Beschreibung:

BRISTOL – Gaunt's Hospital. Grant by Robert de Gurnay establishing the Hospital of St Mark's, Billeswick, known as Gaunt's Hospital, n.p., n.d. [c.1230-32]. In Latin. 14 lines on one membrane, 128 x 238mm. Fragment of seal in green wax pendant on cords, annotated on verso ‘carta de poulet’ The foundation grant of Gaunt's Hospital in Bristol. For soul of his uncle Maurice de Gaunt and for his own salvation and that of his ancestors and descendants, Robert de Gurnay makes a grant to support the almoner at Billeswick with three chaplains, and for the relief of the poor each day in perpetuity, of the manor of Poulet, mills at Were, the mill of Redwick, four marks of rent for houses in Bristol, and his own houses in Billeswick, 'retaining to myself and to my heirs the rights secured to our own hospital of being provided for when we come thither, without moroseness or hindrance from the said master or chaplains'. Robert annuls the previous dependent status of the almonry from St Augustine's Abbey [now Bristol Cathedral], and establishes that the almoner is to be elected by the chaplains and confirmed by himself or his heirs, under the oversight of the Bishop of Worcester; Robert specifies that each poor man is to receive a daily allowance of food to the weight of 45 shillings, comprising bread, barley and bean flour with sufficient potage. The imposing list of witnesses comprises Ralph Neville, chancellor of England, William de Blois, bishop of Worcester, Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent and justiciar of England, Gilbert of Gaunt, John Marshall Jordan la Warre, and Gilbert de Schipton. St Mark's Almonry at Billeswick-by-Bristol had been founded by Maurice de Gant in around 1220, initially under the administration of St Augustine's Abbey (which had been founded by Maurice's grandfather, Robert Fitzharding). On his death on 30 April 1230, Maurice made a permanent endowment for it in his will, the terms of which are repeated in this grant by his nephew and heir Robert de Gurnay, which further establishes the hospital as a separate foundation from St Augustine's; the grant was confirmed by Henry III on 18 November 1233. The charter is translated (from the text given in Dudgale's Monasticon ) by W.R. Barker in St. Mark's, Or, the Mayor's Chapel, Bristol: Formerly Called the Church of the Gaunts (1892), although with a few minor variations (including in the list of witnesses) from the text of the present charter. Barker notes a discrepancy regarding the number of poor to be fed by the almonry, given as 100 in the Dugdale text and 27 elsewhere: interesingly, the present charter has a blank where the number should be. In practice, the target of feeding 100 poor people proved to be ambitious, and already by the late 1270s the practice was being 'damnably omitted'. The hospital was dissolved in 1539, with its church, St Mark's, being purchased in the following year by Bristol Corporation.