[155] Chronicon de Lanercost (Bannatyne Club, p. 259): “Dominus autem Robertus de Brus, quia factus fuerat leprosus, illa vice [anno 1327] cum eis Angliam non intravit.” The rubric on folio 228 of the MS. has “leprosus moritur.”
[156] The original account is by Gascoigne, Loci etc. ed. Rogers, Oxon. p. 228.
[157] “Item matrimonium inter dominum regem et quandam nobilem mulierem nequiter impedivit, dum clanculo significavit eidem mulieri et suo generi, quod rex strabo et fatuus nequamque fuerat, et speciem leprae habere, fallaxque fuerat et perjurus, imbellis plusquam mulier, in suos tantum sacvientem, et prorsus inutilem complexibus alicujus ingenuae mulieris asserendo.” Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj., Rolls ed., III. 618-19.
[158] Chronicon Angliae in Twysden, col. 2600.
[159] Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker, edited by E. Maunde Thompson. Oxford, 1889, p. 100.
[160] Professor Robertson Smith has kindly written for me the following note: “The later Jews were given to shorten proper names; and in the Talmud we find the shortening La‘zar (with a guttural, which the Greeks could not pronounce, between the a and the z), for Eliezer or Eleazar. Λάζαρος is simply La‘zar with a Greek ending, and occurs, as a man’s name, not only in the New Testament but in Josephus (B. Jud. V. 13, 7). This was quite understood by early readers of the Gospels; the Syriac New Testament, translated from the Greek, restores the lost guttural, and uses the Syriac form, as employed in 1 Macc. viii. 17 to render the Greek ’Ελάζαρος. Moreover the Latin and Greek onomastica explain Lazarus as meaning ‘adjutus,’ which shows that they took it from (Hebrew) ‘to help’—the second element in the compound Eliezer. The etymology ‘adjutus’ (or the like) ‘helped by God,’ would no doubt powerfully assist in the choice of the designation lazars (for lepers). Suicer, in his Thesaurus, quotes a sermon of Theophanes, where it is suggested that every poor man who needs help from those who have means might be called a Lazarus.”
Hirsch (Geog. and Hist. Path. II. 3) says that the Arabic word for the falling sickness comes from the same root (meaning “thrown to the ground”) as the Hebrew word “sâraat,” which is the term translated “leprosy” in Leviticus xiii. and xiv. In Isaiah liii. 4, the Vulgate has “et nos putavimus eum quasi leprosum,” where the English Bible has “yet we did esteem him stricken.”
[161] Roger of Howden. Edited by Stubbs. Rolls series, No. 51, vol. I. p. 110. Aelred, the chief collector of the miraculous cures by Edward the Confessor, appears to have omitted this one.
[162] Ailredi Abbatis Rievallensis Genealogia Regum Anglorum. In Twysden’s Decem Scriptores, col. 368. “Cum, inquit [David], adolescens in curia regia [Anglica] servirem, nocte quadam in hospicio meo cum sociis meis nescio quid agens, ad thalamum reginae ab ipsa vocatus accessi. Et ecce domus plena leprosis, et regina in medio stans, deposito pallio, lintheo se precinxit, et posita in pelvi aqua, coepit lavare pedes eorum, et extergere, extersosque utrisque constringere manibus et devotissime osculari. Cui ego: ‘Quid agis,’ inquam, ‘O domina mea? Certe si rex sciret ista, nunquam dignaretur os tuum, leprosorum pedum tabe pollutum, suis labiis osculari.’ Et illa surridens ait: ‘Pedes,’ inquit, ‘Regis aeterni quis nescit labiis regis morituri esse praeferendos? Ecce, ego idcirco vocavi te, frater carissime, ut exemplo mei talia discas operari. Sumpta proinde pelvi, fac quod me facere intueris.’ Ad hanc vocem vehementer expavi, et nullo modo id me pati posse respondi. Necdum enim sciebam Dominum, nec revelatus fuerat mihi Spiritus ejus. Illa igitur coeptis insistente, ego—mea culpa—ridens ad socios remeavi.”
[163] Vita S. Hugonis Lincolnensis. Rolls series, 39, p. 163-4.