RELIGIOUS HOUSES kind of jurisdiction over any persons, regular or secular, within the hospital in any causes, civil or criminal. The brethren or their commissary had sole cognizance of all such matters, and also had the proving of the wills of persons dying within their precincts. For these concessions the house paid an annual pension of 55. 4^. to the archdeacons of Surrey at Easter. Nevertheless the hospital was not strictly a peculiar, for the bishop claimed and exercised powers of visitation.' The following are the chief grants to the hospital in the earlier part of the thirteenth century cited in the chartulary : Alice de Chalvedon, widow, granted circa 1235 all her lands in Chaldon ; in consideration whereof Adam de Merton and the brethren agreed to find her a suitable bed within the hospital for life, with all reasonable necessaries such as would suffice for two sisters of the house, and to her maid as to one of the maids of the house ; she was also to have 51. 6d. a year for her clothing and fuel, but to demand nothing else.' Everard de Caterham gave lands and 2s. rent at Caterham ; '° John de Marlow, clerk, gave mills and osier beds at Marlow, in Buckinghamshire,'^ and Richard de Clare earl of Hertford, and his son, Gilbert de Clare, lands worth /^20 a year and quit-rents in the manor of Marlow.*^ A commission was issued in November 1276 to inquire into the complaint of the brethren of the hospital, that Ralph le Aumoner and many others, claiming authority from Nicholas, bishop of Winchester, and asserting that the custody of the hospital belonged to the bishop, entered without leave of the brethren, and consumed and wasted the possessions, victuals, and other goods of the hospital. There was a considerable dispute at the time of the election of Richard de Hulmo as master in 1295, the bishop claiming the sole appoint- ment, but eventually he compromised matters by nominating the choice of the brethren.'* In 1299 Isaac the Jew conveyed a house to the hospital, and that his grant might hold good, instead of a seal, he subscribed his name in Hebrew characters according to the Jewish custom.'* On 18 April 1305 licence was granted to the master and brethren to acquire in mortmain 8 acres of land in Charlton by Greenwich from Robert de la Wyke ; 4 acres of land in Combe and Greenwich from Ranulph, vicar of Greenwich ; and i^ acres of land in the latter places from John and William, sons of William le Flemyng, all for the maintenance of the poor and infirm within the house. '^ Licence upon fine was obtained in June 1309 for the alienation in mortmain to the master and brethren of this hospital of yearly rents to the value of 28;. 2wd. in Beddington and Bandon, the gift of Walter de Dynesle, clerk, and of a messuage in Southwark, the gift of William de Hameldon, chaplain." In the following year there was a large bequest under similar licence, by Simon de Stowe, of a messuage and various plots of land in Beddington, Bandon, Mitcham, Southwark, and Newton for the sustenance of the poor in the hospital ; '* and again in 131 1, by Walter de Huntingfield, of a mill, a messuage, 4 tofts, 63 acres of land, 3 acres of meadow, and 6;." of rents. In 1313 there was further bequest by Dulcia le Drapere of a messuage and 8 acres of land in Beddington.^" Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, granted in 1 3 14 to the master and brethren of the hospital the advowson of the church of Blechingley, in exchange for all lands and tenements which they held in the town of Beddington, Bandon, Woodcote, Mitcham, and Croydon, and for the mills that they held in the parish of Marlow, Bucks. In the following year they obtained licence to appropriate the church of Blechingley.-' In June 1 32 1 Stephen de Bykleswade, master, and the brethren and sisters, in considera- tion of the great benefits they had received from Henry de Bluntesdon, almoner to the late King Edward, ordered a daily mass at the Lady Altar for the said king and for Henry and his parents and benefactors."^ In February 1323 Bishop Asser, after visitation, gravely admonished the master of the hospital as to the irregular lives led by the brethren and sisters.^' It was then ordered that they should all follow the rule of St. Augustine, and that the master should eat with the brethren.^* On I December, 1326, the bishop of Win- chester granted to the master and brethren of this hospital, for the health of the souls of him- self, his parents, Adam le Chaundeler and Joan his wife, and for the support of the sick poor re- sorting to the hospital, lands in Wimbledon, which he had acquired jointly with John de ' Stowe MS. 942, fol. 5, 6, 330. ' Ibid. fol. 292-3. '» Ibid. fol. 309. " Ibid. fol. 313-14. " Ibid. fol. 315 &c. " Pat. 4 Edw. I, m. 3 </. There is no entry pertaining to the hospital in the taxation rolls of 1291. '* Winton Epis. Reg. Pontoise, fol. 52 ; Stowe MS. 942, fol. 106. " Stowe MS. 942, (hi 106. " Pat. 33 Edw. I, pt. I, m. 6. " Ibid. 2 Edw. II, pt. 2, m. 3. '^ Ibid. 4 Edw. II, pt. I, m. 22. " Ibid. 4 Edw. II, pt. 2, m. 18. "> Ibid. 6 Edw. II, pt. 2, m. 4 " Ibid. 8 Edw. II, pt. 2, m. 13. " Winton Epis. Reg. Reynolds, fol. 352, m, 6b. Ibid. Asser, fol. 20^. " Stowe MS. 942, fol. 330. 539
