There is perhaps no subject of greater interest, nor
one which awakens more sympathy, than that of the
Leper; it affords a most curious, though painful topic
of enquiry, particularly in the present day, when so much
has been said and written, as to the probability and
possibility of the loathsome scourge again obtaining a
hold in this, our own country.
Much confusion and ignorance exists, as to what
true Leprosy really is. I do not pretend, nor do I assume,
to be in any way an authority on the disease, nor to be
at all deeply versed in the matter; my remarks will
consist chiefly in retailing to you, some of the many and
curious circumstances connected with the malady, with
which I have become acquainted in studying the various
Lazar Houses and Leper Wells, once so liberally scattered
all over the country, from an antiquary’s point of
view, and in examining the writings of those competent to
express an opinion, from personal and other observations.
Your kind indulgence is, therefore, asked for any shortcomings
on my part.
It is necessary at the outset, to state clearly, that
the disease known as Leprosy in Holy Scripture, was an
entirely and altogether different disorder, to that, which,
in the Middle Ages, was so terribly prevalent, not in this
country only, but over the whole Continent of Europe.
Sir Risdon Bennett tells us the Leprosy of Scripture
was a skin disease known to the medical faculty as
Psoriasis. The use of the Greek and Latin word Lepra,
to signify both kinds of Leprosy, has no doubt contributed
largely to the confusion existing as to these two disorders.
The Leprosy of the Bible was Psoriasis, that of the Middle
Ages Elephantiasis Græcorum.
There are six cases only, which include nine
instances of Leprosy, recorded in the Old Testament:—
| Moses—Exodus, iv., 6. | ｝ | Miraculously afflicted. |
| Miriam—Numbers, xii., 10. |
| Gehazi—2 Kings, v., 27. |
| Uzziah—2 Chronicles, xxvi., 19. |
| Naaman—2 Kings, v., 1. | | |
| Four Lepers—2 Kings, vii., 3. | | |
In the New Testament we have but three cases,
involving twelve persons, viz.:—
- (1) Man, recorded by St. Matthew, viii, 2; St. Mark, i., 40; St. Luke, v., 12.
- (2) Ten Lepers, St. Luke, xvii., 12.
- (3) Simon, St. Matthew, xxvi., 6; St. Mark, xiv., 3.
The first account or mention of the disorder in the
Bible, is to be found in Leviticus; nearly three chapters,
xiii., xiv., xv., being devoted to the examination and
cleansing of the afflicted, with the minutest detail.
In chapter xiii., we are told that “if a man has a
bright spot deeper than the skin of the flesh, the hair on
which has turned white, or the white spot has a raw in
it, and the scab be spread in the skin—then shall the
priest pronounce him unclean.” But, if he have all the
above symptoms, and “the scabs do not spread, or, if he
be covered from head to foot—as white as snow—with
the disease, then shall the priest pronounce him clean.”
It should be observed, that whereas the “unclean”
Leper “shall dwell alone,” no such restriction was placed
upon the “clean or White Leper,” who was free to go
about as he desired, and also to mingle with his fellow-men.
This is clear from the accounts given us of Gehazi
conversing with the King; of Naaman performing his
ordinary duties as captain of the host of the King of
Syria; we are told he was “a great man with his
master, and honourable, because by him the Lord had
given victory unto Syria; he was also a mighty man of
valour,” and also, from the instance of our Blessed Lord
being entertained in the house of Simon the “Leper.”
On no other ground than this assumption, can these
instances be reconciled with the Levitical Law.
In the Levitical, and in every other account of the
disease, it is significant that there is no mention, or
hint, of any loss of sensation in connection with the
disorder, of any affection of the nerves, nor of any deformity
of the body; no provision is made for those who
were unable to take care of themselves, nor is there a
tittle of evidence, or the barest hint given, that the disease
was either contagious or dangerous. Only two
persons in the whole of the Bible are stated to have
died from the disease, and in each of these cases, it
was specially so ordained by the Almighty, as a specific
punishment for a particular sin. Cures were not only
possible, and common, but they were the rule. Josephus
speaks of Leprosy in a man as but “a misfortune in the
colour of his skin.” S. Augustine said that when Lepers
were restored to health, “they were mundati, not sanati,
because Leprosy is an ailment affecting merely the colour,
not the health, or the soundness of the senses, and the
limbs.”
It is a most curious, and interesting problem which
has yet to be solved, why a man should be “unclean”
when he was but partially covered by the disease, and
yet, when he was wholly covered with it, he should be
“clean.”
That no argument in support of contagion can be
drawn simply from the sentence of expulsion from the
camp, is evident from Numbers v., 2-4; for Lepers,
and non-Lepers, are equally excluded on the ground of
“uncleanness.” The laws of seclusion applied as rigorously
to the uncleanness induced by touching a leper, or
even a dead body, as well as in other cases, where no
question of contagion could exist. It appears more than
probable that the “cleansing” was merely a ceremonial,
ordained for those attacked by the disease at a certain
stage, implying some deeper meaning, than I for one,
am able to discern. I therefore leave it to the theologian
to whom it appertains, rather than to a humble
and enquiring layman as myself.
That the descriptions of the various forms of skin
disease were intended, not to denote differences in their
nature or pathology, but to enable the priests to discriminate
between the “clean” and “unclean” forms, is
manifest. They were intended purely for practical use.
