The hospital consisted of a master and several brethren, professing the rule of St. On the site of this house rose the hospital, built within twenty years after the murder of Thomas yet such was the repute of his sanctity, that it was dedicated to him, in conjunction with the blessed Virgin, without waiting for his canonization. The mother of our meek saint was a fair Saracen, whom his father had married in the Holy Land. Thomas of Acon, founded by Thomas Fitz-Theobald de Helles, and his wife Agnes, sister to the turbulent Thomas Becket, who was born in the house of his father, Gilbert, situated on this spot.
“On the north side of Cheapside, (between Ironmonger Lane and Old Jewry,) stood the Hospital of St. Pennant thus describes the principal historical data of the spot:
Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land. When much people I saw for to stand One offered me velvet, silk and lawneĪnd another he taketh me by the hand. In former times, when persons of the same trade congregated together in some particular street, the mercers principally assembled in West Cheap, now called Cheapside, near where the above hall stands, and thence called by the name of “the Mercery.” In Lydgate’s _London Lyckpenny_, are the following lines alluding to this custom: The engraving is an interesting illustration of the architecture of the metropolis in the seventeenth century, independent of its local association with names illustrious in historical record. THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Lazar Liveanu, David King, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team