" 1517
Nicholas Wilson " 1537

COLLEGE DISSOLVED " 1547

CHAPTER IV

ST MARGARET'S HOSPITAL

About a quarter of a mile to the north-west of Wimborne stands the
chapel of #St Margaret's Hospital#. The date of the foundation of
this hospital is uncertain; tradition has it that it was founded by
John of Gaunt, son of Edward III., but this is without doubt wrong,
as documents--the character of which seem to indicate an early
thirteenth-century date--have been found, from which it appears that
this hospital existed at that time, and was set apart for the relief and
support of poor persons afflicted with leprosy. This disease was at one
time so common in England that a great number of lazar-houses were
erected in the country, and many were well endowed; but when, after a
time, the disease became less violent, many abuses crept in, persons not
really suffering from the disease pretended to be lepers in order to get
pecuniary benefits, and hence in many cases the leper hospitals were
suppressed, or converted to other purposes. At the present day we find
in many places, as here at Wimborne, that they are used as almshouses.

[Illustration: ST MARGARET'S HOSPITAL.]

This hospital, however, was not one of the well-endowed. It appears from
a deed, dated in the sixteenth year of Henry VIII., that the hospital
was chiefly maintained, not by endowments, but by the gifts of the
charitable who were willing to contribute to its support; and to
encourage the benevolent to give, the deed recites that "Pope Innocent
IV, in the year 1245, by an indulgans or bulle did assoyl them of all
syns forgotten, and offences done against fader and moder, and all
swerynges neglygently made. This indulgans, grantyd of Petyr and Powle,
and of the said pope, was to hold good for 51 yeres and 260 days,
provided they repeated a certain specified number of Paternosters and
Ave Marias daily." The date of this indulgence proves the antiquity of
the hospital, as it shows that it was in existence before the middle
of the thirteenth century. A chantry was also founded in the chapel
here by John Redcoddes of one priest to say masses for his soul. To this
chantry, according to a deed dated in the sixteenth year of Henry VI.,
many tenements in Wimborne belonged. In later times the Rev. William
Stone, who has been mentioned before as the founder of the Minster
Library, by