As soon as a man became a prey to the disease, his doom on earth was finally and irrevocably sealed. The laws, both civil and ecclesiastical, were awful in their severity to the poor Leper; not only was he cut off from the society of his fellow-men, and all family ties severed, but, he was dead to the law, he could not inherit property, or be a witness to any deed. According to English law Lepers were classed with idiots, madmen, outlaws, etc.
The Church provided a service to be said over the Leper on his entering a Lazar House[j]. The Priest duly vested preceded by a cross, went to the abode of the victim. He there began to exhort him to suffer with a patient and penitent spirit the incurable plague with which God had stricken him. Having sprinkled the unfortunate Leper with Holy Water, he conducted him to the Church, the while reading aloud the beginning of the Burial Service. On his arrival there, he was stripped of his clothes and enveloped in a pall, and then placed between two trestles—like a corpse—before the Altar, when the Libera was sung and the Mass for the Dead celebrated over him.
After the service he was again sprinkled with Holy Water, and led from thence to the Lazar House, destined for his future, and final abode, here on earth.
A pair of clappers, a stick, a barrel, and a distinctive dress were given to him. The costume comprised a russet tunic[k], and upper tunic with hood cut from it, so that the sleeves of the tunic were closed as far as the hand, but not laced with knots or thread after the secular fashion of the day. The upper tunic was to be closed down to the ankles, and a close cape of black cloth of the same length as the hood, for outside use.
A particular form of boot or shoe, laced high, was also enjoined, and if these orders were disobeyed the culprit was condemned to walk bare-footed, until the Master, considering his humility said to him “enough.” An oath of obedience and a promise to lead a moral and abstemious life was required of every Leper on admission. The Bishops of Rome from time to time issued Bulls, with regard to the ecclesiastical separation and rights of the afflicted.
Lepers were excluded from the city of London by Act 20 Edward the III., 1346[l].
The Magistrates of Glasgow, in 1573, appeared to have exercised some right of searching for Lepers.
Piers, the ploughman, makes frequent allusions to “Lepers under the hedges.”
The Lazar Houses were often under the authority of some neighbouring Abbey, or Monastery. Semler quotes a Bull, issued by one of the Bishops of Rome, appointing every Leper House to be provided with its own burial ground and chapel; as also ecclesiastics; these in the middle ages were probably the only physicians of the body, as well as of the soul—some appear to have devoted themselves as much to the study of medicine as to that of theology.
It was customary in the mediæval times to address the secular clergy as “Sir.”