St. Anthony's Hospital, St Benet Fink

St. Anthony's Hospital, in the parish of St Benet Fink in the City of London was a medieval charitable house founded before 1254 as a cell by the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony of Vienne in France.

The brothers of St. Anthony of Vienne established a cell before 1254 on some land given to them by King Henry III, in a place previously occupied by a Jewish synagogue. In the bull of Pope Alexander V confirming the grant the place is not further described.

The hospital of St. Anthony when mentioned later was certainly in the now defunct parish of St. Benet Fink (an abbreviation of "St Benedict Finch"), near today's Threadneedle Street. However, it is unlikely a synagogue had ever occupied a site in the parish of St. Benet Fink, as such Jewish places of worship were confined to the Jewry district of the City, some distance away to the east. It is possible therefore that either the brothers changed their quarters afterwards or at one time the Jews had spread beyond the Jewry. Such an outlying synagogue may have been permitted by the 1252/3 decree of King Henry III (1216-1272) that there should be no synagogues except where they existed during the reign of his father King John (1199–1216).

The house was founded to look after twelve poor men.

The house was governed by a Master, two priests and a schoolmaster.

The hospital appears to have been funded by ad hoc donations of alms, not by an endowment, as in 1291 the whole property within in the parish of St. Benet Fink was not worth more than the small sum of 8 shillings per annum.

One source of income, traditional to certain religious foundations dedicated to Saint Anthony the Great of Egypt, was from donated free-range pigs: any pig considered by the supervisor of the London Livestock market unfit to be killed for food was reserved for the use of the Hospital as follows: a proctor of St. Anthony's placed a collar around its neck from which hung a bell. Itbwas then released onto the City streets to scavenge, protected by the status afforded by its bell, from molestation by the population. it was a virtuous deed to feed these pigs, which quickly fattened and when ready for the table were reclaimed by the Hospital and sold or slaughtered for food. The privilege appears on occasion to have been abused, as in 1311 one of the Hospital's tenants Roger de Wynchester, was forced to promise the City authorities not to claim pigs found wandering about the City, nor to put bells on "any swine but those given in charity to the house".

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