infirm, and sick persons" by Henry Frost, a burgess of Cambridge, in the reign of Henry II. i.e. between A.D. 1154 and 1189, or possibly at a slightly earlier date, for Mr. Cooper (Ann. of Cambr. 1. 25) places it in 1135. Almost immediately after the foundation, religious brethren, subject to the rule of St. Augustine, were introduced. It is clear from a judicial enquiry concerning its right to the church of St. Peter (now St. Mary the Less), which had been given to it by Henry, son of Segar, that the Hospital existed in the year 1194. (Selden, Hist. of Tithes, 386). Before 1197 Hervey, son of Eustace Dunning, gave seven acres of land at Chesterton to sustain "two beds and bed-clothes for the use of the sick in the stone house of the Hospital." About 1208 the Bishop of Ely made an ordinance to secure the parson of All Saints' Church from any injury that might be caused to him by the master and brethren admitting the parishioners of All Saints to any sacraments or oblations: and thereupon the prioress and convent of St. Rhadegund granted the master and brethren free and pure chantry in the Hospital for ever. There must, therefore, at that time have been some sort of chapel; but it may have been only the oratory in the Infirmary. In 1280 Hugh de Balsham introduced a community of secular scholars into the House, but they could not agree with the regular brethren, and were soon removed to form St. Peter's College.

At a little after the middle of the xvth century, when John Dunham the younger was Master, and Thomas Rotheram was Chancellor of the University, the Hospital was admitted to the privileges of the latter body; as is shewn by the "letter of privilege" entered upon the old cartulary preserved amongst the muniments of the College. (Baker, Hist. of St. John's College, 46).

Up to the time of the dissolution, the prior or master and brethren were required to allot a considerable portion of their revenue to the support of sick people in the Hospital. We must therefore now consider what was the kind of building usually provided by bodies established for the especial purpose of receiving and supporting sick and infirm people, or by the monasteries for the reception of their sick, infirm, and aged monks. It was usually a large, long hall, lighted by windows on each side, or even divided into three parts by arches (resembling the nave and aisles of a church), and then often furnished with aisle and clerestory windows. In this hall the beds of the sick were arranged along each side throughout the greater part of its length; but at the eastern

end a small space was shut off by a screen, and provided with an altar and the other requisites for saying mass. Thus the sick could be present at the service without removing from their beds. Prof. Willis has proved that what used to be called the Saxon Church at Ely was the infirmary of that great House. The remains of a similar building can be traced at Peterborough, and on the sites of other monastic houses. I have seen such an arrangement in several old hospitals which still exist, only that now the altar has become a communion-table, and the beds for the infirm have been separated by wooden partitions, so as to form little chambers or cells, one for each inmate. My friend Mr. E. A. Freeman tells me that there are a great many hospitals with a chapel at one end opening into the domestic part of the building. The chapel is often a mere oratory, just large enough for an altar. A similar arrangement was frequent in domestic houses where some ordinary room occupied the place of the infirmary, and like it opened into the chapel. He refers to St. Mary's Hospital at Chichester as a fine example, in which the oratory was large enough to form a sort of chapel with stalls on each side, and I quote the following short account of it from the Archæol. Journal (x. 267). "It consists of a lofty hall. At the eastern end there is a chapel, accessible only through the hall, being separated from it by an open screen. The hall has side aisles, in which are constructed small distinct dwellings opening into it for the poor inmates.” Such an arrangement is also not unfrequent in the Roman Catholic countries of the European continent, at the present day. The old Hospital of St. Thomas at Northampton had a very small space of this kind at its east end, only affording room enough for the priest who said mass.

When these remains were first exposed, the idea occurred to me that they were part of an infirmary, such as has just been described, provided by the Hospital for the use of the sick people brought to it; and I am very happy to learn that Professor Willis formed the same opinion. The Hospital contained a very small number of brethren (not more than five or six), and it is therefore quite possible that they may not at first have possessed any chapel for their devotions, other than that provided for the benefit of their patients. It will be recollected that the date of their foundation was probably considerably before 1195, and that this infirmary must have been built almost immediately after their establish ment, perhaps even by their founder.

If, as I firmly believe, this was really the Infirmary, the

character and arrangement of the windows is such as we should expect. The most eastern is highly decorated as being next to the altar; it and the three following belonged to the oratory; those to the west of the space that is there found were the lights of the secular part, or infirmary proper. The screen which separated these two parts of the chamber was apparently placed close to the fourth window, and to the east of the doorway of which traces exist between the fourth and fifth windows. Or, if the oratory was used by the brethren as their chapel, this door may have opened into the oratory itself, so as to admit them without their passing through the secular infirmary in which lay the sick.

