378 The Trinity Hospital, Salisbury. 



permitting him to purchase lands and tenements for the use of the 

 hospital to the amount of twenty pounds yearly. It rates the 

 lands and tenements assigned by John Chandeler, as making a 

 hundred shillings of that sum. 



By these benefactions, and by the liberal contributions of the 

 devout and charitable, the funds of the hospital were considerably 

 increased, and its benefits proportionably extended. A document 

 which may be assigned to the fourteenth century, after an allusion 

 to the iniquities which had been perpetrated on the spot, while 

 occupied as a brothel, where adulteries, theft, and murder, and all 

 other mortal sins, had been committed, to the destruction of many, 

 and the great peril of souls, says that the founders, by the inspiration 

 of the Holy Spirit, had set up thirty beds for the succour of the poor 

 and sick daily resorting thither, and the seven works of charity were 

 there fulfilled — the hungry were fed, the thirsty had drink, the 

 naked were clothed, the sick were comforted, the dead were buried, 

 the mad were restored to their reason, orphans and widows were 

 nourished, pregnant women were kept till they were delivered, 

 recovered, and churched. After adverting to the twelve inmates 

 and twelve strangers, for whom accommodation was originally 

 provided, it states that the master or warden shall supply them 

 with victuals and all other necessaries; and if any one fall 

 sick, he shall remain till restored to health. Two priests, also, are 

 to officiate there continually, one for the ancient constitution, the 

 other to be maintained by the warden from the charities of the 

 faithful. These priests are daily to say mattins, the canonical 

 hours, 1 Placebo and Dirige with the Commendation, and also 



1 The canonical Hours or divine service i.e., The Psalter containing the 

 psalms and canticles. 



The services of the dead The Officium pro Defunctis, or Vigilice mortuorum, 

 or Dirge consisted of two parts : the Evensong, or Placebo, so called from 

 the antiphon with which the service commenced " Placebo Domino in regions 

 vivorum," and the Mattins (with Lauds) also called Dirige from its first 

 antiphon, " Dirige Dornine Deus meus in conspectu tuo viam niearn." These 

 offices were constantly said at other times, and as a private devotion, and 

 thus formed a part of the Primer (History of the Book of Common Prayer, 

 Francis Procter, M.A., revised by Walter Howard Frere, M.A.). 



From the ninth century onward there are to be found Votiva Laus in 