The first allusion—the only one in the Bible—we
have to a Lazar, or Leper house, occurs in 2 Kings,
xv., 5, “And the Lord smote the King so that he was a
Leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a ‘several’
house.”
The Leprosy of the Middle Ages known as Elephantiasis
Græcorum, Lepra Arabum, and Lepra tuberculosis, is
not yet extinct. It is very curious that whilst Lepra
Arabum is the same as Elephantiasis Græcorum or true
Leprosy, the Elephantiasis Arabum is a totally distinct
disease. The former is the most loathsome and revolting
of the many awful and terrible scourges, with which
the Almighty, in his wisdom, has seen fit, from time to
time, to visit mankind.
It is, I believe, a singular fact, that the Jews, “the
chosen people of God,” have a special immunity from the
disease, being less predisposed than other races. Dr. V.
Carter says that during a period of seventeen years, out
of a very large number of cases in Bombay, he had seen
only four cases, and but one death among Jews, that is
of Elephantiasis Græcorum.
Belcher on “Our Lord’s Miracles,” says that in
Tangiers at the present day, the two diseases are found,
the Lepra Hebræorum prevailing chiefly among the
Jewish residents, and presenting exactly the symptoms as
described in Leviticus. On the other hand, in Syria,
Elephantiasis Græcorum is unknown among the Jews.
It appears to have been very prevalent in this
country; but when, and how it was introduced, is not
known. Some certify it was brought back by the Crusaders,
being the only thing they ever did bring back. But
it existed here long anterior to the days of the first crusade.
The City of Bath is said to have originated from an old
British King afflicted with Leprosy, who being obliged,
in consequence, to wander far from the habitation of
men, and being finally reduced to the condition of a
swineherd, discovered the medicinal virtues of the hot
springs of Bath, while noticing that his pigs which
bathed therein were cured of sundry diseases prevailing
among them.
The following epigram on King Bladud, who was
killed 844, B.C.,—father of King Leir, or Leal, d. 799,
B.C.,—was written by a clergyman of the name of Groves,
of Claverton:—
“When Bladud once espied some hogs
Lie wallowing in the steaming bogs,
Where issue forth those sulphurous springs,
Since honour’d by more potent kings,
Vex’d at the brutes alone possessing
What ought t’ have been a common blessing,
He drove them, thence in mighty wrath,
And built the mighty town of Bath.
The hogs thus banished by their prince,
Have lived in Bristol ever since.”
Many Lazar or Leper Houses were built in England
during the early part of the reign of William the
Norman, who founded several.
The medical writers of the 13th and 14th centuries,
which include the names of Theodoric, the monk,
a distinguished surgeon of Bologna; the celebrated
Lanfranc, of Milan and afterwards of Paris; Professor
Arnold Bachuone, of Barcelona, reputed in his day the
greatest physician in Spain; the famous French surgeon
Guy de Chauliac; Bernhard Gordon; and our own
countrymen Gilbert, c. 1270; John of Gaddesden,
Professor of Medicine in Merton College, Oxford, and
Court Physician to Edward II., minutely describe the
disease.
It was the custom in those affected days, when a
medical man or anyone wrote a book on medicine or a
medicinal subject, to call it either a “rose” or a “lily,”
as “Rosa Angelica,” “Lilium medecinæ.”
The following description of the malady is from the
Lilium medecinæ, by Bernhard Gordon, written about 1305
or 1309. He gives three stages or classes of the disease,
viz., the (1) occult, (2) the infallible, and (3) the last, or
terminating signs. None of these indications are laid
down in Leviticus for the guidance of the Jewish Priests.
(i.) “The occult premonitory signs of Leprosy are,
a reddish colour of the face, verging to duskiness; the
expiration begins to be changed, the voice grows hoarse,
the hairs become thinned and weaker, and the perspiration
and breath incline to fœtidity; the mind is
melancholic with frightful dreams and nightmare; in
some cases scabs, pustules, and eruptions break out over
the whole body; disposition of the body begins to
become loathsome, but still, while the form and figure
are not corrupted, the patient is not to be adjudged for
separation; but is to be most strictly watched.”
(ii.) “The infallible signs, are, enlargement of the
eyebrows, with loss of their hair; rotundity of the eyes;
swelling of the nostrils externally, and contraction of
them within; voice nasal; colour of the face glossy,
verging to a darkish hue; aspect of the face terrible,
and with a fixed look; with acumination or pointing and
contraction of the pulps of the ear. And there are
many other signs, as pustules and excrescences, atrophy
of the muscles, and particularly of those between the
thumb and forefinger; insensibility of the extremities;
fissures, and infections of the skin; the blood, when
drawn and washed, containing black, earthy, rough,
sandy matter. The above are those evident and manifest
signs, which, when they do appear, the patient ought to
be separated from the people, or, in other words, secluded
in a Lazar House.”
(iii.) “The signs of the last stage and breaking-up
of the disease, are, corrosion and falling-in of the cartilage
forming the septum of the nose; fissure and division of
the feet and hands; enlargement of the lips, and a
disposition to glandular swelling; dyspnœa and difficulty
of breathing; the voice hoarse and barking; the aspect
of the face frightful, and of a dark colour; the pulse
small, almost imperceptible.” Sometimes the limbs drop
off, piecemeal or in their entirety.
All the writers agree in urging most earnestly that
no one ought to be adjudged a Leper, unless there manifestly
appears a corruption of the figure, or, that state
indicated as signa infallibilia.
