32. DOMUS CONVERSORUM
In 1232 King Henry III founded in New
Street, the present Chancery Lane, a hospital
for Jews who had been converted to Christianity, (fn. 1)
promising for their maintenance and that of the
two chaplains who were to celebrate divine
service in the chapel there, (fn. 2) a yearly sum of
700 marks from the Exchequer, until he or his
heirs provided for them otherwise. (fn. 3) The king
in giving to the converts in 1235 some lands
and houses in London which had been John
Herlicun's, granted them all escheats falling to
him in London, (fn. 4) and they undoubtedly acquired
some property in this way, as, for instance, the
lands of Constantine son of Aluf in 1248; (fn. 5) he
gave them, moreover, certain lands in Oxford in
1245. (fn. 6) The legacy of £100 left to the hospital
by Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, was
also devoted to the endowment of the house. (fn. 7)
Whatever income, however, they ultimately
derived from such sources, it was never large
enough to enable them to dispense with an
annual grant which neither Henry III nor
Edward I seems to have found easy to raise.
In 1245, indeed, the king, unable to give them
adequate help, tried to induce some religious
houses (fn. 8) to maintain one or two converts for two
years. If the number of robes given to the converts by the king corresponds in some measure to
the number of persons belonging to the house,
the hospital soon became large; 150 robes were
given to the converts at Christmas, 1255–6,
171 the following Easter, and 164 at Whitsuntide; (fn. 8a) so that at this time there must have been
considerably more than a hundred people who
received allowances, though all may not have
been resident. (fn. 8b) Naturally the first accommodation
provided soon proved insufficient, and in
1265–6 the master was engaged in enlarging
the place or in building new houses, and in
1275 the chapel was lengthened. (fn. 8c) The chaplains also were increased to three in 1267. (fn. 8d)
Sums amounting altogether to £100 were
allotted to them from the ferms of the counties in 1275, (fn. 9) but five years later the king made
them a grant for seven years of deodands, the
poll-tax of the Jews, the goods of Jews forfeited
for any cause, and half the property of any Jews
converted during that period. (fn. 10) At the same
time he ordered that a school should be kept,
and that converts able to learn a handicraft were
to be taught one, and to be maintained only
until they could support themselves, while the
portions of clerical scholars who obtained eccle
siastical benefices were similarly to be withdrawn. (fn. 11) There is, unfortunately, no evidence
whether these measures were carried out, but
when an inquiry was made in 1308 as to the
inmates who had died since 1290 and as to those
still surviving, no information was forthcoming
about certain men and women, (fn. 12) a fact which might
be accounted for on the supposition (fn. 13) that they
were gaining a livelihood elsewhere. The king
also directed that the two priests and the clerk
who served in the chapel were to be resident
and were to collect the rents of the house and
distribute them to the inmates as the warden
advised. (fn. 14) The king's intention was evidently
to reform the administration, a change in which
had been much needed in 1272. The inmates
of the hospital were then said to be begging from
door to door, and to be almost perishing of
hunger, because rich converts, who had other
means of support, and who did not live in the
house, received the revenues which ought to
have been assigned only to the poor converts
dwelling there. (fn. 15) Considering that this house
was largely dependent on the royal bounty and that
the management of its income was not always
exemplary, it is curious that the warden was not
bound to render an account to the Exchequer. (fn. 16)
The result of the king's grants in aid of their
finance was disappointing, and in 1281 he
ordered that beside the poll-tax the converts
should have 80 marks from the issues of the
Jewry during his pleasure. (fn. 17) Funds were specially
needed during this period to complete (fn. 18) the
extensive alterations to the chapel begun in
1275. (fn. 19)
