29. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN BAPTIST, BASINGSTOKE (fn. 13)
The great Walter de Merton, Bishop of
Rochester, and founder of Merton College,
Oxford, was a native of Basingstoke. His
parents were buried in the church, and his
mother had inherited property in the town.
There was in the town, by an early foundation of unknown date, a small hospital,
dedicated to St. John Baptist, for the accommodation of sick folk and wayfarers. Walter
de Merton, in the midst of other works of
extraordinary munificence, remembered this
small house, extended its area, rebuilt both
house and chapel, and then took steps to
insure its permanence by placing it under the
protection of the Crown, and became its
re-founder between 1230 and 1240. For its
rule, he appointed a warden, with a chaplain
and clerk to carry on divine worship, and
made it primarily a place of retirement for
aged and infirm priests, though it was still to
exercise hospitality towards 'the wayfaring
poor of Christ.' After the death of his
parents, he bestowed on the hospital the whole
of his Basingstoke estate, charging the benefaction with the perpetual maintenance of
wax lights at the Lady altar of the parish
church, which lights his parents had been
accustomed to offer. In Walter's lifetime,
the hospital received other bequests. For
instance, about 1250, the prior and convent
of the Cluniac house of Brbmholm, Norfolk,
granted 'to God arid the Brethren of the
Hospital of St. John Baptist at Basingstoke'
6s. 8d. of annual rent in Basing, to maintain
a lamp to burn day and night before the rood
in their chapel.
The muniments at Merton College afford
information with regard to an early corrody
at the hospital. An agreement, circa 1240-50, was made between Thomas le Forester
and the warden and brethren of the hospital,
whereby Thomas granted them all the tenements in Basingstoke held by him of the chief
lord, on their paying him yearly during his
life eight quarters of wheat, two of maslin,
and two of barley in equal portions at
Michaelmas, Christmas, Easter and St. John
Baptist's Day; two loads of oats on the feast
of the Purification; 6s. 8d. at Michaelmas;
and also to find him a fit and competent place
to live in within the hospital, namely the
upper room (solarium) on the north side of the
hall. Also if Joan his wife should survive
him, the warden and brethren were to pay her
yearly a moiety of the grain. (fn. 1) It does not
seem clear from this whether or not Joan was
an inmate of the house as well as her husband;
but in all probability this was the case.
Many of the deeds pertaining to this hospital,
from 1240 to 1270, speak of 'the warden,
brethren, and sisters.'
The instrument whereby Henry III. took
the house under his special protection and
made it a royal hospital was dated in 1262;
and in 1268 the chapel was exempted from
episcopal control by the papal legate, Cardinal
Ottobon. The college at Oxford was
specially enjoined, by each of its successive
codes of statutes, dated respectively 1264,
1270 and 1274, to maintain and encourage
the Basingstoke hospital, and special provision
was made for the members of the college
having the privilege of residing there if need
should arise. Henry III. also granted the
hospital perpetual exemption from taxation
and payment of subsidies. When the taxers
and collectors of the tenths and fifteenths for
Hampshire infringed these rights in 1336,
the Crown, on complaint, at once interfered,
and letters were addressed to the county
officials, citing the perpetual freedom from all
secular service and exaction granted by
Henry III. and ordering the immediate
restitution to the wardens of all that they had
levied. (fn. 2)
Walter de Merton died on 27 October,
1277. To this hospital he bequeathed the
large sum of 450 marks, as well as 100 marks
towards providing a chaplain to celebrate
divine service for ever in its chapel. In
February, 1284, licence was granted to Peter
de Abingdon, warden of Merton College, to
convey to the master and brethren of the
Basingstoke Hospital one messuage, 150 acres
of land, 6 acres of meadow, and 4 of pasture
with appurtenances in Basingstoke, and 16
acres of land in Iwode. (fn. 3) This purchase of
property at Basingstoke and Iwode for the
hospital was no doubt done in accordance
with the terms of the will, wherein it was
provided that if land was not bought within
four years after his death with the 450 marks,
the college was to take the money and pay to
the hospital in its stead an annual pension of
£20. (fn. 4) The 100 marks for the chaplain was
intended for the endowment of the definite
chantry founded within the hospital chapel,
and sanctioned by a charter of Henry III. in
1253.
The Hundred Rolls of the beginning of
the reign of Edward I. furnish the name of
the hospital's warden in 1273-4, when the
jury returned that Henry Cardeyf, the warden
of St. John's Hospital, had encroached on the
king's highway to the extent of 10 perches
in length and 3 feet in breadth. (fn. 5)
In 1336 Edward III. confirmed to the
warden of Merton College the mastership of
the hospital, to be held for ever in right of
his office. (fn. 6) However in May, 1344, Edward
III. (probably through some blunder of a
Crown official) granted the wardenship to John
de Hamelton, then vacant, alleging it was
of the king's donation. The warden and
scholars of Merton College naturally resisted
this obvious infringement of their rights, with
the result that the appointment was cancelled
in the following July, the Crown admitting its
error and removing John de Hamelton from
the wardenship.
