Stranica 214 [214]
OCR
192 THE CHURCHES them. Northward there would be open ground, so that the prior was able to see his country seat at Canonbury from his town house in St. Bartholomew's Close. All that is now left of the church is the choir, greatly ‘‘restored " and renewed, but still heavy and gloomy with its massive Norman piers and arches; and the great fifteenth-century tomb of Rahere, the founder. We cannot tell whether Rahere founded the hospital as well, but there would seem to ge szük A ia szzdlllaillia Ji ee ös TT ÜL have been a parish church here, now represented by the chapel of the hospital, as early as the time of Edward DOCTORS’ COMMONS the Confessor. The hospital covers the whole parish. There are pretty stories of Rahere, who is said to have been a professional jester at the court of Henry I, but, repenting him of certain naughtinesses, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and returning built the monas- a tery in obedience to orders received from St. Bartholomew ina vision. I have often tried in vain to unravel the different accounts of the foundation of the priory, of the hospital, and of the neighbouring church of St. Sepulchre. On the
