[193] These are all the so-called “medieval leper-hospitals” collected by Belcher (Dubl. Quart. Journ. of Med. Sc. 1868, August, p. 36) chiefly from Archdall’s Monasticon Hibernicum. He points out that the very early references to leprosy in the Annals of the Four Masters included various kinds of cutaneous maladies.
[194] Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis. Rolls series, 1886, p. 157. The chronicler has nothing farther to say as to the cause of the leprosy, than the opinion of “a certain philosopher,” that whatever turns us from health to the vices of disease acts by the weight of too much blood, by superfluous heat, by humours exuding in excess, or by the spirits flowing with unwonted laxity through silent passages.
[195] Eadmer, Vita S. Anselmi, Rolls edit., p. 355.
[196] Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum, Rolls edit. II. Appendix C. p. 503.
[197] Brassac, Art. “Éléphantiasis,” in Dict. Encycl. des Sc. Méd. p. 475, says: “Il y avait aussi des vagabonds et des paresseux qui, sans nulle crainte de la contagion, et désireux de vivre sans rien faire, simulaient la lèpre pour être admis aux léproseries. On y trouvait encore des personnes qui s’imposaient une réclusion perpétuelle pour vivre avec les lépreux et faire leur salut par une vie de soumission aux règles de l’Église.”
[198] The ordinance is translated in full from the City archives by H. T. Riley, London in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, pp. 230-231. The following is the preamble of it:—
“Edward, by the grace of God, etc. Forasmuch as we have been given to understand that many persons, as well of the city aforesaid as others coming to the said city, being smitten with the blemish of leprosy, do publicly dwell among the other citizens and sound persons, and there continually abide and do not hesitate to communicate with them, as well in public places as in private; and that some of them, endeavouring to contaminate others with that abominable blemish (that so, to their own wretched solace, they may have the more fellows in suffering,) as well in the way of mutual communications, and by the contagion of their polluted breath, as by carnal intercourse with women in stews and other secret places, detestably frequenting the same, do so taint persons who are sound, both male and female, to the great injury of the people dwelling in the city aforesaid, and the manifest peril of other persons to the same city resorting:—We” etc.
[199] Riley, p. 384.
[200] Dialogue of the Fever Pestilence. Early Eng. Text Soc.
[201] Riley, p. 365.