By the Rev. Canon Moberly. 125 
dwellings or cells in the aisles, they were true houses of God: the 
poor, the houseless, and the wanderer found a home there. . . . 
The government was vested in a master; brethren aided by sisters 
earried on the duties of nursing, prescribing, cooking, &c., while 
the spiritual care of the hospital was entrusted to priest-chaplains.” 
This quotation will be serviceable to us in more ways than one: 
but now I ask attention to the last sentence only, which says that 
(under a master) “ brethren aided by sisters carried on the duties 
‘of nursing, prescribing, cooking, &c.,” and that in a “ hospital for 
the sick and aged,” where “ the poor, the houseless, and the wanderer 
found a home.” The Domus Dei at Portsmouth was founded in 
1212: and its objects were precisely similar to those which I suppose 
were the objects of our St. Nicholas. 
Look, also, at St. Mary’s, Chichester, which was referred to by 
Archdeacon Wright. This was founded, says Dr. Swainson, its 
late custos, about 1220—1240: grants to it were made “ to the 
House of St. Mary and the brethren and sisters serving God there, 
for the purpose of sustaining the poor and infirm people lying in the 
same house . . . . There was a marked difference between 
‘the brothers and sisters who served God in the hospital? and 
‘the poor and sick people who were lying there.” . . . The 
hospital was intended to be a temporary home for the sick and 
infirm: the brethren and sisters who dwelt within its walls were 
intended to act as nurses. It was also intended to act as a refuge 
for the night to the wandering poor—the casuals of the modern 
day.” 1 
Now the following are the descriptions of the inmates of St. 
Nicholas, gathered from its deeds in the register. In 1227 they 
are “ poor and passengers or resorters to the same house.” In 1245 
they are “ Christ’s poor and weak and infirm [to be kept] as long 
as their weakness does not suffer them to go out and wander.” 
About 1250 they are “the brethren whole and infirm of the said 
hospital, there serving God.” ‘This points clearly to a distinction 
between the brethren : some nursed, some were nursed. About 1340 
: 1 Swainson’s “ Hospital of St. Mary in Chichester,’ from Sussex Archwo- 
logical Society’s Collections, vol. xxiv. 
