RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



John Grenville, 1447 

 John Alestre, 1464 

 Edward Carter, occurs 1534'** 

 Henry Whiting, c. 1542 '" 

 Thomas Webster, 1545"°' 



32. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. LEONARD, 

 NOTTINGHAM 



The Nottingham leper hospital of St. Leonard 

 was certainly in existence as early as the reign of 

 Henry II (1154-89). Henry III, when at Not- 

 tingham in 1 23 1, instructed Brian de Lisle to 

 allow the leprous brethren of St. Leonard's to 

 have a cart to collect dead wood in Bestwood, as 

 they had done in the times of the king's ances- 

 tors ; and when this grant was renewed in 1226 

 it is expressly stated that it was confirmatory of 

 like grants made by Henry II and by John.^^° 



This house, which stood outside the walls on 

 the north side of the town, is mentioned in a 

 grant to St. John's Hospital c. 1230, wherein 

 half an acre of land is described as abutting upon 

 the hospital of St. Leonard."' Another 13th- 

 century grant to St. John's describes a parcel of 

 land as lying between the land of St. Leonard 

 and that of the church of St. Mary."* 



In a charter of the year 1339 there is refer- 

 ence to an acre of arable land at Snapedale, Not- 

 tingham, 'abutting upon the dovecote of the 

 house of St. Leonard. ' "' This in itself is suffi- 

 cient to prove that the house was at this time en- 

 dowed with a fair amount of land, otherwise a 

 dovecote would not have been sanctioned. 



An interesting record of 1341— 2 tells us that 

 the Prior of Lenton then pleaded that his tithe 

 income from St. Mary's parish was diminished 

 owing to the fact that 60 acres of land pertaining 

 to St. Leonard's Hospital was lying barren and 

 uncultivated, and that the adjoining chapel of St. 

 Michael had been recently destroyed.^*" 



In 1358 William Chaundeler, keeper or war- 

 den of the hospital of St. Leonard, was charged 

 with making an encroachment of half an acre 

 in the king's demesnes, within the court of the 

 town of Notttingham."^ 



Until we get to the time of Henry VIII the 

 town records, strange to say, are entirely silent 

 with regard to this leper hospital, except by 

 way of occasionally making a bare mention of 

 it in reciting boundaries of property.^*^ 



Amid the enrolment of grants at the local 



'" Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 1 57. 



'« Coll. and Chant. Cert. Notts, xiii, 38. 



"°* See above. 



'"Close, 5 Hen. Ill, m. 7 ; 10 Hen. III. m. 9. 



^"Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 16. 



■« Ibid, i, 44. 



»' Ibid, i, 402. 



'"• Ing. Non. (Rec. Com.), 290. 



"' Deering, Noit. 153. 



'" Noet. Bor. Rec. i, 222 ; ii, 443. 



court in 1335 to William de Amyas of Notting- 

 ham, a piece of land lying in the field of Not- 

 tingham is described as abutting upon the land 

 of the hospital of St. Michael."' The house of 

 St. Michael is also mentioned as a land boundary 

 in an enrolment of grant to John Taunesley in 

 1416."* These entries have given rise to some 

 confusion ; but, from the position of this house, 

 it becomes quite clear that in both cases the real 

 reference is to St. Leonard's Hospital ; the close- 

 ness of the old chapel of St. Michael gave rise to 

 this error in title.^" 



An important document of 152 1 throws much 

 light on the functions formerly discharged by this 

 hospital, though at the date when it was drawn 

 up it is highly improbable that there were any 

 lepers in the town of Nottingham, so that the 

 warden of St. Leonard's held a sinecure office. 

 By this document the mayor, burgesses, and 

 community confirmed to Thomas Gibbonson, 

 chaplain, the hospital house of St. Leonard, 

 vacant by the death of John Alestre, the late 

 warden, with all lands, tenements, rents, &c., there- 

 to belonging, for his whole life, subject to the 

 charge of sustaining and housing the lepers born 

 of the liberty of the town of Nottingham, sup- 

 plying each of them for three weeks with a 

 bushel of wheat and pease and one piece of 

 cloth of the value of 2s., according to the ori- 

 ginal form and foundation of the hospital ; it 

 was also provided that the warden was to be al- 

 lowed to have yearly three cart-loads of firewood 

 to burn in his chamber. '^° 



In 1534 the mayor and burgesses appointed 

 William Lewes, chaplain, to the wardenship of 

 St. Leonard's.!" 



The Falor Ecclestasticus of this same year has 

 no reference to this hospital, although it enters 

 the income received by the warden, William 

 Lewes, from the chantry of St. Mary, which he 

 also held.!** Nor is this hospital named in the 

 certificates of the commissioners of either Henry 

 VIII or Edward VI. 



The possessions of St. Leonard's appear to have 

 remained with the corporation, and there is some 

 slight proof of a small continuance of a charitable 

 foundation in an entry in the chamberlain's ac- 

 counts as late as 1571-2.!°' This reference to 

 ' a lasar of the Spytell House ' has been some- 

 what absurdly twisted to mean that leprosy still 

 continued at Nottingham in Elizabeth's days, 

 and that the sufferers were provided for at the 

 town's expense. All that it necessarily implies 

 was that there was an almsman living at the old 

 hospital. Thus at Northampton the borough re- 

 tained the old leper hospital of St. Leonard and 



"'Ibid. 1,24. '"Ibid, ii, no. 



'" Stapleton, Relig. Inst. ofOldNott. ii, 148-9. 



'*^ Nott. Bor. Rec. iii, 1 50. 



'" Ibid. 442. 



"' Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 157. 



'" Nolt. Bor. Rec. ii, 142. 



173 



