St Bartholomew's Chapel, Oxford

St Bartholomew's Chapel
West front of the chapel
51°44′43″N 1°13′36.66″W / 51.74528°N 1.2268500°W / 51.74528; -1.2268500Coordinates: 51°44′43″N 1°13′36.66″W / 51.74528°N 1.2268500°W / 51.74528; -1.2268500
Location	Oxford
Country	England
Denomination	Church of England
History
Authorising papal bull	1194
Founded	12th century
Founder(s)	Henry I
Dedication	Bartholomew the Apostle
Associated people	Adam de Brome, Edward III
Architecture
Status	Chapel
Heritage designation	Grade I
Designated	12 January 1954
Administration
Diocese	Oxford
Province	Canterbury
Clergy
Rector	Oriel College

St Bartholomew's Chapel, or Bartlemas Chapel, is a small, early-14th-century chapel, built as part of a leper hospital in Oxford, England. Founded in the early 12th century by Henry I, for twelve sick persons and a chaplain, it was granted to Oriel College by Edward III in 1328. During the English Civil War, the chapel and the main range of the hospital were damaged.

A Book of Common Prayer evensong is held on the last Sunday of each month, except in December.

Henry I endowed his foundation with £23 0s. 5d. a year, with an allowance of 5s. a year for clothing and two loads of hay every year from the king's mead near Osney. The hospital is first recorded in 1129 on the Pipe Roll, King Stephen confirmed the thirteen 'prebends' as did Henry II. The Pipe Roll of 1162 records that 60s. was spent on the building 'of the infirm of Oxford'. In 1194 Pope Celestine III confirmed the original liberties and rents, and in 1238 an immunity from paying tithes of garden produce, copse-wood, and the increase of their animals was conferred on them by Pope Gregory IX. In the 13th century the Hundred Rolls records various small gifts to hospital, and a rent roll from around 1330 gives £7 as the income from land, not including the brethren's farm of a few acres around the hospital.

During the 1310s, successive wardens mismanaged, or were accused of mismanaging, the hospital — Adam de Weston, a clerk of Edward II, was appointed warden in April, 1312, accused in July; the inquest, held in August, heard that he had sold farm produce without the brethren's consent and had kept the money, that he had dismissed the chaplain and mass was rarely said, he had dismissed servants who farmed the lands of the hospital, had a mistress and had turned a previous warden of 43 years' service, Brother William de Westbury, out of the house he had built for his own retirement. De Weston was deprived of his post and Peter de Luffenham appointed in 1315; the brethren complained that de Luffenham took more of the hospital's income than he should, that he neglected the sick and was concerned more in his own interests than theirs.