The Truth About the Medieval Leper, Part IV

Leper Knights

The Hospital of St. Lazarus in Jerusalem was located just outside the Leper Postern where it was believed Christ had healed a leper. There are a great many stories as to the origination of the Knights of St. Lazarus, but, as explained by David Marcombe in Leper Knights:

It would appear…that the order established itself in the 1130s on a site outside the St. Lazarus postern, though the first unambiguous reference is a grant by King Fulk in 1142 giving land in Jerusalem ‘to the church of St. Lazarus and the convent of the sick who are called miselli’ . (8-9)

During this time, the word “hospital” was closer in meaning to our word “hotel” than our word “hospital.” The Hospital of St. Lazarus was a hospital in a more contemporary sense. Any Templar, Hospitaller, or Teutonic knight in the Holy Land who contracted leprosy, would go to live at this hospital. A second hospital was built at Acre. These men became the legendary Leper Knights of Jerusalem.

There is something desperately romantic in the image of leprous men in chain mail charging Saracen hordes ahead of the other troops. It’s logical they would have fought. Leprosy develops slowly in otherwise healthy individuals. A leper knight might have a few good battles left, and certainly he would have had the will to fight. Death by sword, mace, spear, battle-axe, boiling oil, lance or arrow would certainly be preferable to the excruciating saga of leprosy.

The Knights of St. Lazarus are said to have participated in many raids and battles,“… wherever there was fighting between Christians and infidels, knights of the Order rallied to the support of the Holy Cross…They considered themselves the ‘living dead’, these ‘men who walked alone’; final death in the defense of the Faith held no terrors for them.” (Order of St. Lazarus) Leper knights are known to have participated are the Battle of La Forbie in 1244, the battle which marked the end of the Frankish Kingdom in Palestine. All eighteen leper knights were killed, as were most of the European forces. The Leper Knights were also present for the final siege of Acre in 1291.

Crusading knights who returned from Europe with leprosy, or who developed leprosy after their return could live in one of the communities of the Knights of St. Lazarus that were literally “springing up” all over Europe. They were built in lowlands to keep the lepers’ breath away from healthy people, and usually near cities, often with convenient alms boxes located near main roads. Followed the Rule of the Knights of St. Lazarus, based on the Rule of St. Augustine; not all residents were former knights, but all followed the Rule. It must have presented an interesting paradox when men whose souls were absolutely saved by fighting for the Cross ended up with a disease that was a badge of sin. Grand Masters, Preceptors, and Commanders of Lazarite communities were required to be lepers, a custom that vanished as leprosy vanished in the 14th century.

Endowing leper houses gave nobles a way to accomplish their temporal and spiritual goals. It helped protect their earthly fortunes and ensured them and their families a shorter stay in Purgatory, if not a place in Heaven itself. For a rich man to share his riches with “Lazarus” by donating land and buildings to military/religious orders was especially appealing as these groups had the power, training and arms to protect their lands. For example, in the Glatt Valley north of Zürich, a long-running border dispute between the Duke of Rapperswil and the Baron of Toggenburg was settled when Toggenburg and Rapperswil jointly gave a large piece of land to the Knights of St. John Hospitaller. Rapperswil also gave land to the Order of St. Lazarus. (Hugener) The two large properties created an immense buffer zone in a strategic, volatile Swiss valley.

In England:

[t]he Order of St. Lazarus built up a moderate landed estate scattered over a very considerable geographic area because of the benevolence of an extremely wide set of patrons…Benefactors included kings, noblemen and gentry, but it was the peasant farmers who made up the majority in terms of numbers of grants, if not in terms of the volume of property granted. (Marcombe 65)

Francois-Oliver Touati in Archives de la Lepre explains the urban localization of leper hospitals in France saying that wealthy donors wanted to have their compassionate generosity visible to others and close to home where it could be administered easily. Touati tells of the Viscomte of Saint-Florentine who, in 1184 had pledged a regular gift to the Dilo Abbey of 4 cents per year for the care of lepers to procure for him and his family a place in “the bosom of Abraham.” Touati goes on to explain that there were hundreds of acts of this kind, done by the same type of person to procure the same goals:

Un acte semblable a des centaines d’autres, de même type, de même objets, de même milieu aristocratique en faveur d’un monastère don’ le donateur attend en retour la prière pour son âme et celle des proches, une garantie pour l’éternité. Rien que de très ordinaire… (Touati 35) (Basically that for aristocrats, endowing a leper hospital was a guarantee to the donor that he/she will go to Heaven; such actions were very common)

“Yeah but, leprosy was an epidemic, right? Isn’t that why they were marginalized and persecuted?” 

In a word, “No.”

Nor were they necessarily “marginalized” or persecuted.

The rapid increase in the number of hospitals built for lepers during the late 12th and early 13th centuries (in Britain the number rose 80% from the 11th to the end of the 13th century, with similar statistics in France and the Holy Roman Empire) led historians to believe that leprosy was widespread during this period. Some historians argue that a rise in Europe’s population and crowding and poverty in the urban centers increased the incidence of leprosy. Other historians have contended that medieval doctors confused leprosy with other diseases.

