Speculum 58 (3):891-916 (
1983)
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Abstract
To the Western mind, no disease is so fearsome and horrible as leprosy. Leprosy still conveys the suggestion of physical repulsiveness, moral perversion, and promiscuous infection; the leper is the archetypal outcast, society's pariah and sometimes its scapegoat. We have inherited such ideas about the disease and its victim largely from the Middle Ages; since that time the leper has become a familiar figure in Western literature and art. The formation of these beliefs regarding lepers tells us a good deal about the nature of European Christian society in the medieval period — what was despised and cast out is as revealing about social attitudes as what was cherished and preserved