Foundation
The priory of the Order of St Mary of Bethlem was founded in 1247 during the reign of Henry III in the city of London following a donation of property by the London Alderman Simon fitzMary to the Bishop-elect of Bethlehem, the Italian Goffredo de Prefetti. Its first site was in the parish of St Botolph outside Bishopsgate, just beyond London's wall and where the south-east corner of Liverpool Street station now stands. The priory, obedient to the House of Bethlem, would house the poor and, when they visited, the Bishop, canons and brothers of Bethlehem. It was intended to function as a centre for the collection of alms to support the crusader church and to link England to the Holy Land. From approximately 1330 it was referred to as either a hospice or hospital.
Read more about this topic: Bethlem Royal Hospital
Famous quotes containing the word foundation:
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“A face is too slight a foundation for happiness.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)
“The Bermudas are said to have been discovered by a Spanish ship of that name which was wrecked on them.... Yet at the very first planting of them with some sixty persons, in 1612, the first governor, the same year, “built and laid the foundation of eight or nine forts.” To be ready, one would say, to entertain the first ship’s company that should be next shipwrecked on to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)