As early as the twelfth century France knew the mal malin or mal boubil, an affection characterized by sores and ulcerations on the arms and genital organs. Gauthier de Coinci, Prior of the Abbey of St. Medard de Soissons, at the beginning of the thirteenth century considered these maladies as impure and contagious, and warned his priests in the following verselets:
“The monk, the church clerk and the priest
Must not defile themselves the least,
But with good conscience and pure heart
Keep their hands off from private part.
Pray God at morning and at night
To hide corruption from their sight;
The mal boubil the mal malan
Comes ever to each sinning man.”