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May have been founded by Robert de Beaumont, first Earl of Leicester, who came to England with William the Conqueror, and fought in the Battle of Hastings. The surrounding site was where a hospital was founded by Robert de Beaumont's son, Robert 'Ie Bossu', or hunchback. Robert Ie Bossu tried to mediate in the dispute between Henry II and Becket.

Robert Ie Bossu founded the hospital, to offer relief for the poor and to entertain travellers. It was therefore not a hospital in the modern sense. He also founded a chapel and cemetery to be attached. His son Robert Ie Blanchmain, the whitehanded, endowed it with land.

While returning from pilgrimage to the Holy Land Robert Ie Blanchmain died in Rumania. His heart was buried in Brackley. John Clarke believes it was this that was discovered by workmen in 1836, while digging a hole in the gallery of the chapel. It is Wodham who first mentions the discovery of a leaden box being discovered and containing a piece of old leather that was thrown away. Wodham believed it to be the heart of Robert de Beaumont.

The first Master of the Hospital was called Soloman and was a Brackley man. The hospital was effectively a large alms house occupied by elderly or infirm inmates. It was presided over by the Master and five or six brethren, who followed but did not belong to the Augustinian order.

The Hospital of St John became the Hospital of St John and St James in 1321. A further chapel of St Leonard was built about half a mile to the north for lepers.

In the fourteenth century, the hospital seemed to contain mainly old soldiers and 'minor royal servants'.

Waynflete acquired the hospital in 1484 from Francis Lord Lovell, notorious associate of Richard III. He did so as a retreat in times of plague for Magdalen College in Oxford.

John Clarke puts forward the theory that in 1548 there were fears that the chapel and its lands would be acquired by the crown. The chapel was primarily being used as a chantry at this time and these were being confiscated as a result of the reformation. So in order to secure it for Magdalen College a school was started here.

East window dates from the 14th century
East window reglazed in 1897
New organ 1908
Wooden porch to chapel built in 1913
Had been an old aisle with a Lady Chapel at the east portion of the north side.