THE 



WILTSHIRE MAGAZINE 



"mtjltobum manibus geande leyatue onus." — Ovid. 



c5t. 8tw|oIss' posfital, j^aMtttg. 



By the Rev. Canon Mobeely. 



PURPOSE, in the following pages, to put together a few 

 historical notices of the Hospital of St. Nicholas in 

 Salisbury, which may not be uninteresting to the readers of this 

 Magazine, with some additional facts derived from the cartulary, or 

 old register, of the hospital, which is in my keeping as Master. 



I. — Fiest Foundation. 



When was the hospital founded ? The answer is that we cannot 

 be sure. We can be sure that it was already in existence by 1227, 

 as two separate gifts of land are made to it in that year. But of 

 the original foundation there is no record. 



It was, perhaps, natural to conjecture that it was founded and 

 built as an appendage to the Cathedral Church, soon after its 

 foundation in 1220, or its first consecration in 1225. 



But Bishop Bingham, when he is recounting the property be- 

 longing to the hospital in 1245, speaks of a " vetus hospitale " which 

 he is superseding by another building. Is it likely that he would 

 have spoken thus of a building not more than twenty years old ? 

 It is not impossible, doubtless ; but, to my thinking, improbable. 

 It is more likely that the original building was " one of those old 

 wayside chapels" [to use Canon Jones's words] " not uncommon in 

 Wilts, at which a wayfarer might get a night's shelter ; consisting 

 of a simple chapel, and two or three rooms. It was this that Ela, 

 Countess of Salisbury, endowed in 1227. It was placed on the 



VOL. XXV. — NO. LXXIV. K 



