Europe's oldest asylum was the precursor of today's Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, known then as "Bedlam", which began admitting the mentally ill in 1403 and is mentioned in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". The first American asylum was built in Williamsburg, Virginia, circa 1773. Before the 19th century these hospitals were used to isolate the mentally ill or the socially ostracized from society rather than cure them or maintain their health. Pictures from this era portrayed patients bound with rope or chains, often to beds or walls, or restrained in straitjackets.