The period from its introduction into this country, as
far as we know, to its final or nearly final extinction, may
be embraced within the 10th and 16th centuries. It was
at the zenith of its height during the 11th, 12th, and
13th centuries. As early as A.D. 948 laws were enacted
with regard to Lepers in Wales by Howel Dda, the Good—the
great Welsh King, who died 948.
The enormous extent to which it prevailed during
that period may be gauged from the fact, that there were
above 200 Lazar Houses in England alone, probably
providing accommodation for 4,000 at least, and
this, at a time when the whole population of England
was only between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 of persons;
being something like two in every thousand.
I have been enabled to compile the following
English Lazar Houses, which is however far from being
a complete one. These Lazar Houses were founded
by the charitably disposed, and were usually under
ecclesiastical rule:—
| 1 Berkshire. | 1 Herefordshire | 4 Oxfordshire. |
| 2 Buckinghamshire. | 6 Hertfordshire. | 2 Shropshire. |
| 2 Cambridgeshire. | 1 Huntingdonshire. | 6 Somersetshire. |
| 3 Cornwall. | 15 Kent. | 3 Staffordshire. |
| 1 Cumberland. | 1 Lancashire. | 10 Suffolk. |
| 4 Derbyshire. | 2 Lincolnshire. | 1 Surrey. |
| 6 Devonshire. | 4 Leicestershire. | 6 Sussex. |
| 3 Dorsetshire. | 7 Middlesex. | 3 Warwickshire. |
| 2 Durham. | 22 Norfolk. | 4 Westmoreland. |
| 4 Essex. | 5 Northamptonshire. | 7 Wiltshire. |
| 6 Gloucestershire. | 3 Northumberland. | 1 Worcester. |
| 2 Hampshire. | 3 Nottinghamshire. | 20 Yorkshire. |
| Total:173 |
They were presumably under the rule of S. Austin
or Augustine.
Chalmers’ Caledonia states 9 hospitals existed in
the County of Berwick alone.
It is said that, by a Bull of Alexander III., exemption
from the payment of tithes was granted to all the
possessions of the Lazar Houses; this, however, does
not appear to have always been acted upon, at least in
this country, as at Canterbury, etc.
A Prior—usually a Leper—and a number of Priests
were attached to each house.
Where a chapel was not attached, the inmates
appear to have attended the parish church for service.
There was a special order of Knights founded very
early, in Jerusalem, united to the general order of the
Knights Hospitallers, whose especial province was to look
after the sick, particularly Lepers. They seem to have
separated from the Knights Hospitallers at the end of
the 11th, or beginning of the 12th centuries. They were
at first designated Knights of S. Lazarus, or, of SS.
Lazarus and Mary of Jerusalem, from the locality of
their original establishment, and from their central preceptory
being near Jerusalem. The Master or Prior of
the Superior Order was a Leper, that he might be more
in sympathy with his afflicted brethren. They were
afterwards united by different European princes, with
the Military Orders of Notre Dame and Mount Carmel,
and, in 1572 with that of S. Maurice. We first hear of
them in England, in the reign of King Stephen, when
they seem to have made their headquarters at Burton-Lazars,
near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, where a
rich and famous Lazar House was built by a general
subscription throughout the country, and greatly aided
by the munificence of Robert de Mowbray. The Lazar-houses
of S. Leonard’s, Sheffield; Tilton, in Leicestershire;
Holy Innocents’, Lincoln; S. Giles’, London;
SS. Mary and Erkemould, Ilford, Essex; and the preceptory
of Chosely, in Norfolk, besides many others, were
annexed to it, as cells containing fratres leprosos de Sancto
Lazaro de Jerusalem. The house received at least 35
different charters, confirmed by various sovereigns.
Camden in his Britannia, p. 447, says that “The masters
of all the smaller Lazar-houses in England, were in some
sort subject to the Master of Burton Lazars, as he himself
was, to the Master of the Lazars in Jerusalem.”
The rules of these Lazar-houses were very strict.
The inmates were allowed to walk within certain prescribed
limits only, generally a mile from the house.
They were forbidden to stay out all night, and were not
on any account permitted to enter the bakehouse, brewhouse,
and granary, excepting the brother in charge, and
he was not to dare to touch the bread and beer, since it
was “most unfitting that persons with such a malady,
should handle things appointed for the common use of
men.” A gallows was sometimes erected in front of the
houses, on which offenders were summarily despatched
from this world, for breach of the rules.
The comforts in these houses varied greatly as the
house was richly, or poorly endowed. At some of the
smaller ones, the inmates would seem to have depended
almost, if not entirely, on the precarious contributions of
the charitably disposed for their very sustenance. At
Beccles, in Suffolk, one of the Lepers of S. Mary Magdalene’s,
was by a royal grant empowered to beg on
behalf of himself and his brethren. Sometimes, these
poor and wretched outcasts would sit by the roadside,
with a dish placed on the opposite side, to receive the
alms of the good Samaritans that passed by, who would
give them as wide a berth as possible. The Lepers were
not allowed to speak to a stranger, lest they should contaminate
him with their breath. To attract attention,
they would clash their wooden clappers together.
In the larger and richer houses, the inmates were
well provided for. The account of the food supplied to
the inmates of the Lazar House of S. Julian, at S. Albans,
c. 1335-1349, is very curious:—“Let every Leprous
brother receive from the property of the Hospital for his
living and all necessaries, whatever he has been accustomed
to receive by the custom observed of old, in the
said Hospital, namely—Every week seven loaves, five
white, and two brown made from the grain as thrashed.
