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Two Ancient Hospitals

IV. TWO ANCIENT HOSPITALS. 

Seventeen years after the dedication of ^he Dover Priory, two Brothers of that Monastery, named Osborne and Godwine, undertook, with the sanction of the Prior and with the encouragement of Archbishop Theobald, the founding of a hospital for lepers, on the green hill overlooking the Dourside Meadows at Buckland. The hospital was seated, probably for sanitary reasons, on a hill, but its lands extended down the slope as far as the river, for at that time the London Road which now intersects the estate did not exist. The main building being on the hill-top, on the sloping ground below it was St. Bartholomew's Chapel, after which the place is still called Chapel Hill. The disease of leprosy became a terrible scourge in England from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Century, therefore this hospital met one of the great wants of that time. Lepers, owing to the danger of infection, had to be isolated, and were not allowed to enter an ordinary church or dwelling house, and it was only in countries where Christianity prevailed that any provision was made for these poor outcasts. Such outcasts from the town of Dover and the outlying parishes of East Kent found St. Bartholomew's Hospital a place of refuge. 

There is a manuscript copy of the rules of St. Bar- tholomew's Hospital in the Boflleian Library, Oxford, from which it appears that the Society consisted of e'ght brethren and eight sisters, on whom, as a return for the gift of the buildings and lands, was imposed the condition of praying for all the monks of St. Martin. A small contribution was made by each leper for admission ; and they yjledged themselves to sobriety and usefulness, and at their deaths to leave half of their property to the Hospital. The inmates were substantially provided for; pr)rk, barley and beer was their common fare, but at Church festivals they enjoyed extra luxuries. The Brethren and Sisters were agriculturists ami dairy farmers, and shared in common the profits of their crops, dairy, poultry and pigs. The head of the house was called the Warden, whose duty it was to see that no one departed from the premises without leave, and that the brethren and sisters behaved with modesty and decorum. As far as possible, the Httle Society was shut out from the world, their dwellings having no windows that commanded an outward view. To recruit their funds, the Brethren were given a roving commission to beg, and until the dis- solution they were granted the annual profits of St. Bar- tholomew's Fair, which was continued annually long after the Hospital ceased to exist. The disease of leprosy had disappeared from Dover in the reign of Henry VHl., therefore the dissolution of this Hospital took place at the same time as the Priory and the Maison Dieu ; and its land and houses, which were of considerable value, were taken over by the Crown ; but the Hospital building and cha])el, together with the land on which they stood, were bestowed by Henry VHI. on John Bowles (who was Mayor of Dover in 1539-40, the year of its dissolution) for the term of his natural life. This man only lived three years to enjoy the King's gift, but during that short time he demolished the whole of the buildings and is said to have rifled the graves and plundered the dead. Mr. Lyon, in his history of Dover, says that the Mayor did this without any commission, but it appears from a grant of the Bartholomew lands made by Edward VI. in 1542, that Henry VHI. made a grant of the lands to John Bowles for his life. 

The Maison Dieu, the venerable remains of which are incorporated with the Dover Municipal Buildings, was one of the ancient religious houses of Dover generally known by its Latin designation, the Domus Dei. Founded by a Constable of Dover Castle, Hubert de Burgh, A.D. 1203, it was enlarged after the canonisation of Thomas a Brcket, when the flood-tide of pilgrims to his shrine at Canicrbury rendered it necessary to afford, at Dover, hospitality to devotees coming across from France. A part of tlic addi- tional buildings was a chapel, which was dedicated with great pom}) in July, 1227, in the presence of Henry HI. This house does not appear to have existed under the name of the Domus Dei until 1229, when it received a Charter from the King granting large pri\ileges. In the Charter of 1227, in which the King confirms the grant of the Manor of Eastbridge, the gift of Hubert de Bur;:;h, the institution is referred to as the Hospital of Dover. At that time the Hu.spital had been in existence on a smaller scale twenty-four years, and during that time it seems to ha\c been referred to as St. Mary's Hospital. On this point William I.ambarde wrote, in 1570; "There was lately in Dover, also, an hospital of St. Maries, founded by Hubert de Burghe, Earle of Kent, and rated at fifty-nine pounds ; another house of the same sorte, called Domus Dei (or Maison Dieu), reputed worth one hundred and twentie pounds." This passage, which was written by Lambard soon after the dissolution of the Maison Dieu, with the full facts at his command, seems to suggest that the original Hospital of St. Mary, founded by Hubert de Burgh, was amalgamated with the Maison Dieu in the time of Henry HI., but that the accounts of the two branches were kept separate until the end. 

In the later years of the Maison Dieu the duty of entertaining Royal personages and pilgrims seems to have been seldom exercised; and in the reigns of Henry VH. and Henry VHI. the Masters appear to have been men of leisure who uiterested themselves in the affairs of the Town and used their influence in inducing those two Tudor Kings to assist tlic Corporation in building the Harbour at Archcliffe Point. When the house was dissolved, its land and other sources (jf revenue were taken by the Crown, including the building which still stands at the top of Biggin Street ; but St. Mary's Church, which had lieen a Parsonage connected with the Maison Dieu ever since its establishment in 1203, was given by Henry VI II. to the inhabitants of Dover. The Master and two of the Brethren were providerl with j)ensions for life, but two other brethren and the Bailiff, John Guyver, and his wife, who was the Matron, were left to shift for themselves. The Maison Dieu Building was retained by the Crown, and has, c\'cr since the dissolution, been used lor public purposes. 
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