. Vanishing England . medieval hospitals, memorials of the charity ofpre-Reformation Englishmen, remain, but many weresuppressed during the age of spoliation ; and others havebeen so rebuilt and restored that there is little left of theearly foundation. We may notice three classes of these , there are the pre-Reformation bede-houses orhospitals ; the second group is composed of those whichwere built during the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth,James I, and Charles I. The Civil War put a stop tothe foundation of almshouses. The principal landownerswere impoverishe
. Vanishing England . medieval hospitals, memorials of the charity ofpre-Reformation Englishmen, remain, but many weresuppressed during the age of spoliation ; and others havebeen so rebuilt and restored that there is little left of theearly foundation. We may notice three classes of these , there are the pre-Reformation bede-houses orhospitals ; the second group is composed of those whichwere built during the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth,James I, and Charles I. The Civil War put a stop tothe foundation of almshouses. The principal landownerswere impoverished by the war or despoiled by the Puri-tans, and could not build ; the charity of the latter was 333 334 VANISHING ENGLAND devoted to other purposes. With the Restoration of theChurch and the Monarchy another era of the buildingof almshouses set in, and to this period very many of ourexisting institutions belong. Of the earliest group we have several examples is the noble hospital of St. Cross at Winchester,. Gateway of St. Johns Hospital, Canterbury founded in the days of anarchy during the contest betweenStephen and Matilda for the English throne. Its hos-pitable door is still open. Bishop Henry of Blois wasits founder, and he made provision for thirteen poor mento be housed, boarded, and clothed, and for a hundredothers to have a meal every day. He placed the hospitalunder the care of the Master of the Knights it was never connected with a monastery. HOSPITALS AND ALMSHOUSES 335 Hence it escaped pillage and destruction at the dissolu-tion of monastic houses. Bishop Henry was a greatbuilder, and the church of the hospital is an interestingexample of a structure of the Transition Norman period,when the round arch was giving way to the Early Englishpointed arch. To this foundation was added in 1443 byCardinal Beaufort an extension called the Almshouseof Noble Poverty, and it is believed that the presentdomestic buildings were erected by
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