2. PUBLIC OPINION
These noble pioneers were doubtless important factors in moulding public opinion. They may often have outstepped the bounds of prudence, but, as one has observed, “an evil is removed only by putting it for a time into strong relief, when it comes to be rightly dealt with and so is gradually checked.” As long as possible the world ignored the existence of leprosy. The thing was so dreadful that men shut their eyes to it, until they were shamed into action by those who dared to face the evil. The Canon of the Lateran Council of 1179 acknowledged that unchristian selfishness had hitherto possessed men with regard to lepers. We need not suppose that the heroism of those who ministered to lepers was that which boldly faces a terrible risk, but it was rather that which overcomes the strongest repulsion for hideous and noisome objects. There is no hint in the language of the chroniclers of encountering danger, but rather, expressions of horror that any should hold intercourse with such loathsome creatures. The remonstrances of Prince David and of William de Monte were not primarily on account of contagion.—“What is it that thou doest, O my lady? p052 surely if the King knew this, he would not deign to kiss with his lips your mouth thus polluted with the feet of lepers!” “When I saw Bishop Hugh touch the livid face of the lepers, kiss their sightless eyes or eyeless sockets, I shuddered with disgust.”—If St. Francis raised an objection to inmates wandering outside their precincts, it was because people could not endure the sight of them. The popular opinion regarding the contagious nature of the disease developed strongly, however, towards the close of the twelfth century. The Canon De Leprosis (Rome, 1179; Westminster, 1200) declares emphatically that lepers cannot dwell with healthy men. Englishmen begin to act consistently with this conviction. The Prior of Taunton (1174–85) separates a monk from the company of the brethren “in fear of the danger of this illness”; and the Durham chronicler mentions an infirmary for those “stricken with the contagion of leprosy.”
3. CIVIL JURISDICTION
(a) The Writ for Removal.—The right to expel lepers was acknowledged before it was legally enforced. An entry upon the statute-book may be merely the official recognition of an established custom. The fact that where use and wont are sufficiently strong, law is unnecessary, is illustrated to-day in Japan, where public opinion alone enforces the separation of lepers. At length English civil law set its seal upon the theory of infection by the writ De Leproso Amovendo, authorizing the expulsion of lepers on account of manifest peril by contagion. An early instance of removal occurs in the Curia Regis Rolls (1220). It is mentioned that William, son of Nicholas Malesmeins, had been consigned with the assent p053 of his friends to a certain Maladria in Bidelington, where he abode for two years. This was the leper-house near Bramber, mentioned four years previously in a Close Roll as “the hospital of the infirm of St. Mary Magdalene of Bidelington.”
Legislation on this subject was chiefly local. The Assizes of London had proclaimed in 1276 that “no leper shall be in the city, nor come there, nor make any stay there.” Edward III supplemented existing measures by an urgent local edict for London and Middlesex. The royal proclamation sets forth that many publicly dwell among the citizens, being smitten with the taint of leprosy; these not only injure people by the contagion of their polluted breath, but they even strive to contaminate others by a loose and vicious life, resorting to houses of ill-fame, “that so, to their own wretched solace, they may have the more fellows in suffering.”[35] All persons proved leprous—citizens or others, of whatever sex or condition—are to quit the city within fifteen days, “and betake themselves to places in the country, solitary, and notably distant from the city and suburbs.” This order, sent to the mayor, was followed by a proclamation to the sheriff of the county. Lepers are to abandon the highways and field-ways between the city and Westminster, where several such persons sit and stay, associating with whole men, to the manifest danger of passers-by.[36]
This social problem continued to vex municipal authorities. A precept was issued (1369) “that no leper beg in the street for fear of spreading infection.” The porters of the eight principal gates of the city were sworn p054 to refuse them admittance. (That barbers—forerunners of the barber-chirurgeons—were included among the gate-keepers in 1310 and 1375, was perhaps due to their supposed capability of recognizing diseases.) If a leper tried to enter, he should forfeit his horse or his outer garment, and if persisting, be taken into custody. The foreman at “le loke” and an official at the Hackney lazar-house were also bound to prevent their entry into the city.
The “Customs of Bristol,” written down by the recorder in 1344, declare “that in future no leper reside within the precincts of the town.” Imprisonment was the penalty—a plan of doubtful wisdom. The measures ordained by the burgesses of Berwick-on-Tweed were summary:—
“No leper shall come within the gates of the borough; and if one gets in by chance, the serjeant shall put him out at once. If one wilfully forces his way in, his clothes shall be taken off him and burnt, and he shall be turned out naked. For we have already taken care that a proper place for lepers shall be kept up outside the town, and that alms shall be there given to them.”[37]
It was comparatively easy for the civic authorities to control the ejection of lepers when the asylum was under their supervision, as it frequently was. At Exeter, ecclesiastical leniency permitted a continuance of the custom (which was already “ancient” in 1163) of allowing lepers to circulate freely in the town. In 1244 the bishop seems to have agreed with the mayor and corporation about the inadvisability of the practice; and he resigned the guardianship of the lazar-house, accepting in its stead that of St. John’s hospital. p055
Municipal documents record the expulsion of lepers. In Gloucester (1273), Richard, Alice and Matilda gave trouble and would remain within the town “to the great damage and prejudice of the inhabitants.” John Mayn, after repeated warnings to provide for himself some dwelling outside London, was sworn to depart forthwith and not return, on pain of the pillory (1372). A Leet Roll among the records of Norwich states that “Thomas Tytel Webstere is a leper, therefore he must go out of the city” (1375). In the following instances, the infected were consigned to hospitals. Margaret Taylor came before the keepers of Beverley in the Gild Hall, and asked by way of charity permission to have a bed in the lepers’ house outside Keldgate Bar, which request was granted (1394). The town-clerk of Lydd makes an entry of ten shillings “Paied for delyvere of Simone Reede unto the howse of Lazaris” (circa 1460). The manorial court sometimes dealt with such cases. That of the Bishop of Ely at Littleport recorded (1321):—“The jurors say upon their oath that Joan daughter of Geoffrey Whitring is leprous. Therefore be she set apart.”[38]