Document one: Dartford hospital. A license to collect alms, 6th September 1485
To all true Christian people to whom these present letters shall come, the Brothers and Sisters of the Hospital for Lepers of the Blessed Mary Magdalene and St Laudus of Dartford in the diocese of Rochester, send greetings in our Lord everlasting.
Be it known to all of you that the said Brothers and Sisters by their unanimous assent have appointed and constituted our beloved in Christ, Thomas Gibson, our true faithful and legitimate proctor and general and special messenger, to demand, collect, and receive the alms of the faithful in Christ, whatsoever given, presented or bequeathed, also offerings and promises, in the name and in the honour of God, the Blessed Mary Magdalene and St Laudus, to us and our hospital, in and throughout the realm of England, from 5 September 1485, to 5 September three years later.
Of which said Brotherhood and Sisterhood some are weak, lame, or infirm, and some blind and leprous, and they have nothing whereby they may live except by the helping hands of the faithful in Christ.
Moreover in the said Hospital are seven works of mercy fulfilled daily for which our Lord Jesus Christ promises eternal life. Therefore the lord Popes, Celestine the Third, Urban, Clement, Alexander, Boniface, Innocent, Gregory, Martin, Eugenius, Paul, and Sixtus the Pope by a recent apostolic confirmation has, and each one of them severally have confirmed to the said benefactors and well wishers of the hospital and granted one year and forty days indulgence to those who of their goods have sent to the said hospital...linen or woollen cloths for the use of the poor there being, or rings, or a brooch, or one penny by which the poor may be sustained for one day...Such total of the indulgences granted to the said hospital and its benefactors, forty years one hundred days, and a seventh part of the lesser penance and constitute a merciful remission of divine penalties.