Every seventh month, fourteen gallons of beer, or 8d. for
the same. Let him have in addition, on the feasts of
All Saints, Holy Trinity, S. Julian, S. John the Baptist,
S. Albans, The Annunciation, Purification, Assumption,
and Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for each feast,
one loaf, one jar of beer, or 1d. for the same, and one
obolus[a] which is called the charity of the said Hospital;
also, let every Leprous brother receive, at the feast of
Christmas, forty gallons of good beer, or 40d. for the
same; two qrs. of pure and clean corn—which is called
the great charity; also at the Feast of S. Martin, each
Leper shall receive one pig from the common stall, or the
value in money, if he prefer it.” The pigs were selected
by each leper according to his seniority in having become
an inmate; also, each Leper shall receive on the Feast
of S. Valentine, for the whole of the ensuing year, one
quarter of oats; also, about the feast of S. John the
Baptist, two bushels of salt, or the current price;
also, on the feast of S. Julian, and at the feast of S.
Alban, one penny for the accustomed pittance; also, at
Easter, one penny, which is called by them ‘Flavvones-peni’;
also, on Ascension Day, one obolus for buying pot
herbs; also, on each Wednesday in Lent, bolted corn[b] of
the weight of one of their loaves; also, on the feast of
S. John the Baptist, 4s. for clothes; also, at Christmas,
let there be distributed in equal portions, amongst the
Leprous brethren, 14s. for their fuel through the year,
as has been ordained of old, for the sake of peace and
concord; also, by the bounty of Our Lord the King,
30s. 5d. have been assigned for ever for the use of the
Lepers, which sum, the Viscount of Hertford has to pay
them annually, at the feasts of Easter and Michaelmas.
At the Lazar House, dedicated in honour of “The
Blessed Virgin, Lazarus, and his two sisters Mary and
Martha,” at Sherburn, Durham, which accommodated no
less than 65 Lepers, a more varied, and at the same time
less complex dietary was in vogue. The daily allowance
was a loaf of bread weighing 5 marks[c] and a gallon of
ale to each; and betwixt every two, one mess[d] or commons
of flesh, three days in the week, and of fish, cheese, and
butter, on the remaining four. On high festivals, a
double mess, and in particular on the Feast of S. Cuthbert.
In Lent, fresh salmon, if it could be had, if not, other
fresh fish; and on Michaelmas Day, four messed on one
goose[e]. With fresh flesh, fish, or eggs, a measure of salt
was delivered. When fresh fish could not be had, red
herrings were served, three to a single mess; or cheese
and butter by weight; or three eggs. During Lent, each
had a razer of wheat to make furmenty[f], and two razers of
beans to boil; sometimes greens or onions; and every
day, except Sunday, the seventh part of a razer of bean
meal; but on Sundays, a measure-and-a-half of pulse
to make gruel. Red herrings were prohibited from
Pentecost to Michaelmas, and at the latter, each received
two razers of apples. They had a kitchen and cook in
common, with utensils for cooking, etc.:—A lead, two
brazen pots, a table, a large wooden vessel for washing,
or making wine, a laver, two ale[g] and two bathing vats.
The sick had fire and candles, and all necessaries, until
they became convalescent or died.
Each Leper received an annual allowance for his
clothing, three yards of woollen cloth, white or russet,
six yards of linen, and six of canvas. Four fires were
allowed for the whole community. From Michaelmas to
All Saints, they had two baskets of peat, on double mess
days; and four baskets daily, from All Saints to Easter.
On Christmas Day, they had four Yule logs each a cartload,
with four trusses of straw; four trusses of straw on
All Saints’ Eve, and Easter Eve; and four bundles of
rushes, on the Eves of Pentecost, S. John the Baptist,
and S. Mary Magdalene; and on the anniversary of
Martin de Sancta Cruce, every Leper received 5s. 5d. in
money.
This luxurious living was not without its leaven.
The rules of the House were strict, and enforced religious
duties on its inmates, of a most severe and austere
nature. All the Leprous brethren, whose health permitted,
were required daily to attend Matins, Nones,
Vespers, and Compline[h].
The bed-ridden sick were enjoined to raise themselves,
and say Matins in their bed; and for those who
were still weaker, “let them rest in peace.” During
Lent and Advent, all the brethren were required to
receive corporal discipline three days in the week, and
the sisters in like manner.
From the rules of the Lazar House of SS. Mary
and Erkemould, at Ilford in Essex, which accommodated
13 Lepers—we learn, in 1336, that the inmates
were ordered “to preserve silence, and, if able, to hear
Mass and Matins throughout, and whilst there, to be
intent on prayer and devotion. In the hospital, every
day, each shall say for morning duty a Pater-noster and
Ave Maria[i] thirteen times; and for the other hours of the
day—1st, 3rd, and 6th of Vespers; and again, at the hour
of concluding service, a Pater-noster and Ave Maria seven
times; besides the aforesaid prayers each Leper shall say
a Pater-noster and Ave Maria thirty times every day, for the
founder of the Hospital—the Abbess of Barking, 1190—the
Bishop of the place, all his benefactors, and all other
true believers, living or dead; and on the day on which
any one of their number departs from life, let each
Leprous brother say in addition, fifty Paters and Aves three
times, for the soul of the departed, and the souls of all
diseased believers.” Punishment was meted out to any
who neglected or shirked these duties.
