House of St. Edmund the Confessor and Archbishop." Archbishop Edmund died in 1240, and was not canonized until 1247; and therefore this hospital was not founded probably till after that year, though it seems rather doubtful whether William the Leper, whose father died in 1190, would still be living at that time. The hospital was in existence certainly before 1250, for it was recorded in the Register of Croxton Abbey, that before that date "Galfridus abbas et conventus de Croxton" gave certain lands "Deo et beatae Mariae et domui S͡ci. Edmundi Confessoris et archiepiscopi in Leycestria et pauperibus fratribus ibidem manentibus." Geoffrey was Abbot of Croxton from 1242 to 1250.
Dedications to St. Edmund the Archbishop are very uncommon. St. Edmund's at Salisbury, and the chapel of St. Edmund at Gateshead are almost the only others in England known to Mr. A. Hamilton Thompson, but he thinks it probable that Sedgefield, in the county of Durham, was dedicated to him, as the annual feast was on the day of his translation. In this last case, where the church existed long before the archbishop, the dedication must have been changed, and it is of course possible, though improbable, that this may have been the case at Leicester. The Hospital chapel was generally known as the chapel of St. John the Baptist, and belonged to the Hospital of that name within the town.
In the arrangement made in 1464 between the Steward of the Guild of St. John and St. John's Hospital, it was agreed that the priest provided by that Guild should say or sing mass two days a week "in the chapel of St. John set at the townsend of Leicester." The little building was visited by John Leland about 1536. It stood, he said, by "the Bishop's water," for so the small stream was named which flowed into the Soar across Belgravegate under Our Lady's Bridge. "At this chapel," he added, "lyith Mr. Boucher."
Towards the close of the 14th century, William de Swinderby, the well-known Lollard, became Chaplain of St. John's Hospital at Leicester, and he and his companions, William Smith and Richard Waytestathe, made use of the little chapel at the town's end for the purpose of inculcating their own advanced views.
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