I never thought my research on leprosy would make me a skeptic. Nonetheless, my investigation led me to question foundational beliefs about my perception of history. Going into this past summer, I thought I knew everything I needed to know about leprosy. The disease caused peoples’ limbs to fall off, and it plagued the Middle Ages. People with the disease are treated like, well, lepers. You know, people running away in terror from the walking dead. Got it. However, my research slowly ate away at my perception of leprosy, causing me to ask serious questions about the very pillars of my knowledge. I am not the same person since doing my research.
In the spring semester of 2024, I received the Research and Apprenticeship Program (REAP) award, which pays undergraduate students $4,000 to research full-time over the summer. I studied how people throughout history have interpreted chapters 13–14 of Leviticus, a portion of the Old Testament of the Bible. Leviticus contains commands for how the Israelite people were to deal with skin disease. As biblical laws about skin diseases, these passages have largely shaped the way the West views leprosy.
As I conducted my research, I stumbled upon the volatile Middle Ages. In the Western imagination, leprosy was one of the hallmarks of this period. It is easy to conjure up images of peasants fleeing from bandage-covered persons.
Furthermore, popular opinion has it that no one was stigmatized in Medieval Europe quite like those with leprosy. The church, the state, and the public all went out of their way to isolate and marginalize the leper. The lucky ones roamed the streets, clanging bells to warn others of their disease. The unlucky ones were sequestered into a special prison, where they rotted away into nothing. I certainly bought into this modern view of medieval leprosy.
However, my research eroded these beliefs. One book in particular, titled Leprosy in Medieval England, changed my mind. The author of this book explains that as colonial England expanded its reach during the nineteenth century, Europeans started encountering leprosy again. The disease had vanished from Europe at the close of the Middle Ages, but leprosy was still prevalent in other parts of the world. Westerners were horrified by the thought leprosy spreading from native people to Europeans. A leprosy epidemic would devastate Europe.
To justify the segregation of lepers from healthy people in the British colonies, cultural leaders twisted the facts about leprosy in the Middle Ages. Doctors warned of leprosy’s contagious nature and how its spread had only been hampered by forced isolation. Pastors claimed that people were obeying the Bible by segregating lepers; after all, Leviticus 13 includes the injunction to separate those with unclean skin diseases from the Israelite camp. These cultural leaders painted a picture of lepers being systematically locked up.
However, these notions were exaggerations of reality. In fact, as Leprosy in Medieval England explains, life for a medieval leper was almost completely different from how we often think of it. Lepers were not systematically locked up, but rather were given refuge in leper houses run by the church or state. They lived monastic lives, sometimes taking vows of poverty. The bells and clappers they sometimes carried were used to attract almsgivers, not to ward them away. Leprosy was even seen as a blessing from God; by suffering in this life, lepers would be granted immediate access to Heaven without having to first pass through Purgatory. Lepers were not nearly as stigmatized or marginalized as the colonialists made them out to be.
Learning this information shook me. The way that I and everyone around me thought about medieval leprosy had been completely distorted by nineteenth-century colonialist propaganda. As the lies were handed down through the generations, they became unquestionable historical facts.
Since performing my research, I have started thinking more about what I believe. When someone makes a historical claim, I am more hesitant to trust their statement. I have become a more critical person since this summer, and I have my leprosy research to thank for that.