Recent paleo-historical research shows that leprosy arrived in Europe in the 7th century and increased in the population very slowly, with a slight increase during the 300 years of the Crusades. The statistical ratio of lepers to the general population has not changed from the 12th century to today, roughly 1-2 to 10,000 people (WHO) Leprosy of the 12th and 13th century did not occur in the same populations in which we see leprosy today, that is, the very poor. Excavated cemeteries in England and France reveal that at any one time a typical Lazar Houses sheltered fewer than a dozen lepers. Certainly not ALL medieval lepers were housed in leprosaria, Lazar Houses, but excavations of other cemeteries have brought up very few leper skeletons. Clearly, there were never so many lepers in Europe that the average person was certain to see one. By the 14th century, leprosy had essentially vanished in Europe, returning to its pre- Crusade levels. Medieval doctors correctly identified leprosy.

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Photos of the Lazariterkirche in Gfenn, Canton Zürich, Switzerland where I met “my” leper, Martin and found inspiration for my best book and one of my life’s greatest experiences.

Until a cure was found lepers were treated with rest, fresh air, cleanliness, and a healthy diet. 12th and 13th century men and women who gave their lives to the care of lepers provided their patients exactly this kind of care, in semi-monastic communities, regulated by the Rule of St. Augustine. Accepted and cared for rather than persecuted, the most stringent punishment a leper faced for breaking the rules of the Lazar House was expulsion. By the end of the 13th century very few lepers remained in northern Europe, and “Lazar House” began to describe a facility for housing the very poor.

The word “leper” combined with the word “medieval” still evokes the image of pitiful people in desperate need of a miraculous cure, wandering around with a disease horrifying in its ugliness and terrifying in its contagion, begging for help. However, for people of the high middle ages, lepers were powerful allegorical expressions of the true nature of human life, bearing on their outer body the corruption all humankind carries within. The leper provided medieval men and women a test of faith and the opportunity to move closer to their own salvation if they found the courage to show compassion to the Dragon Princess.

In Other Leper Stories….

Sources
Aue, Hartmann von. Henry the Leper: a Swabian Miracle-Rhyme. Trans. Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Boas, Adrian J. Jerusalem in the Time of the Crusades. London: Routledge, 2001. Bruehlmeier, Markus and Michale Thomaschett.

Commandery of the Order of St. John at Bubikon. Bubikon: Ritterhauscesellschaft. 1999.

Cawley, Father Martinus, trans. The Life of Alice the Leper. Lafayette: Guadelupe Translations, 1994. 12 December 2007

Druck, Walter and Hans Rutishauser. Die Lazariterkirche Gfenn bei Dubendorf. Bern:Gesellschaft fur Schweizerischen Kunstgeschichte. 1992

Goetz, Hans-Werner. Life in the Middle Ages from the Seventh to the Thirteenth Century. American Edition. Trans. Albert Wimmer. Ed. Steven Rowan. Notre Dame:Notre Dame Press. 1993.

Hugener, Rainer. “Die Gründung des Lazariterhauses im Gfenn.” Heimatbuch Dubendorf 2004. Dubendorf. 2005

“The Leper Hospital, Winchester, 25 March 2001.” Channel 4 Time Team. 25 Mar. 2001. 3 Jan. 2008

Enders, Howard and Carlos M. Morel. “Disease Watch: Leprosy.” The UNICEF-World Bank-WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases.

“History.” The Ritterhaus in Bubikon. For the Young and the Young at Heart. Ritterhaus Bubikon 2012. Web. 27 Dec. 2012.

Lee, Frances and John Magilton.”The Cemetary of the hospital of St. James and St Mary Magdalen Chichester – a case study.” World Archeology. Vol. 21, No. 2 Archeology of Pubic Health. October 1989. 273-282.

Manchester, Keith and Charlotte Roberts.”The Paleopathology of Leprosy in Britain: A Review.” World Archeology. Vol. 21, No. 2 Archeology of Pubic Health. October 1989. 265-272.

Marcombe, David. Leper Knights. Woodbridge:The Boydell Press. 2003

Moore, R.I. The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Medieval Europe 950-1250. London:Blackwell. 2007

Peyroux, Catherine. “The Leper’s Kiss.” Monks & Nuns, Saints & Outcasts. Ed. Sharon Farmer and Barbara H. Rosenwein. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2000 pp. 172-188.

Rawcliffe, Carole. Leprosy in Medieval England. Woodbridge:Boydell Press. 2006.

Richards, Peter. The Medieval Leper. New York:Barnes & Noble. 1977.

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St. Suplitius Serverus. St. Martin of Tours. http://www.catholicapologetics.info/library/onlinelibrary/Tours.htm 01 December 2007

De Vitry, Jacques. The Exempla, or Stories from the Sermones Vulgares. Elibrion Classics: facsimile London: David Nutt. 1890

Touati, Francois-Olivier. Archives De La Lepre: Atlas Des Leproseries Entre Loire Et Marne AuMoyen Age. Paris: Comite Des Travaux Historiques Et Scientifiques:Memoires Et Document D’Histoire Medievale Et De Philologie, 1996.

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