The converts in 1290 petitioned that the
king would provide for them by giving them
churches and escheats, as the grants from the
Exchequer were paid very irregularly, but he
did not assent to their request: (fn. 20) the expulsion
of the Jews from England which occurred in
that year may have been already under consideration, and it would certainly have been
useless to endow permanently an institution
which would soon come to an end. In February, 1292, he granted to the members of the
house £202 0s. 4d. a year, this sum including
the wages of the chaplains, and the portions of
the converts, 10½d. a week in the case of a man,
8d. for a woman; as each inmate died the
amount was to be proportionately diminished. (fn. 21)
Of the ninety-seven who were there in 1292
about fifty-two survived in 1308, and the sum
due from the king was accordingly reduced to
£123 10s. 6d. (fn. 22)
A complaint, ostensibly by the converts, was
made to the king in 1315 that the warden,
Adam de Osgodeby, kept them out of their
houses, and let them to strangers for the term
of three lives to the king's prejudice. (fn. 23)
On inquiry by the chancellor, however, the
affair resolved itself into an attempt by William
de Crekelade, one of the chaplains, to regain a
footing in the house from which he had been
expelled by the former warden for defamation
of the rest of the community. The converts,
far from taking his side, declared him unfit to live
in the house, and said that the warden paid him
his wages against their will. They also showed
that the tenements had been leased for the profit
of the house with the consent of all, William
included, and he was accordingly remitted to
the warden for punishment. (fn. 24)
As the time approached when the extinction
of the house might be reasonably expected,
Edward III gave it fresh life by placing there
the children of some converts (fn. 25) and certain converted Jews from foreign countries. (fn. 26) Still the
inmates must have been few in number from
1344, when they seem to have been only eight. (fn. 27)
In 1350 they had dwindled to four, and
in 1371 there were only two. (fn. 27a) The small
amount allotted to the hospital may be the
reason why the buildings and chapels were
left unrepaired until their restoration by the
warden, William Burstall, at his own cost, (fn. 28)
since it was to provide for their future maintenance that at his request the house was annexed for ever to the Mastership of the Rolls in
1377. (fn. 29)
The accounts of the wardens (fn. 30) and the grants
occasionally made to converts (fn. 30a) show that the
house was used for its original purpose for more
than two centuries longer. The number of inmates was, however, always very small: in the
second year of Henry V (fn. 31) there were eight converts, but often there were not more than two.
In 1534 three converts were in receipt of the
usual portions of 10½d. a week, (fn. 32) and the hospital
did not cease at the Reformation, for though
there was no one there in 1552, two or three
converts were certainly in residence from 1578
until 1608.
The accounts then cease, so that it is impossible to discover whether the hospital lasted
until the Revolution. If it did, it probably did
not survive it, (fn. 32a) though it is said that a grant
was made to two Jews in the reign of James II. (fn. 33)
The building itself was destroyed in 1717 to
make room for the new house of the Master of
the Rolls, who yet continued to be styled
officially Keeper of the House of Converts, until
1873. (fn. 33a)
Among the earliest possessions of the house in
London were a capital messuage in Friday Street, (fn. 34)
a 'seld' with shops in 'the Chepe,' (fn. 35) and rents in
the parishes of St. Nicholas Acon (fn. 36) and St. Mary
Colechurch. (fn. 37) In 1237 Henry III gave them
also the church of St. Dunstan in the West, (fn. 38) of
which they received all the issues until the bishop
of London ordained in 1317 that a rector should
in future be instituted there, and that he should
pay to the converts the sum of £4 a year. (fn. 39)
Their rents of assize in London and Oxford in
1279–80 amounted to £32 3s. 10d. (fn. 40) No specimen or description of the seal of this house
appears to have survived.
