om of the
monastery, and took their supper and slept on the reeds. A delightful
change from the monotony and hard work of the village! But the Bishops
interposed. Let no one go on pilgrimage without his Bishop's license.
Let not the monasteries give a bed and supper to any pilgrim who could
not show his Bishop's license. Then the rustics and the craftsmen had to
remain at home where they have stayed, except when they went out to
fight, ever since.

When the pilgrim--especially the pilgrim who had been over the
seas--came home, he was able to entertain his friends with stories he
had seen all the rest of his life. Thus, the earliest plan of the Holy
Sepulchre is one drawn by a pilgrim for the instruction of certain monks
who entertained him. The pilgrims were the travellers of the time. They
observed foreign manners and customs: they brought home seeds and told
of strange food: they extended the boundaries of the world: they
prevented the native village from becoming the whole world: they taught
and encouraged men to cease from regarding a stranger as an enemy. The
world was thus opened out by War, Trade, and Pilgrimage, but most of all
by Pilgrimage.

20. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL.

The oldest of the City Hospitals is that great and splendid Foundation
which stands in Smithfield--the Smooth Field. It was first founded by
one Rahere, of whom we know little or nothing except that he lived in
the reign of Henry I., and that he founded the Priory and Monastery of
St. Bartholomew. In the church of St. Bartholomew the Great you may see
a very beautiful tomb said to be his, but the work is of a later date.
It is related that while on a pilgrimage to Rome he fell ill and was
like to die. And he vowed that if he were restored to health he would
erect and establish a hospital for poor sick people. He did recover and
he fulfilled his vow. He built the Priory of St. Bartholomew, whose
church still stands in part and beside it established his hospital. The
place called Smithfield was then a swampy field used for a horse fair:
it was also a place of execution without the City wall. At first the
hospital was a very small place. It consisted probably of two large
rooms or halls, one for men and one for women--with a chapel. If it had
any endowment at all it must have been very small, because the Master or
Hospitaller had to go every morning to the Shambles, Newgate, in order
to beg meat for the maintenance of the sick. Two