To Englishmen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, few
institutions inspired such horrified fascination as the Bedlam
hospital, the principal London mad-house. Yet Bedlam, or to give
it its proper title, the hospital of St Mary of New Bethlehem, had been
in
existence for several centuries before its principal charge became the
care,
or perhaps more correctly the confinement, of the insane. The origins of
Bedlam lie in the 1240s, in the reign of King Henry III. To date, the
circumstances which gave rise to the hospital's foundation have failed
to
attract the understanding and attention which they deserve. Bedlam's
founders would no doubt have been surprised to learn of the subsequent
fate of their institution, intended in origin not as a mad-house but as
a link
between England and the Holy Land, part of a wider movement in which
the cathedral church of the Nativity at Bethlehem and its bishops sought
land, alms and hospitality in western Europe. The purpose of this present
essay is to investigate the links between England and the church of
Bethlehem which gave rise to the foundation of Bedlam. In the process,
it
is hoped that new light will be shed upon English attitudes to the crusades,
upon the reorganisation of the finances and administration of the bishops
of Bethlehem exiled from the Holy Land after 1187, and in particular
upon the career of one bishop, Goffredo de Prefetti. It was Goffredo who
was to be personally responsible for the introduction of the Bethlehemites
to England, and so it is with his career that we should commence.
