ST. THOMAS’S HOSPICE, ROME.] [Admission of confraternity issued by the chamberlains, warden and procurator of the Hospital of the Holy Trinity and St. Thomas the Martyr in Rome, admitting Richard Cashwell and Ann his wife.]

      1459 - [London, 9 August 1459.] Manuscript, 16 lines in Latin on single sheet of parchment (14 x 27cm) a few small stains and wear along old folds but legible, verso dusty with contemporary endorsement illegible in places, without seal. A scarce medieval document relating to St. Thomas’s Hospice in Rome. Founded in 1362 to provide a lodging house for English pilgrims visiting the city and to care for “poor, infirm, needy and wretched persons from England”, this was the earliest English institution founded outside of England. This document records the entry of Richard Cashwell and his wife Anne into the confraternity of the hospice at London in 1459. This quasi-religious organisation consisted of those who wished to support the work of the hospice and it collected donations in England to fund the running of the house in Rome. Certainly this couple would therefore have made some sort of financial contribution. The hospice was diminished by the Sack of Rome in 1527 and Henry VIII’s break with Rome, after which it languished until under the designs of Cardinal William Allen (1532-1594) it was converted into a seminary for English Roman Catholic priests, inaugurated officially in 1579 as the English College. For the early history of St. Thomas’sHospice, see:MargaretHarvey. The English in Rome 1362-1420, pp.55-76.