Schola Saxonum

We bring you Part 1 in a series by the title of "Terribly English, that's why they came to Rome .."
Historian Stella Fletcher in a programme produced by Veronica Scarisbrick:

"Back in the Dark Ages … this was the site of the so- called “Schola Saxonum” , the hospice of the Saxons by which they meant the English. This is the time of Alfred the Great , there’s already at that time a great number of English pilgrims coming to Rome and they need somewhere to stay so they stayed here. It was said by the Romans that the English caused the fire…

“The other English connection come in the time of Sixtus IV ….it so happened that an Englishman called Robert Fleming, a great scholar came to Rome in the mid 15^th century as the King’s ambassador …exactly the time when Sixtus was having this hospital rebuilt . During this time in Rome there was a plague……. and the whole of the papal court went off into the hills …Fleming went with them …”