(i) THE LEPER HOUSEHOLD
(a) The Master.—“The guidance of souls is the art of arts,” says St. Gregory: particularly difficult is the guidance of souls in ailing bodies. Lanfranc realized that men of special gifts should be selected for the care of his Harbledown lepers. He not only arranged to supply all they might need on account of the nature of their illness, but appointed men to fulfil this work “of whose skill, gentleness and patience no one could have any doubt.” The Oxford statutes ordained that the master be “a compassionate priest of good life and conversation, who shall reside personally and shall celebrate mass daily, humbly and devoutly.” He was required to visit the infirm, to console them as far as possible, and confer upon them the Sacraments of the Church.[88] The priest p144 serving lepers was permitted to dispense rites which did not pertain to other unbeneficed clergy; thus the Bishop of London commanded the lepers’ chaplain at Ilford to hear their confessions, to absolve the contrite, to administer the Eucharist and Extreme Unction. The ideal man to fill the unpleasant post of lepers’ guardian as pictured in foundation deeds and statutes was hard to find: men of the type of St. Hugh and Father Damien—separated indeed by seven centuries, but alike in devotion—are rare. Two Archbishops of Canterbury witness to the scarcity in a deed referring to Harbledown (1371, 1402). After stating that clergy are required to celebrate the divine offices in St. Nicholas’ Church, the document declares:—
“It may be at present, and very likely will be in future, difficult to find suitable stipendiary priests who shall be willing to have intercourse in this way with the poor people, especially as some of these poor are infected with leprosy; and this hospital was founded especially for sick persons of this sort.”
The master might himself be a leper. An inquisition of 1223 showed that at St. Leonard’s, Lancaster, it had formerly been customary for the brethren to elect one of the lepers as master.[89] In 1342 the prior of St. Bartholomew’s, Rochester, was a leper. The regulations at Ilford provided for a leper-master and secular master, but those of Dover merely said that the master may be a leper. Although the law offered privileges to communities governed by a leper-warden (see p. [196]), it does not appear to have been a common custom to appoint one. In hospitals dependent upon a monastery, some monk was selected to superintend the lazar-house.
(b) The Staff.—It has been said that leper-hospitals p145 were “heavily staffed with ecclesiastics.” There were indeed three at Lincoln, Ilford and Bolton to minister to ten or twelve men, but they conducted the temporal as well as spiritual affairs of the society. At Bolton, for example, the priests had to administer the manor which was held by the hospital. It was more usual to have only one chaplain in a household of thirteen. This was a favourite number, the figure being regarded with reverence as suggestive of the sacred band of Christ and His Apostles: “for thirteen is a convent as I guess,” writes Chaucer. There were to be at Sherburn “five convents of lepers, that is of the number of sixty-five at the least”; five priests ministered to them, of whom one acted as confessor, and used also to visit the bedridden and read the Gospel of the day to them.
The collection of alms also fell upon the staff, for as it was said at Bridport “lepers cannot ask and gather for themselves.” The procurator or proctor therefore transacted their business. It was ordained at St. Bartholomew’s, Oxford, that the clerk serving in the chapel should collect alms and rents and act as proctor. The staff sometimes included other untainted persons. Two healthy brethren at this Oxford leper-house were to be skilled agricultural labourers, able also to make enclosures and cover houses.
(c) Attendants.—Domestic and farm service was also done by paid attendants. There were female-servants in the Sherburn leper-house, who undertook laundry and other work, and one old woman cared for the bedridden.
