A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



be stirred by the earnest eloquence of these vagrant missioners. Bishop 

 Grossetete was a great patron of the friars, urging the parish clergy to 

 give them ready access to their pulpits, and a free hand in the hearing of 

 confessions. The impression that they made on the religious life of the 

 shire in the thirteenth century could not fail to be considerable. 



Among religious foundations must also be included the hospitals, for the 

 church blended the spiritual with the corporal works of mercy. A hospital 

 without a chapel and a priest was unknown, and the regular inmates were 

 always vowed to certain religious observances. The terrible prevalence, even 

 in this midland shire, of mediaeval leprosy, and the zeal of the church in 

 providing for the victims, are testified by the founding, in the first half of the 

 twelfth century, of eight lazar-houses. Six of these, at Northampton, Peter- 

 borough, Towcester, Brackley, Thrapston, and in Rockingham Forest, were 

 dedicated, as was usual with leper hospitals, in honour of St, Leonard ; the 

 seventh, at the Northamptonshire end of Stamford Bridge, was dedicated in 

 honour of St. Giles ; whilst the dedication of the eighth, by the north gate 

 of Northampton, is unknown. In the same century the large hospital of St. 

 John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist was founded at Northampton ; 

 that of St. John and St. James at Brackley ; that of St. John the Baptist 

 and St. Thomas of Canterbury at Stamford Baron ; that of St. Thomas of 

 Canterbury at the abbey gate of Peterborough ; and the well-endowed 

 hospital of St. John and St. James at Aynho under episcopal institution. 

 In the year 1200 another largely-endowed hospital, the masters of which 

 were presented by the adjacent priory of St. Andrew to the bishop for 

 institution, was founded at Kingsthorpe ; to this foundation were attached 

 two chapels, dedicated respectively to St. David and the Holy Trinity. A 

 small hospital was also founded at Armston in the year 1232, and another at 

 Pirho about the same time. All these hospitals were for the three-fold 

 object, in varying degrees, of providing for the aged, the sick, and the way- 

 farer. Another hospital of some importance, that of St. Thomas of Canterbury, 

 is said to have been founded in Northampton by the burgesses about 1450 ; 

 but this was in all probability a revival of a far older foundation made soon 

 after the canonization of Thomas a Becket. 



Northamptonshire, like other counties, affords numerous examples of 

 the gross diversion of those early hospital or almshouse establishments from 

 their original purposes. 



Monastic foundations had become so numerous throughout England 

 that munificently-disposed people sought other channels for the disposal of 

 their wealth. A method of doing this was suggested by the growing 

 practice of establishing chantries for one or more priests. The custom 

 became prevalent of turning parish churches into collegiate institutions. It 

 has been pointed out by one of the most comprehensive writers on such 

 subjects that these parochial colleges were really chantry chapels of a larger 

 size ; the chancel being usually allotted to the community as rectors, whilst 

 the nave remained congregational under a vicar of their appointment.^ 



The similarity of chantry to college is nowhere more strikingly 

 illustrated than in the episcopal registers of the archdeaconry of Northampton. 

 In 1327 Gilbert de Middleton, archdeacon of Northampton, founded a 



1 Mackenzie Walcott, E/ig/. Minsters, ii. 39. 

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