Lo Rouchestre stant here fast by.




CHAPTER III

THE PILGRIMS' ROAD

ROCHESTER


One comes down the hill into Rochester, through Strood, on this side
the Medway, to find little remaining of interest in a place that has
now become scarcely more than a suburb of the episcopal city. Some
memory, however, lingers still in Strood of St Thomas, for certain
folks there hated him and to spite him one day as he rode through the
village they cut the tail from his horse. Mark now the end of this
misdeed. In Strood thereafter everyone of their descendants was born,
it is said, with a tail, even as the brutes which perish.

The church of Strood, restored in 1812, is without interest, but close
to the churchyard is the site of a Hospital, founded, in the time of
Richard I., who endowed it, by Bishop Glanville of Rochester. This
place must have been known to Chaucer and his pilgrims. It was
dedicated in honour of Our Lady and cared for "the poor, weak, infirm
and impotent as well as neighbouring inhabitants or travellers from
distant places, until they die or depart healed." Those who served it
followed the Benedictine Rule. A singular example of the hatred of
these for the monks of Rochester appears in the story of the fight