4 - Leprosaria and the Leprous: Legal Status and Social Ties

Summary

Abstract

The place of lepers in medieval society has often been described as defined by segregation. Hospitals, in such narratives, appear as instruments of isolation, part of the desperate strategy of a society medically ignorant and indiscriminately terrified of the disease. The historiographical tendency to view medieval leprosy as a subject unto itself has prevented the recognition, let alone the analysis, of trends shared by all types of medieval hospitals. In canon law, leprosaria were one of four hospital types, and their institutional development shows that their legal status influenced their social relationships more than did medieval attitudes towards leprosy. I use the rich chartulary of Mainz's leper hospital alongside charters from leper hospitals throughout the central Rhineland.

Keywords: medieval hospitals, leper hospitals, medieval leprosy, history of leprosy

On a hot August Monday in 1358, a crowd gathered in front of the building where judgement was given in the village of Birgstadt. The village officials had come to witness an agreement between Gerlach and Else Hug, and the lepers who lived in the hospital of St. Georg just outside Mainz. The lepers and hospital staff, not present in Birgstadt, were represented by Emmerich Kuechener. The transaction was accompanied by some tension, as this was not a spontaneous act of charity on Gerlach and Else's part. Rather, they were affirming that a yearly rent of four measures of grain now belonged to the lepers by right, as a result of a sale that the couple had made when they were in financial straits. Gerlach and Else promised that they and their heirs would take full responsibility for the regular payment of the rent, and pledged property which would be made over to the lepers if the payment was defaulted on. The lepers and the hospital staff were reminded that they would be responsible for arranging to pick up the grain. The scribe recording this agreement affirmed that all these promises were made in the presence of the officials. Emmerich, the representative of the lepers, was largely responsible for the final form of the document: he formally requested that the Schultheiß testify that the pledges given were reasonable; and—perhaps with some asperity—told the scribe to write down all the particulars, reminding him of his oath to make a “public instrument” for the use of the lepers and the hospital staff, and to affix his customary sign thereto.