Wardens of the House of Converts
Walter Mauclerc, bishop of Carlisle, the first
warden (fn. 40a)
Walter, occurs 1234 (fn. 41) and 1240 (fn. 41a)
Robert the chaplain, occurs 1245, (fn. 42) 1248, (fn. 43)
and 1249 (fn. 44)
Henry, appointed 1250 (fn. 45)
Adam de Cestreton, appointed 1266, died
1268 (fn. 46)
Thomas de la Leye, appointed 1268, died
1270 (fn. 47)
John de St. Denis, appointed 1270, (fn. 48) occurs
1275, (fn. 49) 1280 (fn. 50) and 1286 (fn. 51)
Robert de Scardeburgh, appointed 1287 (fn. 52)
Richard de Climpinges, appointed 1289 (fn. 53)
Walter de Aymondesham, appointed 1290 (fn. 54)
Henry de Bluntesdon, appointed 1298 (fn. 55)
occurs 1300 (fn. 56)
Adam de Osgoteby, appointed 1307 (fn. 57) died
1316 (fn. 58)
William de Ayermin, appointed 1316, (fn. 59)
resigned 1325 (fn. 60)
Robert de Holden, appointed 1325 (fn. 61)
Richard de Ayremyn, appointed 1327, (fn. 62)
resigned 1339 (fn. 63)
John de St. Paul, appointed 1339, (fn. 64) occurs
1341 (fn. 65) and 1345 (fn. 66)
Henry de Ingleby, appointed 1350, (fn. 67) resigned
1371 (fn. 68)
William de Burstall, appointed 1371, resigned
1381 (fn. 69)
John de Waltham, appointed 1381, (fn. 70) resigned
1386 (fn. 71)
John de Burton, appointed 1386, (fn. 72) died 1394 (fn. 73)
John Scarle, appointed 1394, (fn. 74) occurs 1397 (fn. 74a)
Thomas Stanley, appointed 1397, (fn. 75) and again
1399, (fn. 76) occurs 1402 (fn. 76a)
Nicholas Bubwith, appointed 1402, (fn. 77) occurs
1405 (fn. 77a)
John Wakeryng, appointed 1405, (fn. 78) occurs
1415 (fn. 78a)
Simon Gaunsted, appointed 1415, (fn. 79) died 1423 (fn. 80)
John Frankes, appointed 1423, (fn. 81) occurs
1438 (fn. 81a)
John Stopyndon, occurs from 1438, (fn. 82) to
1447 (fn. 83)
Thomas Kirkeby, appointed 1447, (fn. 84) occurs
1460 (fn. 84a)
John Kekilpenny, appointed 1455 (fn. 85) (?)
Thomas Kirkeby, appointed 1461 (fn. 86)
Robert Kirkham, appointed 1461 (fn. 87)
William Morland, appointed 1471 (fn. 88)
John Alcock, appointed 1471 (fn. 89)
John Morton, appointed 1472, (fn. 90) occurs
1478–9 (fn. 90a)
Robert Morton, occurs 1479–80, (fn. 90b) and
1481 (fn. 91)
Thomas Barowe, occurs 1483 (fn. 92)
Robert Morton and William Elliot, appointed
1485 (fn. 93)
David Williams, appointed 1487 (fn. 94)
John Blith, appointed 1492 (fn. 95)
William Warham, appointed 1494 (fn. 96)
William Barons, appointed 1502 (fn. 97)
Christopher Bainbrigg, appointed 1504 (fn. 98)
John Young, appointed 1508 (fn. 99)
Cuthbert Tunstall, appointed 1516 (fn. 100)
John Clerk, appointed 1522 (fn. 101)
Thomas Hannibal, appointed 1523 (fn. 102)
John Taylor, appointed 1527 (fn. 103)
Thomas Cromwell, appointed 1534, (fn. 104) resigned 1536 (fn. 105)
Christopher Hales, esq., appointed 1536 (fn. 106)
Robert Southwell, knt., appointed 1541 (fn. 107)
John Beaumont, appointed 1550 (fn. 107a)
Robert Bows, appointed 1552 (fn. 107b)
Nicholas Hare, appointed 1553 (fn. 107c)
William Cordell, appointed 1557 (fn. 107d)
Gilbert Gerard, appointed 1589 (fn. 107e)
John Egerton, appointed 1594 (fn. 107f)
Edward Bruce, appointed 1603 (fn. 107g)
Edward Phillips, appointed 1608 (fn. 107h)