reat (Existing Church) _At End_

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[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH, FROM THE EAST
_From a print of 1805._
_E. Nash del. J. Greig sc._]

ST. BARTHOLOMEW-THE-GREAT

CHAPTER I

HISTORY

The spring and fountain-head of our information about the Priory of St.
Bartholomew-the-Great is an account of the foundation, interwoven with
the life and miracles of Rahere, the founder, which was written in Latin
by one of the Canons soon after Rahere's death in the reign of Henry II.
An illuminated copy of this work, made at the end of the fourteenth
century, is preserved in the British Museum, with an English
translation, which forms the groundwork of all subsequent histories.[1]

Allowing for a few contradictory dates and statements in this precious
document, and for the occasional flights of a pious imagination in the
biographer or his subject, we arrive at the following historical basis:
Rahere was a man of humble origin, who had found his way to the Court of
Henry I, where he won favour by his agreeable manners and witty
conversation, rendered piquant, as it appears, by a certain flavouring
of licentiousness, and took a prominent part in arranging the music,
plays, and other entertainments in which the King and his courtiers
delighted during the first part of the reign.[2]

In the year 1120 a total change was wrought in Henry's character by the
loss of his only legitimate son in the wreck of the "White Ship," on its
voyage from Normandy to England, after which the King is said never to
have smiled again. The event naturally cast a gloom over the Court;
frivolities were abandoned, and religious devotion, either genuine or
assumed in polite acquiescence with the royal humour, took the place of
the amusements which had hitherto held sway. In one case, at least, the
spirit of reformation was at work in good earnest. Rahere, repenting of
his wasted life, thereupon started on a pilgrimage to Rome, to do
penance for his sins on the ground hallowed by the martyrdom of St.
Paul, some three miles from the city. The spot known as the Three
Fountains, now rendered more or less sanitary by the free planting of
eucalyptus, was then and long afterwards particularly unhealthy, and
while there Rahere was attacked by malarial fever. In his distress he
made a vow that, if he were spared, he would establish a hospital for
the poor, as a thank-offer