The lonely life of a medieval leper

Leprosy was not as precisely defined in early human history as it is today, but rather referred to any disfiguring skin disease.^2.Wikipedia – History of Leprosy. The Bible mentions leprosy several times, notably in the synoptic gospels when Jesus heals a leper.^3.Luke 5:13, Mark 1:40-42 and Matthew 8:3. Aside from divine intervention, sadly, the reaction has always been to exclude the afflicted as “unclean.”

The laws of the Lombard king Rothair^4.Ruled 636 – 652. reflect the desire to not only exclude the afflicted, but to ensure their legal status was erased as well:
“On lepers. If anyone is afflicted with leprosy and the truth of the matter is recognized by the judge or by the people and the leper is expelled from the district (civitas) or from his house so that he lives alone, he shall not have the right to alienate his property or give it to anyone. Because on the day that he is expelled from his home, it is as if he had died. Nevertheless, while he lives he should be nourished on the income from that which remains.”^5.Drew, Lombard Laws, p. 83, Edict of Lothair, ch. 176. The right to alienate your property is the right to transfer it, through either gift or sale.

Two further laws also made clear that leprosy rendered a person literally worthless:
“Concerning the girl who becomes a leper after her betrothal. If it happens that after a girl or woman has been betrothed she becomes leprous or mad or blind in both eyes, then her betrothed husband shall receive back his property and he shall not be required to take her to wife against his will. And he shall not be guilty in this event because it did not occur on account of his neglect but on account of her weighty sins and resulting illness.”^6.Ibid, p. 84, ch. 180.

“On bondsmen^7.mancipia – a person for whom someone else has bonded his responsibility – essentially a slave, but I’m not clear on the differences between a slave and a bondsman. who are lepers. If anyone buys a bondsman and afterwards he turns out to be a leper or mad, then the seller, if he is accused, shall offer oath alone that he did not know of this infirmity when he sold the bondsman. [And if he can so swear], he shall not be further liable.”^8.Ibid, p. 98, ch. 230.

Charlemagne’s “Double capitulary of commission” of 789 is brutally on point:
“Concerning lepers: that they are not to mix with other people.”^9.King, Translated Sources, p. 222, capitulary 23, ch. 36.

Leprosy weighed heavily on medieval society. The disease was often used an exemplar of all that was wicked and disgusting. Consider this scene from the fifth century life of St. Martin:
“…at Paris he was passing through the city gates accompanied by a great crowd when, to everybody’s horror, he kissed the pitiable face of a leper and gave him his blessing. The man was at once cleansed from all trace of his affliction, and coming to the cathedral the next day with a clear skin he gave thanks for his recovered health.”^10.Noble, Soldiers of Christ, p. 20.

The church also weighed in on the question of lepers in the kingdom of God. Dogma did not, sadly, embrace lepers as Martin did, but neither were the afflicted ostracized completely. Boniface, always keen to ensure that his practices aligned with papal form, wrote many letters to Rome asking for guidance. The responses he received are telling:
“Lepers, if they are believing Christians, may receive the body and blood of the Lord, but they may not take food together with persons in health.”^11.Letters, p. 33, n. XVIII, from Gregory II.
“If men are subject to this disease from birth and through inheritance they are to be taken out of the city, but they may be permitted to receive alms from the people. … But if he comes to a church for Holy Communion he may not be admitted to partake until all the rest have been served.”^12.Letters, p. 139, n. LXXI, from Zacharias.

In later centuries this exclusion was taken to a spiritual (yet logical) extreme:
“Lepers were required to wear gray or black in the fourteenth century, symbolizing the fact that they were “dead to the world.” Significantly, living lepers were sometimes separated from society with elaborate funeral-like rituals: the diseased individual was led to the church chanting the penitential psalms of the funeral service, and a requiem mass was performed before the leper was taken to the cemetery to be sprinkled with a spade of earth.”^13.Medieval Folklore, p. 165, Funeral Customs and Burial Rites.

A leper’s exclusion was not based solely on concerns for public health. Perhaps you noticed the bit in Lothair’s law about a wife’s “weighty sins.” In an age so suffused with religiosity diseases were thought to have divine causes (and remedies, as St. Martin’s tale illustrates). The protagonist of the story Amicus et Amelius is infected with leprosy after perjuring himself in an attempt to save his friend.^14.Ibid, p. 6, Amicus et Amelius. I am cheating somewhat, as the story was popular from the 11th to the 15th centuries.

There is one last nugget from that same capitulary cited above, which is both fascinating and maddening.
“Concerning the leper’s hand.”^15.King, Translated Sources, p. 222, capitulary 23, ch. 29.

That’s it, that’s all it says! So frustrating. Some capitularies appear to have been written like a meeting agenda, with a list of topics to be covered. The same way we would write only, “Concerning second quarter sales targets,” the Carolingian great men for some reason needed to discuss lepers’ hands. Were those hands still being used in some forbidden pre-Christian rituals? Was there some leprous nobleman or foreign emissary who wished to shake hands? We’ll never know.

So, to sum up the leper’s life: considered corrupt inside and out, and ostracized from the company of one’s fellows, socially, legally, and spiritually. The worst, saddest irony is that leprosy is only mildly contagious! “Prolonged, close contact over months with someone with untreated leprosy is needed to catch the disease. The disease is not spread through casual contact with a person who has leprosy like shaking hands or hugging, sharing meals or sitting next to each other.”^16.Leprosy, World Health Organization.

That poor young man we discussed in the previous post, who was infected with Hepatitus B, parvovirus, and leprosy, was buried in a group with everyone else from his village. Hopefully that is a sign he passed away surrounded by family and friends, not cast out and alone.