Karen
This is some of the information I gathered on St James's Hospital, Westminster: it is the entry in The London encyclopedia, eds. Ben Weireb and Christopher Hibbert, Papermac 19830 (p. 715)
Jim Carroll

31 St James’s Hospital Westminster.
Stow said that the hospital here was founded by some London citizens before the Norman Conquest but the first record of it is in the reign of Henry II. In about 1267 the Papal Legate and the Abbot of Westminster limited the inmates to eight brothers and 16 sisters. They laid down that the rule of St Augustine should be read in English to these brothers and sisters four times a year, and that a chapter should be held every week when faults were to be corrected. Everyone had to confess once a week and attend all services. Brothers had to eat with the Master. If they were absent from the hospital they could eat, drink or sleep only at the house of a king, bishop or another religious order. Clothes were to be either russet or black. After a visita¬tion by the Sub-prior of Westminster in 1277 the brothers were reminded that they were not to eat or drink with the sisters or enter their houses. Vigils at the death of a brother or sister were to be held ‘without drinking or unseemly noise’.

In 1290 Edward I granted the hospital the right to hold an annual fair from the eve of St James’s Day for seven days. In 1317 the Abbot of Westminster found that the Master had not been holding a weekly chapter and had been making special beer for himself, and that the Prior was often drunk, had embezzled funds and disclosed the secrets of the chapter. By 1319 there were no more than three brothers and six sisters, and by 1320 discipline had become utterly lax and the property neglected. The black death of 1349 killed all the inmates except William de Weston who became Master, but he was deposed two years later. By 1384 there were no inmates and Thomas Orgrave, the Mas¬ter, let most of the building to Elizabeth le Despenser for life. In. 1450 Henry VI gave the hospital, by then a leper hospital for young women, to Eton College. In 1532 Henry VIII acquired it as a site for st James’s palace. Eton College was recompensed with other lands and the four remaining sisters were granted an annual pension of £6-13s 4d each.