Observe how literally the situation of the leper-house, as described in the language of record “ad finem burgi,” answers to Henryson’s phrase—“yone hospitall at the tounis end.”
Leper Hospital of Aberdeen.
The leper hospital of Aberdeen was in existence before 1363. A charter of that year describes certain lands as bounded by the king’s highway leading from the burgh of Aberdeen versus domos Leprosorum; and again a domibus dictorum Leprosorum.—(Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis, vol. ii. p. 283.)
The use of the plural domos and domibus may possibly denote that there were two hospitals, as at Canterbury and elsewhere—one for men and one for women.
The Regent and the Privy Council interposed for the repair or restoration of the leper hospital of Aberdeen in 1574; in 1578 it was placed under the charge of a master; and in 1591 there were patients in it.—(Selections from Ecclesiastical Records of Aberdeen, pp. 20, 23. Aberd. 1846, Spald. Club.—Extracts from the Burgh Records of Aberdeen, 1570-1625, pp. 70, 71. Aberd. 1848, Spald. Club. Book of Bon Accord, p. 342.) There would seem to have been an outbreak of leprosy in Scotland about this time. It was in 1584 that the Magistrates of Edinburgh issued orders for finding a commodious place for a leper-house; in 1589 a leper-house was ordered to be built; and in 1591 there were five patients in it. (Sir James Simpson’s Paper, Part I. p. 11.) So also in Glasgow, in 1586 the Kirk-Session of Glasgow gave orders that “the Lepper Folk’s House or Spittal beyond the Bridge” should be visited, “to see how the same should be reformed.” These orders were renewed in 1587; in 1588 “the yard of the Lepper House” was built; and in 1589 six lepers are found in the Hospital. (Wodrow’s Biographical Collections, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 40, 41. Sir James Simpson’s Paper, Part I. p. 10.) In 1593, “the Lepper House [of Glasgow] was charged to receive none but townsfolks, and all Leppers were banished the town;” and in 1594 the Kirk-Session “beseeches the magistrates to put all Leppers out of toun, for fear of infection.”—(Wodrow’s Biographical Collections, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 40, 41.)
If there were really a new access of leprosy in Scotland about 1580-1590, the disease seems speedily to have abated, at least in Aberdeen. In 1604, when a female leper applied for admission, “the Keys of the Hospital” were given to her, showing that the place was then empty and locked up.—(Selections from the Ecclesiastical Records of Aberdeen, p. 34.) In May 1610 it was ordered that two merks should be given by the Kirk-Session “to the Lepper woman laitlie put in the Lepper Hous, becaus she will not gett any of the rent of the said Hous till Martenes next;” denoting, apparently, that there was but one leper in the hospital at this time.—(Selections from the Ecclesiastical Records of Aberdeen, pp. 73, 74.) In 1612, a female leper, “being expellit furth of this toun, as ane not meit to dwell within the same,” is allowed to take up her abode in the leper-house, although “sche be not borne and bred within this burght.”—(Extracts from the Burgh Records of Aberdeen, vol. ii. (1570-1625), p. 308.) I do not observe record of any later patient. Fifty years afterwards, in 1661, both the leper hospital and its chapel (erected in 1519) were ruined if not razed to the ground, “and scarcelie is the name knowne to many.”—(Gordon’s Description of Bothe Touns of Aberdeene, pp. 18, 19. Aberd. 1842, Spald. Club.)
Mr. Albert Way, in the Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 298, says—“Heutzner, who visited England during the reign of Elizabeth, speaks of the English as very subject to the disease of leprosy.” I have not Heutzner’s book at hand, but it might be looked at to see if he speaks of leprosy being prevalent in England so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Leper House of Rathven.
The date of the first charter now extant of the leper-house at Rothfan (now Rathven) in the Enzie, was between the years 1224 and 1226, as can be shown from the list of witnesses who attest it. It may be remarked that the founder, John Bisset, is believed to have been a kinsman of that Manaser Bisset, sewer to King Henry II. of England, who founded the leper hospital of Mayden Bradley in Wilts, and whose wife Alice, an heiress, is said to have been herself a leper.—(Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. vi. part ii. p. 643, edit. ult.)