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 mediaeval times to address the secular clergy
as "Sir."

STATUS OF LEPERS.

The rank and status of any one, was no guarantee against attacks from
this dire disorder, with its fearful ravages. Had the victims been
confined, as it is generally thought, to those who dwelt amid squalor,
dirt and vice, in close and confined dens, veritable hot beds for
rearing and propagating disease of every kind; we should not be
surprised, but should be entitled to assume, that to such
circumstances, in a very great measure might the origin be expected to
be found; but, when we find, that not only was the scourge a visitant
here, but, that it numbered amongst the afflicted, members of some of
the most illustrious households in this kingdom, aye, even the august
monarchs themselves, the source from whence _Elephantiasis
Graecorum_--the malady not being contagious--first originated must be
sought for elsewhere.

First amongst our ancient and illustrious families, we find--if he may
be so classed--the case of S. Finian, who died 675 or 695[m].

A nobleman of the South of England, whose name unfortunately is not
recorded, is reputed to have been miraculously cured at the tomb of S.
Cuthbert, at Durham, 1080[n].

A daughter of Mannasseh Bysset, a rich Wiltshire gentleman, sewer[o]
to Henry II., being a Leper, founded the Lazar House at Maiden
Bradley, dedicated to the honour of the Blessed Virgin, "for poore
leprous women" and gave to it her share of the town of Kidderminster,
c. 1160. Mannasseh Bysset founded the Lazar