapletoft in 1662 remains; a plain structure with its east end to the road where the entrance door is, the altar being at the west end. Below the small square bell-cot is a stone bearing this inscription:—

Fui Aᵒ Dni 1398 ⎫ Non Fui 1594 ⎬ Domus Dei et Pauperum Sum 1616 ⎭

Qui hanc Deus hunc destruat. G.P. 1830.

This means:—

I was in 1398 ⎫ I was not in 1594 ⎬ The House of God and of the poor I am in 1616 ⎭

Whoever destroys this house may God destroy him.

This means that it was founded by De Aston as a chantry and hospital in 1398,[5] pulled down by Wray in 1594 and rebuilt by Mapletoft in 1661. The mason who carved the date has transposed the two last figures in 1661.

G.P. should be J.P. for John Pretyman, the last “Master.”

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