Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/127

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The church was used once as a sanctuary by some thieves who had been robbing the Abbot of Leicester. In front of the building stood an image, at which it was customary for wayfarers to make a small offering. A "parochia Sancti Sepulchri" is mentioned in a rental of Lord de Grey, which is undated, but probably of the 14th century. It was at St. Sepulchre's that the view of frankpledge for the South Gate, or South Quarter, of the town was held every year on the 31st of December.

The change of name took place at the beginining of the 16th century. "Sepulchre's church" occurs in a list of 1492, but from the Visitation of the Bishop of Lincoln in 1510, it appears that the name had by that time been altered, and moreover that the building was then in bad repair. Kelly conjectured that the chapel of St. James formed part of St. Sepulchre's church, but in the report of the Bishop's Visitation it is distinctly described as "capella S. Jacobi dudiim vocat' ecclesia S. Sepulchri." A Hermitage stood on the opposite side of the road, adjoining a spring of water, which long retained the name of "Chapel-well." The old name of the church lingered side by side with the new, for in the rent roll of the Corpus Christi Guild for 1519, it is described by both. There is a rent from "a close beside St. James' church," and a chief rent from "a croft beside Sepulchre church." In 1484 "St. Sepulchre's church" had formed the boundary of one of the town wards, but in 1557 the name given to the limit of this ward was " St. James' chapel." The little church was existing in 1572, but it was then probably no more than a ruin. Nichols said that some of its walls were standing within the memory of persons living in the time of the Rev. Samuel Carte, who died April, 1740, aged 86. In the 17th century Sir John Lambe noted that St. Sepulchre's was a chapel to St. Mary's, but added "quaere, how now?"

(10) ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL AT THE TOWN'S END.

There was a chapel in Belgravegate in connection with the old Leper Hospital there, which is said to have been founded, as well as St. Leonard's Hospital, by William the Leper, Robert Blanchmain's youngest son. This leperhouse was called "The

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