:

Some persons have surmised with much show of reason that this was not the infirmary, but the first chapel of the House but it must be remembered that the Hospital is not supposed (Cooper's Mem. Camb. 11. 58) to have at first had any ecclesiastical character, although it was very soon found requisite to add the brethren, for the purpose doubtless of superintending it. This may or may not be true, for I know of no documentary evidence in proof of it. I believe that this room never was properly a chapel, but an infirmary, and that the only sacred part of it was the oratory at its end. There was therefore no desecration in the uses to which the major part of it was finally applied, whatever we may think of those of the eastern end. If this was the chapel of the house, it seems unaccountable that they should have had another chapel erected for their use as early as the last quarter of the x111th century: but if the older building was the infirmary, nothing is more probable than the desire to possess a chapel distinct from it. We cannot avoid some wonder when we find that so large a chapel was built for so small a society.

Let us endeavour now to trace the history of the infirmary after the dissolution of the Hospital. It is not known to what use, if any, it was applied by the earliest members of the college; but in 1560 Fisher's and Ashton's chapels were deprived of their altars; the upper part of the former was turned into a chamber for the advantage of the master; the infirmary converted into a stable for the master's horses, and its eastern part (the oratory) made into a store-house for the college. This happened when Leonard Pilkington was master (Baker, 153). That this was the position of the stables in 1574 when Caius wrote his work, De Antiquitate, &c., is shewn by Baker (43) from the college books: and Caius (106) says that the stables were in the ancient chapel of the hospital.

His words are: "Vetus sacellum fratrum Sancti Joannis Evangelista (quod jam Collegii Sancti Joannis stabulum est").

In 1587-8 the horses and goods were removed and the building divided into three floors of students' rooms, as it continued to be until 1863. The words quoted by Baker (184) from the Liber thesaurarii are, "Hospitium novum intra præcinctum collegii, ubi olim erat hospitale D. Johannis, &c."

This concludes all that I have to state concerning these interesting and ancient buildings, of which every trace must unfortunately soon be removed. In one point of view we may well rejoice that the Infirmary is gone, for as students' rooms it was a disgrace to the College.

29 Feb. 1864.

CHARLES C. BABINGTON.

POSTSCRIPT: It may be interesting to record in connection with the alterations now in progress that the removal of the panneling of the Combination Room and the Master's Diningroom has shown that the former room once had a large central window opening towards the west with a door on each side of it in the western wall; one door continued in use until the room was dismantled recently, and was the entrance from the second court, the other had long since been closed but originally opened into the space now occupied by the north side of the Second Court. It also appeared that the Diningroom had a corresponding large window opening towards the west. These two windows must have been closed at the time when the gallery was erected which some persons suppose preceded the Second Court, certainly could not have continued after the erection of the north side of that Court.

The Editors of The Eagle desire to express their thanks to Prof. Babington for permission to reprint this paper, which originally appeared in the "Antiquarian Communications" (Vol. 2. p. 351) of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, and also for kindly allowing them to make use of the illustrations which are his property.

GLASS PAINTING.

PAINTED windows are allowed to be the richest and most magnificent application of art to the interior decoration. of monumental buildings. Who has not stood magic-stricken in one of our ancient cathedrals before an array of gorgeous windows, pourtraying the legends of saints and martyrs, dazzling the eye with their brilliant and ever-varied colours; beautiful at all times, when the bright sun pours his rays upon them, and

Fills the church with gold and purple mist;

or when the peaceful twilight hour invites to contemplation as its mysterious shadows fall around us?

To the archæologist they possess an additional interest; all the old painted windows have something characteristic of the period to which they belong. The modifications which successively appear in them offer points of the deepest interest for observation and comparison, while they are at the same time the seals of their respective æras. These distinctive marks exist not merely in the painting, but also in the general conception of the entire work. It is not difficult to assign reasons for the favour which has so generally been bestowed upon glass painting; the brilliancy and liveliness of the colours of which this substance is susceptible on account of its transparency will always secure it a high degree of esteem from lovers of the fine arts; indeed, detriment to glass painting is rather to be feared from the opposite extreme-indiscriminate praise, as it is no uncommon thing to hear persons unacquainted with the subject speak in very high terms of examples whose debased style is only exceeded by the poverty of their colours.

The art of painting on glass by no means consists in the mere application of the colouring materials to the surface of the glass, by methods similar to those employed in oil painting. The colours used are of a peculiar kind, and possess the power of vitrifying at a high temperature, and of