For the first time, this volume explores the identities of leprosy sufferers and other people affected by the disease in medieval Europe. The chapters, including contributions by leading voices such as Luke Demaitre, Carole Rawcliffe and Charlotte Roberts, challenge the view that people with leprosy were uniformly excluded and stigmatised. Instead, they reveal the complexity of responses to this disease and the fine line between segregation and integration. Ranging across disciplines, from history to bioarchaeology, Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages encompasses post-medieval perspectives as well as the attitudes and responses of contemporaries. Subjects include hospital care, diet, sanctity, miraculous healing, diagnosis, iconography and public health regulation. This richly illustrated collection presents previously unpublished archival and material sources from England to the Mediterranean.

Reviews

'This highly illuminating collection of original essays does more than cast light on the image and experience of persons affected by leprosy in medieval western Europe. By examining the depth and complexity of the impact of this one disease, it should also enhance our understanding of issues of life and health in our own time. The contributing authors represent a variety of American and European institutions as well as a diverse mix of disciplines, methodologies, and generations. A thoughtful and informative introductory essay sets the stage, followed by studies that range from description of the excavation of a single British leprosarium to a profusely illustrated essay on the medieval iconography of leprosy. Essays focus additionally on, e.g., linguistics, bioarchaeology, medical institutions, and religion. The volume concludes with an examination of the historiography of leprosy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Extensive notes are included at the end of each essay, while a thorough, detailed index provides cumulative access at the end of the volume. There is no general bibliography. This collection should serve the interests of instructors in history, sociology, medicine, and religion, providing a useful model of interdisciplinary study.
--C. D. Kay, emeritus, Wofford College
Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.
Reprinted with permission from Choice Reviews. All rights reserved. Copyright by the American Library Association.

Introduction - Elma Brenner and François-Olivier Touati

Part I: Approaching leprosy and identity
1 Reflections on the bioarchaeology of leprosy and identity, past and present - Charlotte Roberts
2 Lepers and leprosy: connections between East and West in the Middle Ages - François-Olivier Touati
3 The disease and the sacred: the leper as a scapegoat in England and Normandy (eleventh-twelfth centuries) - Damien Jeanne

Part II: Within the leprosy hospital: between segregation and integration
4 'A mighty force in the ranks of Christ's army': intercession and integration in the medieval English leper hospital - Carole Rawcliffe
5 Saint Mary Magdalen, Winchester: the archaeology and history of an English leprosarium and almshouse - Simon Roffey
6 Diet as a marker of identity in the leprosy hospitals of medieval northern France - Elma Brenner

Part III: Beyond the leprosy hospital: the language of poverty and charity
7 Good people, poor sick: the social identities of lepers in the late medieval Rhineland - Lucy Barnhouse
8 The clapper as 'vox miselli': new perspectives on iconography - Luke Demaitre

Part IV: Religious and social identities
9 Kissing lepers: Saint Francis and the treatment of lepers in the central Middle Ages - Courtney A. Krolikoski
10 From pilgrim to knight, from monk to bishop: the distorted identities of leprosy within the Order of Saint Lazarus - Rafaël Hyacinthe
11 Connotation and denotation: the construction of the leper in Narbonne and Siena before the plague - Anna M. Peterson

Part V: Post-medieval perspectives
12 'Our loathsome ancestors': reinventing medieval leprosy for the modern world, 1850-1950 - Kathleen Vongsathorn and Magnus Vollset

Index

Editors

Elma Brenner is Research Development Specialist (Medieval and Early Modern) at Wellcome Collection
François-Olivier Touati is Professor at the Université François Rabelais (Tours)