(d) Leper Inmates.—Among the larger asylums, the approximate accommodation was as follows:—Harbledown 100, Sherburn 65, St. Giles’, London 40, St. Nicholas’, p146 York 40, Thanington near Canterbury 25, Dover 20, Plymouth 20, Bodmin 19, Winchester 18. There were 13 beds at Carlisle, Exeter, Gloucester, Reading, etc. In some towns there were several small hospitals. Numbers were of course liable to fluctuation, and often apply to a company of infected and healthy persons, as at St. Nicholas’, York. “They used to have, and ought to have, forty brethren and sisters, as well lepers as others; now they have thirty-two only.” (1285.) By an inquisition taken in 1291, it was reported that a former master had admitted thirty-six, of whom four were received pro Deo because they were lepers, but the rest for money. The king commanded that henceforth none should be received without special mandate, inasmuch as the funds scarcely sufficed for the multitude already maintained. The same abuse is noticeable a century earlier, for in 1164 Pope Alexander III forbade the patrons of St. James’, Thanington, to admit into the sisterhood any who were not infected, for healthy women had been importunately begging admission.[90] It was complained in 1321, that St. Bartholomew’s, Oxford, was occupied by healthy and sturdy men; and that at St. Leonard’s, Lancaster, there were six whole and three lepers (1323). Both were originally intended solely for the diseased, the inmates of St. Leonard’s being called by Henry III “our lepers of Lancaster.”
It has been represented, as a proof that isolation was non-existent, that lepers and untainted persons lived a common life, eating and sleeping together. This was evidently not the case. The sheriff of Lincoln received orders that at Holy Innocents’ “the chaplains and brethren are to reside in one house, the lepers by p147 themselves and the sisters by themselves.”[91] The statutes at Ilford and Dover give similar directions. The priests at Sherburn slept apart in a chamber adjoining the church, but the Harbledown staff lacked such accommodation until in 1371 it was ordained that they should henceforth dwell in a clergy-house—“a home separate from the sick persons and near to them.”
[♦ ] 24. SEAL OF THE LEPER-WOMEN OF WESTMINSTER
When both sexes were admitted, they lived apart, a woman with the title of prioress being selected to rule the female community. Some houses were set apart for women, e.g. Alkmonton, Thanington, Bristol (St. Mary Magdalene), Newbury (St. Mary Magdalene), Bury (St. Petronilla), Woodstock, Clattercot, Hungerford, Arundel, Westminster, whilst one left behind it the name of “Maiden” Bradley. It sometimes happened that a married couple contracted the disease. A clerk smitten with leprosy and his wife with the same infirmity were seeking admission to St. Margaret’s, Huntingdon, in 1327. By the Ilford statutes, no married man was admitted unless his wife also vowed chastity. On no account was a married person received at Dover without the consent of the party remaining in seculo, and then only upon similar conditions. In this connection a passing reference may be made to the marriage laws. Although by the laws of the Franks leprosy was a valid reason for p148 divorce, later Norman laws considered separation unjustifiable; this latter was the attitude of the Church, which is given fully in the Appendix to the Lateran Council of 1179.[92] Yet the pathos of the leper’s lot is suggested by the declaration of Amicia, a woman of Kent in 1254—that in truth at one time she had a certain Robert for husband, but that now he had long been a leper and betook himself to a certain religious house, to wit, the leper-hospital at Romney.[93]
For many reasons the leper-household was most difficult to control: it is small wonder that abuses crept in. Men forcibly banished were naturally loth to submit to rigorous discipline. They were persons who would never have dreamed of the religious life save by pressure of circumstances; moreover, the nature of their infirmity caused them to suffer from bodily lassitude, irritability and a mental depression bordering upon insanity; in the life of St. Francis is a description of his ministry to a leper so froward, impious, abusive and ungrateful that every one thought him possessed by an evil spirit. London lepers were evidently not less refractory. From early days the city selected two men as keepers and overseers at St. Giles’, the Loke and Hackney; these officials, who were accustomed to visit the lazar-houses daily and to chastise offenders, were granted exemption from inquests, summonses, etc., on account of this “their meritorious labour, their unpleasant and onerous occupation.” (1389.) The London edict of 1346 confirms the undoubted fact that lepers are specially tempted to a loose life. Banished from the restraining influences of home and public opinion, they p149 were found in haunts of vice. The master of the lazar-house had no means of enforcing control. If the leper escaped and fell into evil habits none could prevent it: indeed, this did but ensure the liberty he craved, for the ultimate punishment of inmates was expulsion.