Some of the Leper Houses in France excited the
jealousy and avarice of Phillip V., who caused many of
the inmates to be burned alive, in order that the fire
might purify at one and the same time, the infection of
the body and that of the soul, giving as an ostensible
reason for his fiendish barbarity, the absurd and baseless
allegation, that the Lepers had been bribed to commit
the detestable sin and horrible crime of poisoning the
wells, waters, etc., used by the Christians. The real
cause being a desire, through this flimsy excuse, to rob the
richer hospitals of their funds and possessions, this is
clearly manifest in the special wording of his own edict,
“that all the goods of the Lepers be lodged and held for
himself.” A similar persecution was renewed about 60
years afterwards, in 1388, under Charles VI. of France.
As soon as a man became a prey to the disease, his
doom on earth was finally and irrevocably sealed. The
laws, both civil and ecclesiastical, were awful in their
severity to the poor Leper; not only was he cut off from
the society of his fellow-men, and all family ties severed,
but, he was dead to the law, he could not inherit property,
or be a witness to any deed. According to English
law Lepers were classed with idiots, madmen, outlaws, etc.
The Church provided a service to be said over the
Leper on his entering a Lazar House[j]. The Priest duly
vested preceded by a cross, went to the abode of the
victim. He there began to exhort him to suffer with a
patient and penitent spirit the incurable plague with
which God had stricken him. Having sprinkled the
unfortunate Leper with Holy Water, he conducted him
to the Church, the while reading aloud the beginning of
the Burial Service. On his arrival there, he was stripped
of his clothes and enveloped in a pall, and then placed
between two trestles—like a corpse—before the Altar,
when the Libera was sung and the Mass for the Dead
celebrated over him.
After the service he was again sprinkled with Holy
Water, and led from thence to the Lazar House, destined
for his future, and final abode, here on earth.
A pair of clappers, a stick, a barrel, and a distinctive
dress were given to him. The costume comprised
a russet tunic[k], and upper tunic with hood cut from it,
so that the sleeves of the tunic were closed as far as
the hand, but not laced with knots or thread after the
secular fashion of the day. The upper tunic was to be
closed down to the ankles, and a close cape of black cloth
of the same length as the hood, for outside use.
A particular form of boot or shoe, laced high, was
also enjoined, and if these orders were disobeyed the
culprit was condemned to walk bare-footed, until the
Master, considering his humility said to him “enough.”
An oath of obedience and a promise to lead a moral and
abstemious life was required of every Leper on admission.
The Bishops of Rome from time to time issued Bulls,
with regard to the ecclesiastical separation and rights of
the afflicted.
Lepers were excluded from the city of London by
Act 20 Edward the III., 1346[l].
The Magistrates of Glasgow, in 1573, appeared to
have exercised some right of searching for Lepers.
Piers, the ploughman, makes frequent allusions to
“Lepers under the hedges.”
The Lazar Houses were often under the authority
of some neighbouring Abbey, or Monastery. Semler
quotes a Bull, issued by one of the Bishops of Rome,
appointing every Leper House to be provided with its
own burial ground and chapel; as also ecclesiastics; these
in the middle ages were probably the only physicians
of the body, as well as of the soul—some appear to have
devoted themselves as much to the study of medicine as
to that of theology.
It was customary in the mediæval times to address
the secular clergy as “Sir.”
The rank and status of any one, was no guarantee
against attacks from this dire disorder, with its fearful
ravages. Had the victims been confined, as it is generally
thought, to those who dwelt amid squalor, dirt and vice,
in close and confined dens, veritable hot beds for rearing
and propagating disease of every kind; we should not be
surprised, but should be entitled to assume, that to such
circumstances, in a very great measure might the origin
be expected to be found; but, when we find, that not only
was the scourge a visitant here, but, that it numbered
amongst the afflicted, members of some of the most
illustrious households in this kingdom, aye, even the
august monarchs themselves, the source from whence
Elephantiasis Græcorum—the malady not being contagious—first
originated must be sought for elsewhere.
First amongst our ancient and illustrious families,
we find—if he may be so classed—the case of S. Finian,
who died 675 or 695[m].
A nobleman of the South of England, whose name
unfortunately is not recorded, is reputed to have been
miraculously cured at the tomb of S. Cuthbert, at Durham,
1080[n].
A daughter of Mannasseh Bysset, a rich Wiltshire
gentleman, sewer[o] to Henry II., being a Leper, founded
the Lazar House at Maiden Bradley, dedicated to the
honour of the Blessed Virgin, “for poore leprous women”
and gave to it her share of the town of Kidderminster,
c. 1160. Mannasseh Bysset founded the Lazar House
dedicated in honour of S. James, Doncaster, for women,
c. 1160.
The celebrated Constance, Duchess of Brittany, who
was allied to the royal families of both England and
Scotland, being a grand-daughter of Malcolm III. of
Scotland, and the English Princess Margaret Atheling,
and also a descendant of a natural daughter of Henry I.
She died of Leprosy in the year 1201[p].
In 1203 in the King’s Court, a dispute was heard
respecting a piece of land in Sudton, Kent, between two
kinswomen—Mabel, daughter of William Fitz-Fulke, and
Alicia, the widow of Warine Fitz-Fulke. Among the
pleas, it was urged by Alicia, that Mabel had a brother,
and that his right to the land must exclude her claim,
whereupon Mabel answered that her brother was a Leper[q].
