The Mediæval Hospitals of England by Rotha Mary Clay
CHAPTER V
446 words | Chapter 53
THE LEPER IN ENGLAND
“_From the benefactions and possessions charitably bestowed upon the
hospital, the hunger, thirst and nakedness of those lepers, and other
wants and miseries with which they are incessantly afflicted . . .
may be relieved._”
(Foundation Charter of Sherburn.)
We now turn from leper-asylums to consider the leper himself—a sadly
familiar figure to the wayfaring man in the Middle Ages. He wears a
sombre gown and cape, tightly closed; a hood conceals his want of hair,
which is, however, betrayed by the absence of eyebrows and lashes; his
limbs are maimed and stunted so that he can but hobble or crawl; his
features are ulcerated and sunken; his staring eyes are unseeing or
unsightly; his wasted lips part, and a husky voice entreats help as he
“extends supplicating lazar arms with bell and clap-dish.”
* * * * *
At the outset it is necessary to state that inmates of lazar-houses
were not all true lepers. Persons termed _leprosi_, _infirmi_,
_elefantuosi_, _languidi_, _frères malades_, _meselles_, do not
necessarily signify lepers in a strict sense. Gervase of Canterbury,
writing about 1200, speaks of St. Oswald’s, Worcester, as intended
for “_Infirmi, item leprosi_”; and these words are used synonymously
in Pipe Rolls, charters, seals, etc. “Leprosy” was an elastic term as
commonly used. In the statutes of one hospital, [p049] the patriarch
Job was claimed as a fellow-sufferer—“who was so smitten with the
leprosy, that from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there
was no soundness in him.” A _lazar_ was one “full of sores,” and any
person having an inveterate and loathsome skin-eruption might be
considered infected. Disfiguring and malignant disorders were common.
Victims of _scrofula_, _lepra_, _lupus_, _tuberculosis_, _erysipelas_
(or “St. Anthony’s fire”) and persons who had contracted disease
as the baneful result of a life stained with sin, would sometimes
take advantage of the provision made for lepers, for in extremity
of destitution this questionable benefit was not to be despised. In
foreign lands to-day, some are found not unwilling to join the infected
for the sake of food and shelter; we are told, for example, that the
Hawaiian Government provides so well for lepers that a difficulty
arises in preventing healthy people from taking up their abode in the
hospitals. On the other hand, it often happens that those who are
actually leprous refuse to join a segregation-camp.
No one, however, can deny that leprosy was once exceedingly prevalent,
and after weighing all that might be said to the contrary, Sir J.
Y. Simpson and Dr. George Newman were convinced that the disease
existent in England was for the most part true leprosy (_elephantiasis
Græcorum_).
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