St Bartholomew the Great: tracing the history of London’s oldest surviving parish church

Making people laugh in the 12th century proved to be lucrative work for Rahere (d. 1143), who is variously described as a jester, minstrel, and courtier to Henry I (c.1068-1135; r. 1100-1135). But that was in his early life: Rahere later became a devout cleric who, falling ill on a pilgrimage to Rome, vowed to establish a hospital in London if he survived. The result was St Bartholomew, founded in 1123 as a joint foundation of hospital and priory. A commemorative volume has just been published to mark the 900th anniversary of the church, as Chris Catling reports.

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Current Archaeology

February 1, 2023

When Rahere fell ill on a pilgrimage, he was nursed back to health at the church and hospital of San Bartolomeo in Rome – which still stands on the Isola Tiberina, the little island in the Tiber that lies between the Ponte Garibaldi and the Ponte Emilio. As he lay on his sickbed, racked with malarial fever, Rahere perhaps realised that a stranger falling ill in 12th-century London might not have found a similarly hospitable refuge. He decided not just to create London’s equivalent, he also devoted the remainder of his life ministering to the poor and the sick in his capacity as the first prior of the Augustinian religious community that he established on his return to England in 1123.

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