It was certified to King Edward I. in 1280, that
Adam of Gangy, deceased, of the county of Northumberland,
holding land of the King in chief, was unable to
repair to the King’s presence to do homage, being struck
with the Leprosy[r].
In the reign of Richard II. c. 1380, William, son of
Robert Blanchmains, being a Leper, founded the Lazar
House, dedicated in honour of S. Leonard, outside the
town of Leicester, to the north[s].
Richard Orange, a gentleman of noble parentage,
and Mayor of Exeter in 1454, was a Leper. In spite of
his great wealth he submitted himself to a residence in
the Lazar House of S. Mary Magdalene in that city,
where he died, and was buried in the chapel attached.
A mutilated inscription still remains over the spot where
he is interred[t].
Some of the Lazar Houses were specially endowed
for persons above the lower ranks who happened to
become affected with the disease. In 1491, Robert
Pigot gave by will to the Leper House of Walsingham, in
the Archdeaconry of Norwich, a house in, or near that
town, for the use of two Leprous persons “of good
families.”
Before considering the Royal Lepers, it will not be
out of place to mention the death of S. Fiacre from
Leprosy, in 665. He was the reputed son of Eugenius
IV., King of Scotland, and is canonised in the Roman
branch of the Church Catholic[u].
Amongst Royal Lepers, the case of Adelicia or
Adelais, daughter of Godfrey, Duke of Louraine, and niece
of Calextus II., Bishop of Rome, 1118; the second
Queen of Henry I. of England, and afterwards wife of
William de Albion, to whom she was tenderly attached;
stands first in order of state. Being stricken with
leprosy, she left him and entered a convent, where she
died of the disease, 1151. This reputed instance, it is
right to mention, requires confirmation. The above is
mentioned by a contributor to Notes and Queries, 7, S. viii.,
174, but no authority is given.
Baldwin IV., King of Jerusalem, a direct descendant
like the Royal Plantagenets of England, from Fulk,
Count of Anjou and Touraine, died of Leprosy in 1186,
leaving a child nephew to succeed him; the consequence
being, the loss of the Holy Land, and the triumph
of Saladin after eighty-eight years of the Christian
kingdom[v].
Henry III. is said to have been a Leper.
Edward the Black Prince, used to bathe in the
Holy Well at Harbledon, near Canterbury, for his
Leprosy, and Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, had a
licence at one time from the King of England to bathe
in the waters of S. Lazarus’ Well on Muswell Hill, near
where now stands the Alexandra Palace. The well belonged
to the Order of S. John, Clerkenwell, a hospital
order for Lepers. Three years before his death, he was
unable to undertake the command of the army in its descent
upon the northern counties of England, by reason of
his Leprosy, of which he died in 1329, at the age of 55[w].
Henry IV. King of England, was a Leper without
doubt[x].
Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI. of England,
is reputed, like her ancestor Baldwin IV., to have died a
Leper[y].
Louis the XIV., is said to have died of the disease
in 1715. It is also recorded, that in order to effect a
cure, recourse was had to a barbarous superstitious
custom, once unhappily common in Brazil, that of killing
several fine healthy children, eating their hearts, livers,
&c.; then washing in their blood, and annointing the
body with grease made from the remains. Let us at least
hope this impious and inhuman act is but “legend[z]”.
It is trusted that the fact has been established that
the Leprosy of the Bible, and of the Middle Ages, were
entirely different diseases. The only essential characteristics
in common being that both were cutaneous and
neither was contagious, excepting by innoculation by a
wound or a cut. Both were possibly hereditary, though
this is denied by some.
The Biblical Leprosy never ended in death, whereas
that of the Middle Ages always did. In one case there
was little suffering, in the other usually a great deal.
In one the isolation was temporary only, in the
other permanent.
The origin of the Mediæval Scourge is enshrouded in
impenetrable mystery. The cure is as enigmatical.
The late Father Damian, who gave his life to
ministration and alleviation of the sufferings of the
2,000 Lepers of Hawaii, in the island of Molakai, no
doubt caught the disease of which he died, owing to the
fact, that Lepers only handled and cooked the food,
kneaded and baked the bread, washed the clothes, etc.
The whole surroundings being Leprous, it is difficult to
see how the good Father could well have avoided contamination.
Still, the disease is not contagious if reasonable
precautions are taken.
Two remarkable meetings were held in London in
1889, under the presidency of His Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales. At the first one, held in Marlborough
House, June 17th, the Prince of Wales made the
startling and unwelcome announcement of the case of
Edward Yoxall, aged 64, who was carrying on his trade
as butcher, in the Metropolitan Meat Market, from
whence he was subsequently removed.
At the second meeting held in the rooms of the
Medical Society, Chandos Street, Cavendish Square,
two Lepers were exhibited. The verdict of the medical
men present was, “There is no curative treatment
of Leprosy.” Dr. Thornton, of the Leper Hospital
of Madras, said:—That his experience showed him
that Leprosy was contagious, and that it was likely to
spread to this country; that the disease, however, could
rarely, if ever, be communicated, except in the case of a
healthy person by an abraded skin, coming in contact
with a Leper. “The sufferings of the afflicted can be
alleviated by (1) a liberal diet; (2) oleaginous anointings,
by which the loss of sleep, one of the most distressing
symptoms of the disease, can be prevented.”
