Number of Inmates in Leper Hospitals.
A passage in the will of “old John of Gaunt, time-honour’d Lancaster,” in 1398, seems to support the opinion expressed at p. [18], that the leper hospitals in general did not contain many patients.—“Item, jeo devise a chescun maison de lepres deinz v. lieues entour Londres charges de v. malades, v. nobles en l’onur des v. plaies principalx de Nostre Seigneur, et a ceux qi sont meyns charges, trois nobles en l’onur de la Benoit Trinite.”—(Testamenta Eboracensia, vol. i. p. 227; Lond. 1836. Surtees Soc.)
Dates of the Appearance of Leprosy in Great Britain.
Ireland.—Ireland is excluded from consideration, else proof of the existence of leprosy in that island in the end of the seventh century might be adduced. St. Finan, a native of Munster, who died between 675 and 695, “was surnamed Lobhar, or the Leper, from his having been afflicted for thirty years of his life with some cutaneous disorder.”—(Dr. Lanigan’s Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, vol. iii. pp. 83-88; Dublin, 1822.)
England.—As to England, says Mr. Albert Way, “it has been affirmed that leprosy was brought into Europe by the Crusaders; in the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, however, which has been attributed to Aelfric, occurs the word ‘Leprosus = hreofliz, oððe, licðrowera,’ Jul. A, II. f. 123.”—(Promptorium Parvulorum, vol. i. p. 297; Lond. 1843. Camden Soc.)
To the instances given by Sir James Simpson, Part I., p. [39], of the occurrence of leprosy in England before the first Crusade, may be added the case of a noble Englishman of the south of England—nobili viro sed leproso—miraculously cured at the tomb of St. Cuthbert at Durham, as related by Reginald of Durham from the recital of a fellow-monk, Turold—“qui se hæc audisse a veteranis canonicis asseruit, in quorum presentia et aspectu hoc gestum fuit.” The canons here spoken of were ejected from Durham in 1083—thirteen years before the first Crusade. Reginald of Durham wrote before 1195. He speaks of the disease thus:—“Accidit ut lepræ morbum passim eam enutriendo incurreret, ita ut, modico interposito tempore, tota vultus illius superficies horribilis videntibus appareret. Suis etiam quandoque, sanie ulcerum difluente, factus est evitabilis; et in consortii communione nonnullis effectus intolerabilis.” Yet, when he journeyed from the south of England to the tomb of St. Cuthbert he was “nobilibus juvenum ministrantium, amicorum et parentum, constipatus agminibus.”—(Reginaldi Dunelmensis Libbellus de Beati Cuthberti Virtutibus, cap. xix. pp. 37-41; Lond. 1835. Surtees Soc.)
The disease was probably not unknown among the Anglo-Saxons, yet the silence of their laws (the word Leper is not to be found in the index to Thorpe’s Collection) with regard to it, contrasts strongly with the frequent enactments for its prevention in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries both in England and Scotland, and (if we allow the Welsh laws the antiquity which is claimed for them) in the tenth and eleventh centuries in Wales. May not the anomaly be explained by supposing that the disease broke out with new severity about the beginning of the twelfth century?
Scotland.—No trace of leprosy is to be found in Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba, written in the seventh century. But of one of St. Columba’s contemporaries—St. Kentigern of Glasgow, who died about 600—it is related that in that city he cleansed lepers—“mundabat leprosos.” These are the words of his biographer, Joceline of Furnes, who wrote towards the end of the twelfth century.—(Vit. S. Kentigerni, cap. xxxiv.; Pinkert. Vit. Antiq. Sanct. Scotiæ, p. 270.) The same biographer relates that at St. Kentigern’s tomb in Glasgow lepers were cured—“leprosis cutis munditia restituitur.”—(Vit. S. Kentigerni, cap. xliv.; Pinkert. Vit. Antiq. SS. Scot., p. 295.)
So also it is related of St. Boniface of Rosemarky, who appears to have flourished in the beginning of the eighth century, that he cleansed lepers—“leprosos mundabat.” These are the words of the Breviary of Aberdeen (Proprium Sanctorum pro tempore hyemali, fol. lxx.), printed in 1510, but quoting and using older materials.
St. Aelred of Rievaux, who died in 1166, relates that lepers were cleansed at the tomb of St. Ninian at Whithern in Galloway—“ad ejus namque sacratissimum tumulum curantur infirmi, mundantur leprosi.”—(Vit. S. Ninian, cap. xi.) He mentions specially two cases:—