The Mediæval Hospitals of England by Rotha Mary Clay
2. PUBLIC OPINION
349 words | Chapter 55
These noble pioneers were doubtless important factors in moulding
public opinion. They may often have outstepped the bounds of prudence,
but, as one has observed, “an evil is removed only by putting it for
a time into strong relief, when it comes to be rightly dealt with and
so is gradually checked.” As long as possible the world ignored the
existence of leprosy. The thing was so dreadful that men shut their
eyes to it, until they were shamed into action by those who dared to
face the evil. The Canon of the Lateran Council of 1179 acknowledged
that unchristian selfishness had hitherto possessed men with regard to
lepers. We need not suppose that the heroism of those who ministered
to lepers was that which boldly faces a terrible risk, but it was
rather that which overcomes the strongest repulsion for hideous and
noisome objects. There is no hint in the language of the chroniclers of
encountering danger, but rather, expressions of horror that any should
hold intercourse with such loathsome creatures. The remonstrances of
Prince David and of William de Monte were not primarily on account of
contagion.—“What is it that thou doest, O my lady? [p052] surely if
the King knew this, he would not deign to kiss with his lips your mouth
thus polluted with the feet of lepers!” “When I saw Bishop Hugh touch
the livid face of the lepers, kiss their sightless eyes or eyeless
sockets, I shuddered with disgust.”—If St. Francis raised an objection
to inmates wandering outside their precincts, it was because people
could not endure the sight of them. The popular opinion regarding the
contagious nature of the disease developed strongly, however, towards
the close of the twelfth century. The Canon _De Leprosis_ (Rome, 1179;
Westminster, 1200) declares emphatically that lepers cannot dwell with
healthy men. Englishmen begin to act consistently with this conviction.
The Prior of Taunton (1174–85) separates a monk from the company of
the brethren “in fear of the danger of this illness”; and the Durham
chronicler mentions an infirmary for those “stricken with the contagion
of leprosy.”
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