citizens of London. We are told
that he gathered together a crowd of people by pretending to be mad,
and then he made them work; they drained the wet marshy soil, they
carried great stones, they laboured hard. Thus the hospital was built.

Rahere was its first master. A friend of his, called Alfune, "went
himselfe dayly to the Shambles and other markets, where he begged the
charity of devout people for their" (that is, the poor sick people's)
"reliefe." Now, the charity he asked for was food for them to eat.

Rahere's last years were quietly spent in his own Priory, where he died
in the year 1144. This is his story, but it was first written down
when writers loved rather to tell wonderful things about great men {31}
than to seek out the exact truth about them. Now some people think he
did not found the hospital, but both hospital and church are far older
than his day; and that the Priory was built for the monks who managed
the hospital.

However this may be, the monks of the Priory certainly had great
privileges; one of them was that every year, at the Festival of St.
Bartholomew, for three days they might hold a fair in the "smooth
field" or Smithfield. Have you ever been to a country fair, and seen
its funny little stalls of sweets and chinaware and its quaint shows?
If you have, you must know that most English fairs are not at all
important nowadays; but in the times of which I am writing most of the
buying and selling in England was done at them. And so the old writer,
Stow, tells us that to St. Bartholomew's Fair "the Clothiers of all
England and Drapers of London repayred and had their boothes and
standings within the churchyard of this priorie, closed in with walles,
and gates locked every night, and watched for safetie of men's goodes
and wares"--so rich and valuable was its merchandise. Year by year it
was held until 1855; then it was done away with, for serious buying and
selling were no longer carried on at such fairs, and "Bartlemy Fair,"
as it was called, was now famous only for its shows of wild beasts,
dwarfs and giants, for its ox roasted whole, and for its scenes of wild
merry-making.

For four hundred years the monks of St. Bartholomew's tended the poor
people of London. Then came the days when Henry VIII. broke up the
monasteries; in 1539 he turned the monks out of the Priory and closed
{32} the hospital. Presently I will tell you what afterwards happened
to it.

For the beginning