The Rev. Father Ignatius Grant called my attention
to the use of “simples” in England, as elsewhere, for
the alleviation of the suffering. He says, “Les Capitulaires,
Legislatio domestica, of Charlemagne, contains the
enumeration of the sorts of fruit trees and plants to be
grown in the Imperial gardens, as a guide to monastic
establishments throughout his empire. The list is entirely
of culinary and medicinal herbs, simples and vegetables.
As to flowers, only the lily and the rose are permitted for
agrément; whilst all the rest are for food or medicinal
remedies. All the common simples are specified.
“Herein is a mine of information, which I only
allude to, but it was doubtless the plan followed by most
religious houses. For one thing is clear, that as the monastic
gardens were all arranged on a certain and utilitarian
method, there is an antecedent probability of a consequent
fact. That fact is, that we shall find out if we
examine the purlieus of our own ruined abbeys, many
a plant medicinal or culinary which has reset itself and
persisted in its original locale for four centuries, though
its original native earth and climate was not that of
England.
“Such herbs proper for making salves and lotions
are plentifully mentioned in part i. 301-455 of Ducange,
v. areola florarium, lilietum, &c., and there is a catalogue of
des plus excellentes fruits qui se cultivent chez les Chartreux
(Paris, 1752.) Also, as a specimen of this sort of
“find,” the Woolhope Natural Club found the valuable
medicinal plant asarabica (asarum Europeum) in the forest
of Deerfold, having wandered from the old abbey garden,
and perpetuated itself for ages. This one instance shows
how the old gardeners had introduced foreign plants into
their wort-beds.
“Many writers have told me, he goes on to observe,
but especially a Franciscan Father of the Holy Land and
two Franciscan Sisters from a hospital at Vialas (Lazére)
par Génalhac, that—
“1. They use elm bark for cutaneous eruptions,
herpes, and lepra. Four ounces of the bark boiled in
decoction in two quarts of water down to one quart.
That half a pint given twice a day has made inveterate
eruptions of lepra, both dry and humid, to disappear.
“2. The rose burdock—lappa rosea—they give in
cases of lepra icthyosis, and it has succeeded where other
remedies had failed.
“3. They have used also the root of the mulberry-tree.
Half a dram of the powder to a dose.
“4. Lapathum bononicense, or fiddle-dock, and also
the dwarf trefoil—trefolium pusillum.
“The following is the list of simples which I obtained
from the Lazar-house still existing in Provence, les Alpes
Maritimes, and from that in Cyprus, and especially
Nicosia, as also from the well-known Leper hospital in
Provence:
“Food, baths, and oleaginous applications stand first.
Then some preparation of the following ordinary simples,
which were most known among our own common people,
and which are still used in various parts of England by
simple folk for skin diseases and sores. You will see
how they entered into the monastic pharmacopœia of
the middle ages, how they were at their doors, and especially
cultivated in monastery gardens.
“1. Plantain—plantago major. Qualities: alterative,
diuretic, antiseptic. For scrofulous and cutaneous affections.
It has also the property of destroying living
microscopical matter in or on the human body. The
Negro Casta, who discovered this herb, afterwards, as a
remedy against the deadly bite of the rattlesnake, received
a considerable reward from the Assembly of South Carolina.
It is a native of most parts of Europe and Asia,
as also of Japan. Plantain stands in the forefront of all
the cartels des hospitalières.
“2. Yellow dock—rumex. Alterative, tonic, astringent,
detergent, and anti-scorbutic. Employed in scrofula,
Leprosy, cutaneous diseases, and purigo, and that
with much effect.
“3. Sorrel—rumex ascetocella. Employed locally to
cancers, tumours, and the open wounds of the Leper.
“4. Burdock—arctenus lappa. Aperient, sudorific,
and diuretic. Employed in venereal and Leprous disorders,
scrofula, and scurvy. Fluid extract of lappa is
exhibited even now to lepers. Dose, ½ to 1 dram.
“5. Monk’s rhubarb—rumex alpinus. Used for the
same purposes as true rhubarb.
“6. Lily roots. This ancient remedy is in all the
books to which the Franciscan Fathers of the Holy Land
have access, and comes down from Pliny and Dioscorides.
“Effugant lepras lilium radices.” (Plin.)
“7. Common wormwood—absinthium vulgare, artemisia.
“8. Daffodil—narcissus purpurens et narcissus croceus,
called so from torpor. The oleum narcissenum et unguentum
is found in all hospital books, and comes down from
Pliny, 2, 19: “Narcissi duogenera medici usu recipiunt.”
For Leprosy and cutaneous eruptions called mala scabies.
This was what Canon Bethune calls les calmantes. Of this
flower, I may say that eight out of ten monastic ruins
in England abound with it, to such a degree that one
cannot but conclude that it was set there of old, that
it was cultivated for some purpose, and has reset and
reproduced itself for centuries. Father Birch, S.J.,
confirms this in regard to Roche Abbey—de Rocca—an
old Premonstratensian house, in Derbyshire, to which
people come from afar to see the daffodils, which make
of the purlieus of the abbey one great tapis jaune (sic.),
but a carpet varied by every sort of English spring
flowers.
“9. Scurvy grass—cochlearia officinalis—has long been
considered, at Nicosia, Cyprus, and elsewhere, as the
most effectual of all the anti-scorbutic plants. It grows
in high latitudes, where scurvy is most obnoxious. Not
only religious (sic.) and physicians, but sailors speak
highly of it.
