This anecdote is one of many recounted in a work whose purpose is to describe the foundation in 1123 of a priory and hospital dedicated to St. Bartholomew and at the same time present (as Christopher Brooke puts it) a "prospectus" illustrating to pilgrims or the sick the efficacy of the hospital as a place of miracles. St. Bartholomew was not one of the foremost saints, but there had been previous English foundations dedicated to him, including close to London a hospital at Rochester/Chatham in the late eleventh century.

The founder of the London institution was Rahere, a man of whom we have almost no mention other than in this work. According to the author, Rahere was of humble birth, but sought to improve his lot by becoming a hanger-on at the court of King Henry I. This description, which probably stems from Rahere's own self-deprecating story of his youth, uses terms that suggest he was some kind of court jester, although Professor Brooke proposes that he may rather have held some clerical position at the court. Whichever is the case, he seems to have prospered and become more serious at the same time; a man of this unusual name is found as a canon of St. Paul's.

Regretting his youthful follies, Rahere made a pilgrimage to Rome where, becoming seriously ill and fearing that he had not yet cleansed his soul, he vowed that if he were restored to health he would build a hospital for the poor. On his return journey, still feverish, he had a vision of hell, followed by one of St. Bartholomew, who instructed him to build a church in the London suburb of (West) Smithfield. Later in that century FitzStephen painted an appealing picture of the horse market at Smithfield; the "smooth field" was evidently already by the 1120s dedicated to the horse and cattle markets and Rahere, when he obtained licence from the king to proceed with his plans, faced erecting church and hospital on ground to the east; much of this area was marshy, but Rahere built on the higher part, which had been used for public executions (the gallows thereafter being moved further west, to a spot now under the present meat market at Smithfield). The land given him by the king was expansive enough for a large priory to be built and a separate hospital close by, to the southwest. He began that task in 1123 and, by recruiting citizens to help him with reclaiming the land, fundraising, transporting building materials (the stone being imported) and building, work had proceeded sufficiently for the site to be consecrated by the end of 1129.

The account of these events was set down by a canon of the priory, in the years following the death in 1174 of Rahere's successor. The author claims to have obtained information from those who had known Rahere. The surviving copy of this account dates from ca.1400. It is likely that the book incorporates elements of fact amidst its propaganda.

Whether true or not, the story above provides a small corrective to documentation of charitable foundations and gifts, indicating that not everyone was of a charitable frame of mind. At the same time, while the charitable foundations of the twelfth century are more commonly associated with royalty or the nobility, wealthy citizens were also active either as founders or as donors, and the story of Godric implies that he was an exception to the rule of charitable giving. While the stories in the foundation book talk in terms of modest donations, the survival of hospitals and other such foundations relied upon their endowment with real estate, usually from bequests.

Rahere became the first prior of the Augustinian community he established. In 1133 he secured a royal charter, giving the priory various privileges and exemptions, and licensing a three-day fair around the feast of St. Bartholomew; this fair, which had apparently grown up because of the crowds of pilgrims, sick, cured persons etc. who gathered at the church on the feast-day, became one of the major cloth fairs of medieval England. By Rahere's death in 1143 only the eastern end of the church had been completed; its choir is today one of the few medieval structures to remain standing in London. Furnished with royal and papal grants of privileges, St. Bartholomew's went on to become a wealthy priory, although the hospital became distanced from it at the end of the century; Rahere's successor as prior appointed a businessman, Adam the Merchant, to run the hospital. A charter of 1147 defines the purpose of the hospital as to provide shelter and care for the poor, the sick, the homeless, and orphans; in the fourteenth century, the hospital was focusing its efforts on looking after the sick poor until they had recovered, caring for pregnant women until after they had given birth, and maintaining children born in the hospital until they were seven years old. A separate building, south of the Thames, was set up as a leper house.

Although the account, unlike FitzStephen's written around the same time, does not have London as its focus, its miracle stories throw some light, incidentally, on urbanisation in England and there are points of comparison with what FitzStephen reveals. We have reference to the specialized markets in London – that at Smithfield, and the Shambles just within the walls south of the site of St. Bartholomew's – as well as the Jewish quarter. We see that the brewing of ale was already a task associated primarily with women in the first half of the twelfth century. Rural residents were coming in to London to buy or sell food in the markets there, paying toll at the city gates, while the women were taking on piecework, spinning cloth to be sold by the wives of the citizens. Mentions of prostitutes and pimps reflect another trade for which London was well-known. We hear of commercial voyages from London to the "ends of the earth". Meanwhile, Flemish merchants were heading for London's harbour; two such ventures are mentioned, one involving a fleet of eleven ships owned by the merchants and carrying domestic goods made by Flemish craftsmen. There are also references to the coastal trade between Dunwich and London, ships setting out from Sandwich and Dover, as well as travel between Norwich and Yarmouth, and between Northamptonshire towns and London – one case involving a young man possibly off to seek his fortune in London, and another involving the transport of logs to be sold in London. One merchant of Hastings is mentioned as bringing wine from foreign parts to London in his ship, in a story in which we hear how many Hastings houses were lost in a great fire.

In another anecdote, a Colchester victualler perceived the king's war in Wales (1157) as an opportunity to supply the army, and was able to make a good profit from his venture (relying on coastal rather than overland transportation), some of which he then reinvested in other business deals. He was so occupied with his business dealings that he could not find the time to go to St. Bartholomew's to donate a few pennies he had apparently vowed to give in return for success in his venture. When his money was stolen on the return journey, he called on the saint for aid, only to be upbraided for fraudulent dealings to earn exorbitant profit, and for being dilatory in fulfilling his vow. Naturally the story ends with him fulfilling his charitable obligations.

Yet another story reflects on the role of the hospital, and why people placed faith in its ability to restore them to health:

"Another man, named Aldwyn, lived in a town which is called Dunwich on the sea-shore, who was so crippled that he had not the free use either of feet or hands.... When the story of the miracles of the most blessed apostle reached him he began to raise his sorrowful spirit with a better hope and to promise himself that he would have health if he should be carried thither.
Therefore... he paid the passage money and was set on a ship and, being carried to the church, was set in the hospital of the poor and supported there some time of the alms of the said church. Meanwhile, by the virtue of the apostle he began to revive and his longed-for health began to return bit by bit. And so at first, bent though he was, he made with his hands little things such as distaffs, weights, and other girls' gear. Next as his steps grew stronger and his limbs enjoyed their natural vigour, he followed the more important works of those who cut logs with axe and hatchet, and not long after practised the craft of carpentry in the same church and throughout the City of London as he had been taught as a boy, blessing God whose eyes are on them that fear Him and on those who hope in His mercy."
[E.A. Webb, ed. The Book of the Foundation of the Church of St. Bartholomew, London. Oxford: University Press, 1923, 26-27]