Church and the Monarchy another era of the building of almshouses set
in, and to this period very many of our existing institutions belong.

[Illustration: Gateway of St. John's Hospital, Canterbury]

Of the earliest group we have several examples left. There is the
noble hospital of St. Cross at Winchester, founded in the days of
anarchy during the contest between Stephen and Matilda for the English
throne. Its hospitable door is still open. Bishop Henry of Blois was
its founder, and he made provision for thirteen poor men to be housed,
boarded, and clothed, and for a hundred others to have a meal every
day. He placed the hospital under the care of the Master of the
Knights Hospitallers. Fortunately it was never connected with a
monastery. Hence it escaped pillage and destruction at the
dissolution of monastic houses. Bishop Henry was a great builder, and
the church of the hospital is an interesting example of a structure of
the Transition Norman period, when the round arch was giving way to
the Early English pointed arch. To this foundation was added in 1443
by Cardinal Beaufort an extension called the "Almshouse of Noble
Poverty," and it is believed that the present domestic buildings were
erected by him.[58] The visitor can still obtain the dole of bread and
ale at the gate of St. Cross. Winchester is well provided with old
hospitals: St. John's was founded in 931 and refounded in 1289; St.
Mary Magdalen, by Bishop Toclyve in 1173-88 for nine lepers; and
Christ's Hospital in 1607.

[58] Mr. Nisbett gives a good account of the hospital in
_Memorials of Old Hampshire_, and Mr. Champneys fully describes
the buildings in the _Architectural Review_, October, 1903, and
April, 1904.