“10. The sedum acre—wall stone-crop. Used by
nuns in Provence for ulcers and leprous eruptions. It
is boiled in six pints of milk until reduced to three or
four pints. For fungous flesh, it promotes discharge,
and destroys both gangrenes and carbuncles. This is
found in abundance on the cottage roofs about Melton
Mowbray and Burton-Lazars.
“11. Celandine—chelidonium. Tintern Abbey, about
Whitsuntide, is one large white tapestry of celandine.
When I visited Tintern, I was struck by the lush clustering
growth of this flower in 1885. An old legend
says that it is so called because the swallow cures the
eyes of its young of blindness by application of this herb.
“Certainly,” says P. Xavier, Franciscan of the Holy
Land, “it makes a good lotion for the eyes of the Leper,
and is often used by us in France.”
“If I were to add here the history of the quinquina, or
Jesuit’s bark—is it not told us that the lions drank of a
well into which chincona had fallen, and thus suggested
the useful Jesuits’ bark, or quinine?—it would take me
into the seventeenth century, and be a little out of my
track; but one word must be added on the girjan oil, the
dipterocarpus of quite modern days, which seems to have
great vogue in Barbadoes. This I do because it is the
product of a magnificent tropical tree, and the hospitals
did not forget in the treatment of Leprosy the use of
common trees.”
Isolation is the only known effectual way of stamping
out the disease, by its means was the great diminution in
the numbers of victims affected here, by the end of the
14th century, and the almost total and complete extinction
of it in the middle of the 16th century, 1560.
In 1350 at S. Julian’s Lazar House, S. Alban’s it is
recorded that “the number of Lepers had so diminished,
their maintenance was below the revenue of the institution;
there are not now above three, sometimes only
two, occasionally only one.”
In 1520 the Lazar House of S. Mary Magdalene,
Ripon, founded in 1139, by Archbishop Thurstan, for the
relief of the Lepers of the whole district, contained only
two priests and five poor people to pray for all “Christen
sowlez.” Some parts of this Hospital, including the
chapel and its altar in situ, remain.
In 1553 at the Lazar House of SS. Mary and
Erkemould, Ilford, Essex, founded by the Abbess of
Barking, c. 1190, it is recorded that “instead of 13
pore men beying Lepers, two pryest, and one clerke
thereof there is at this day but one pryest and two pore
men.”
In Scotland the disease lingered till the middle of
last century. A day for public thanksgiving for the
supposed total deliverance of that country from the
scourge of Leprosy, was enjoined, in 1742. The disease
however was not quite extinct there; it may be now.
We are told at the present day, there are 123,924
Lepers in Hawaii; and in India not less than 250,000,
or a quarter of a million. There are also large numbers
in Barbadoes, and in the Sandwich Islands.
A striking and recent proof of the efficacy of isolation
is seen in the fact, that in Norway there were 2,000
Lepers in 1867. That number has now been reduced
to 700.
There are probably not more than 20 Lepers in
England at the present day.
In the February number of the Monthly Record of
the Association in aid of the Bishop of Capetown, is a
short account of the Lepers on Robben Island, to whom
Her gracious Majesty the Queen has graciously sent two
photographs of herself, which we are informed will be
much appreciated, probably a great deal more, than the
superabundance of scientific literature which is sent for
their delectation, not a word of which can they read,
much less understand. They are also surfeited, we are
told, by no small numbers of copies of that book, so dear
and so well known, to all Cambridge undergraduates,
Paleys’ Evidences of Christianity. It would have been
more considerate had the munificent benefactors sent
the lighter edition of the writer’s great work, familiarly
known as Paley’s Ghost.
There is just one other subject to mention, namely
the common error that the low narrow windows often
seen in our older parish churches, were to enable
the Leper to hear the service, and to receive the Eucharist,
said to have been handed out to him. In support
of this we have but guess-work; of proof, there is none.
In concluding, it will not fail to be interesting, to
quote a few words from so eminent an authority as Sir
Risdon Bennett, M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.S., ex-President of
the Royal College of Physicians:—“If we adopt the
view that Leprosy is another instance of disease induced
by the presence of a particular microbe or bacillus, as in
so many other diseases now the subject of absorbing
interest to both the professional and the non-professional
public, we may account for most of the facts adduced in
support of the various theories; especially if we admit
that there is reason to believe that such microbes, or
self-propagating infecting agents, vary greatly in the
rapidity with which they permeate the body. For all
observers allow, that as a rule true leprosy is a disease of
very slow development. In the Middle Ages it is certain
that the belief in the contagion of the true leprosy was very
general, both among physicians and the common people;
but it is also true that as medical science advanced, and
the diagnosis of disease became more definite and reliable,
this opinion lost ground, and was at length abandoned.”
The efforts being made by the “Missions to Lepers
in India” cannot be too strongly commended to the
benevolently inclined. The Asylums or Lazar Houses at
Almora, Dara, and elsewhere, in India, are entirely supported
by this society, which has under its care above
100 Lepers, at the cost of only about £6 per annum for
each adult.
If I have awakened an interest in this remarkable
and unique subject, and at the same time, above all,
excited a stronger feeling of sympathy for our brothers
and sisters suffering at the present time from the disease—a
living death—in various portions of the globe,
my humble efforts will not have been in vain.