General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1915 Original Publisher: T.F. Unwin Subjects: London (England) Psychiatric hospitals Fiction / Classics Literary Collections / General Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / American / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Medical / Psychiatry / General Psychology / Mental Illness Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: The Story of Bethlehem Hospital from its Foundation in 1247 CHAPTER I THE BISHOP OF BETHLEHEM
Let us go even unto Bethlehem
– this is the journey we must take in the first chapter of our history. For the basilica which enshrines the cave of the Nativity is the goal of our pilgrimage. Here was the home of our early associations, and we return to it, after six centuries and a half, to hear all that has happened since the daughter left her mother’s house. We are not, indeed, without guidebooks, for such scholars as Comte P. Riant, M. Delaville Le Roulx and Father Meistermann have smelted gold even from the dust of libraries. Itineraries of pilgrims, chronicles of the crusades, the registers of the popes, and the archives of monasteries have all been shaken well. I shall not, as a rule, interrupt the narrative by a reference to a book or manuscript, but the story I am now going to tell – no one in London has told it before – is founded on the Papal Registers of Innocent IV. The villain of the drama was one John the Roman, who appears to have been elected in 1239 bishop of Bethlehem by the canons. In the ordinary way his election would have been confirmed by the pope. But, meanwhile, he proceeded, with the complicity of some of the canons, to sell, pledge, or exchange…