In 1379 the college began the unhappy
principle of leasing the hospital. It was in
the first instance leased for a yearly rental of
57s. to John Underwood and his wife for
their lives jointly and separately, or for forty
years as a term. In 1395 it was leased for
twenty-five years to John Carter, vicar of
Basingstoke, who was to reside there with his
own servants, and to receive once a year one
of the Merton fellows, with his servant and
three horses for a day and two nights. At
his entrance the vicar received a missal and
breviary, a chalice, vestments, and apparel
for the altar, all of which he was to answer
for at the end of the term.
Soon after this, attention was drawn to the
highly unsatisfactory state of the hospital, and
Henry IV. ordered an inquisition as to its
actual state. The statement of the jury,
sworn at Basingstoke on 30 November, 1401,
was to the effect that the hospital was founded
to maintain a chaplain, a clerk and two poor
people, as well as the poor and sick scholars
of Merton College; that during the past six
years there had been no clerk nor the two
poor people maintained there, and this by
default of the warden of Merton, who was
ex officio warden of the hospital; that the
clear yearly value of the hospital was £5 6s.,
and that the profits and issues had been and
still were received by the warden. On the
delivery of this verdict, the revenues of the
hospital were seized by the Crown in order
to secure the fulfilment of its rights and burdens; they were not restored until 1405.
In 1434 the college again leased the
hospital, the holder of the lease being bound
to reside there with his servants, to provide a
chaplain to celebrate in the chapel, if he was
unwilling or unable to celebrate there himself;
to keep the houses and enclosures in repair;
to reserve fit chambers (cameras honestas) for
the two poor people or others sent there
according to the statutes on account of sickness; to allow any thus sent to serve the
chapel if they wished, and if there are several
priests sent they are to have portions of the
stipend allowed; not to cut down trees or
make waste save that which is required for
repairs, for fences and for fuel; and to entertain the bursar or another member of the
college at his own expense each year for a day
and two nights. The college was to pay
40s. towards the building of the great barn and
for the repairs of the house within three years,
and after the three years 13s. 4d.
A lease for seven years made in 1455, at a
yearly rent of 13s. 4d., provided that in case of
the re-building of the mansus hospitalis, lately
destroyed by fire, the rent of it was to be
added to the 13s. 4d. A lease of 1479 has
endorsed upon it an inventory of the chapel
goods. They included a missal, chalice,
corporal and two cases, two dalmatics, one
green and the other blue, an albe and an amice,
three altar cloths, two cruets, a brass vessel
for holy water and a brass handled sprinkler,
and a blue coloured stole.
The 20s. yearly stipend due to the chaplain
out of the farm of St. John's was claimed by
the Crown in 1551, the office of the chaplain
being probably of the nature of a chantry
priest. Merton College opposed, and by a
Chancery decree of November in that year,
the college was exonerated from the yearly
payment of this sum to the Crown. The
leases of the hospital throughout the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, down to one
entered into with Elizabeth Knight at £4
rental, for twenty-one years, in 1695, all
provide for maintenance of the chapel; but
no lease after 1543 says anything about a
chaplain.
William Sherwin, fellow of Merton,
visited the hospital on 16 June, 1697, and
reported at length to the college, chiefly as to
their lands and woods, which he valued as at
least worth £80 per annum. As to the
fabric he says:—
The house is but low, ordinary and mean, but
it is kept in tenantable repair and that is all,
though there has lately been some money laid out
upon it. The place reserved for such fellows as
are distract is separate from the chief house, is
extremely dark and fit for none but persons in that
condition. There is a sort of chapel near, in
which formerly there was preaching once a month
and the tenant paying the curate, and was on that
account exempted from all tithes. It would be a
mighty improvement to our estate, and the tenant
would be glad to pay a curate could the custom
be revived, but I am afraid it has been disused too
long.
In letters written by Dr. Warton (son of
the vicar of Basingstoke), poet laureate and an
antiquary, to the bursar of Merton College in
1772 and 1773, it is stated that part of the
chapel of Walter de Merton's hospital still
remained, built of flint, with one or two
stout-mullioned Gothic windows built up; it
had a semicircular ceiling of boards in small
panels, with the founder's arms on little
shields at some of the intersections. The
dimensions given are extraordinarily small,
namely 'about twelve feet long and five
broad within the walls' but it must be
remembered that at its best this was a very
small foundation, merely two resident poor
brothers in addition to chaplain and clerk.
When Dr. Warton wrote, the little chapel
was divided into two floors, a bedroom above,
with a kitchen; it is described as standing on
the banks of the Lodon, about 200 yards
north-east of the church.
In 1778 the old hospital house gave way to
new brick buildings, but some remains of the
chapel were still standing in 1819.