WINCHESTER. Ixiii. 



For nearly 800 years has this large-hearted hospitality been dis- 

 pensed, without grudging or questioning ; but as such an institution, 

 and so generous a practice, is apt to be abused, experience has dictated 

 a reasonable limit ; and the club were informed that at present the 

 daily dole is two gallons of beer and two loaves of bread, divided into 

 32 portions, which provide a horn of beer and a slice of bread for each 

 wayfarer. 



The Rev. Canon CAUSTON, Master of the St. Cross Hospital, 

 welcomed the club at the Porter's Lodge, surmounted by the 

 tower rebuilt by Cardinal Beaufort, and led the way into the 

 spacious quadrangle around which the Brethren's buildings 

 are arranged. In the great Hall, a noble and typical speci- 

 men of early 15th century work, 



The MASTER, acceding to the invitation to address the party, said 

 that that place was unique, in that it was the only institution of its 

 size which had for no less than eight centuries carried on the spirit 

 as well as the intention of its founder benevolence and worship. 

 It was founded in 1135 by Bishop Henry of Blois^ brother of King 

 Stephen, who intended it for the accommodation of 13 poor men and 

 100 pensioners. Bishop Henry also built the east end of the church, 

 which, as it stands to-day, runs the gamut of all the periods of mediaeval 

 architecture, Romanesque and Gothic, Saxon, Norman, Transition, 

 Early English, Decorated, Perpendicular, Tudor all are represented. 

 When Henry died the institution was handed over to the Knights 

 Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, from whom the brethren got 

 their badge, the Cross of Jerusalem. In 1404 Cardinal Beaufort, the 

 greatest benefactor of that place, formed a new order, that of Noble 

 Poverty, for gentlemen who through misfortune had come down in 

 their circumstances. At present the institution supported 17 men 

 with their wives, and in a month or two they would add 10 more, 

 so that it would then be supporting 27 men and their wives and 65 

 out-pensioners. Cardinal Beaufort built the tall chimneys, which in 

 hit* time were quite a novelty. In 1503 Robert Sherburn built the 

 long cloister or ambulatory leading from the Porter's Lodge to the 

 church. Through all the time of the Reformation the singing men 

 in the church were still paid affording interesting evidence of the 

 continuance of choral services. John Cook, the solicitor who prose- 

 cuted King Charles I., was as a reward made master of St. Cross, but 

 afterwards he was executed as a regicide. Canon Causton then drew 

 attention to several objects of interest in the hall the so-called table 

 of King Stephen, the top being an oval slab of polished Purbeck marble, 



