RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Henry Harburgh, 1399^^ 



William Man, occurs 145 1 '" 



William Brown, appointed 1462/^ occurs 

 1470 '^ 



Oliver Kyng, appointed 1473'^ 



Richard Hill, appointed 1477,^* resigned be- 

 fore 1485'* 



Thomas Otteley, 1485 ^^ 



John Burton, 1495," died 1499 



John Argentine, 1499^^ 



Antony Weldon, occurs 1535'' 



Edward Weldon, last incumbent*" 



25. HOSPITAL OR LAZAR-HOUSE, 

 DORCHESTER 



There appears to have been a hospital built 

 -here for the relief of lepers, but no particulars 

 have yet been recovered as to the date when it 

 was founded or the name of the founder. The 

 chantry certificate of Edward VI states that the 

 hospital or 'house of leprosy' at Dorchester had 

 no lands, but consisted of ten poor men who 

 received an annual rent of 40;. for their gowns 

 * by the hands of Mr. Williams, Esquire.' '^ 



26. HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN THE 

 BAPTIST, SHAFTESBURY 82 



When and by whom this hospital was 

 founded history does not say. The earliest 

 notice of it occurs 5 January, 1223, when the 

 king issued an order to John Lancelive, bailiff 

 of Brian de Insula of the forest of Dorset, 

 directing him to allow the prior of the hospital 

 of St. John of Shaftesbury three trees {fusta) of 

 the windfall wood of the king's park of Gilling- 

 ham for the repair of his house.*' The founda- 

 tion, therefore, cannot be dated later than the 

 beginning of the thirteenth century. The 

 chantry commissioners in the sixteenth century 

 reported that it was ordained for the relief of 

 five poor men who then lived by the alms of 



*' Hutchins, Hist. 0/ Dorset, ii, 416. 



'" Pat. 29 Hen. VI, pt. I, m. 8. 



" Ibid. I Edw. IV, pt. 5, m. 18. 



"Ibid. 49 Hen. VI, m. 12. 



" Ibid. 13 Edw. IV, pt. I, m. 2. 



'* Ibid. 17 Edw. IV, pt. 2, m. 29. 



" Par/. R. (Rec. Com.), vi, 367. 



" Hutchins, Hisf. of Dorset, ii, 416. 



" Ibid. " Ibid. 



" Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 243. 



^ This last may be the same as the Antony 

 Weldon of 1535. Chant. Cert. 16, No. 84. 



»' Chant. Cert. 16, No. 89. 



*' Hutchins describes this hospital as situated in 

 the parish of St. Martin and near the church at the 

 meeting of Hert Crope and Shetwell lanes ; Hist, of 

 Dorset, iii, 38. 



** Close, 7 Hen. Ill, m. 22. 



the town, the whole of the profits being re- 

 ceived by the priest who officiated there.** 



The house, or priory as it is occasionally 

 termed, was in the patronage of the abbess of 

 Shaftesbury and the diocesan registers give a 

 succession of presentations by the nuns down to 

 the Dissolution, beginning with William de 

 Eggeclyve, priest, presented to the wardenship 

 by the abbess and convent 11 November, 1305.*'' 

 In April, 1 541, Robert Fowke, the last warden 

 or master, was presented by Edmund Wynter, 

 knt., David Brokwey, gent., and Nicholas 

 Tyddour, patrons pro hac vice by reason of the 

 grant of letters of advowson made to them by 

 the last abbess and convent of Shaftesbury.*' 

 For some reason not very apparent the patronage 

 of the house came temporarily into the hands of 

 the king in 1381, and in September of that 

 year Richard II presented John Ridgway, chap- 

 lain, to the life custody of the hospital of St. John 

 on the Mount at Shaftesbury, his appointment 

 being shortly afterwards followed by that of John 

 Bridport.*' 



Beyond the names of the different wardens 

 the history of St. John's is almost a blank. The 

 master in 1348 probably fell a victim to the 

 terrible plague that ravaged Dorset in the 



autumn and winter of that 



year, 



for in the 



heavy list of presentations for December occurs 

 that of John de Meleborn to St. John's, Shaftes- 

 bury, on the death of William de Godeford, 

 late warden.** William Russel, called the prior 

 of the hospital, was visited along with other 

 rectors and vicars of the deanery by the diocesan 

 in the church of Holy Trinity, Shaftesbury, in 

 April, I344-*' 



In an inquisition made in 1499 the hospital 

 was said to be founded by the king's ancestors. 

 The property, consisting of five tenements, 4 

 acres of arable, loi acres of pasture, and half an 

 acre of meadow, was valued at ^b. The sup- 

 port of the poor and the celebration of the divine 

 services weekly and yearly had been neglected 

 for the last twenty years, and had completely 

 ceased in the last two years, during which David 

 Knolle, chaplain, had taken the profits and also 

 removed the ornaments of the hospital.*^'' 



On the confiscation of chantries this hospital 

 was valued at ^4, with one bell worth 3;. 4^.^" 



" Chant. Cert. Dorset, 16, No. 100. 



^ Sarum Epis. Reg. Simon of Ghent, ii, fol. 45. 



"* Ibid. Salcot or Capon, fol. 7 J. 



" Pat. 5 Ric. II, pt. I, m. 12, 19. These two 

 exceptions, as against some twenty appointments by 

 the nuns, seem to have led Tanner into the error of 

 supposing that the house was of royal patronage. 

 There is no ostensible reason for the king's action, 

 the abbey then being ' full ' and under the rule of 

 Abbess Joan Formage. 



^ Sarum Epis. Reg. Wyville, ii (Inst.), fol. 193. 



»' Ibid. Waltham, fol. 73. 



"^ Esch. Inq. file 896, No. 21. 



'"Chant. Cert. 16, No. 15. 



103 



