usually a Leper--and a number of Priests were attached to
each house.

Where a chapel was not attached, the inmates appear to have attended
the parish church for service.

There was a special order of Knights founded very early, in Jerusalem,
united to the general order of the Knights Hospitallers, whose
especial province was to look after the sick, particularly Lepers.
They seem to have separated from the Knights Hospitallers at the end
of the 11th, or beginning of the 12th centuries. They were at first
designated Knights of S. Lazarus, or, of SS. Lazarus and Mary of
Jerusalem, from the locality of their original establishment, and from
their central preceptory being near Jerusalem. The Master or Prior of
the Superior Order was a Leper, that he might be more in sympathy with
his afflicted brethren. They were afterwards united by different
European princes, with the Military Orders of Notre Dame and Mount
Carmel, and, in 1572 with that of S. Maurice. We first hear of them in
England, in the reign of King Stephen, when they seem to have made
their headquarters at Burton-Lazars, near Melton Mowbray in
Leicestershire, where a rich and famous Lazar House was built by a
general subscription throughout the country, and greatly aided by the
munificence of Robert de Mowbray. The Lazar-houses of S. Leonard's,
Sheffield; Tilton, in Leicestershire; Holy Innocents', Lincoln; S.
Giles', London; SS. Mary and Erkemould, Ilford, Essex; and the
preceptory of Chosely, in Norfolk, besides many others, were annexed
to it, as cells containing _fratres leprosos de Sancto Lazaro de
Jerusalem_. The house received at least 35 different charters,
confirmed by various sovereigns. Camden in his _Britannia_, p. 447,
says that "The masters of all the smaller Lazar-houses in England,
were in some sort subject to the Master of Burton Lazars, as he
himself was, to the Master of the Lazars in Jerusalem."

The rules of these Lazar-houses were very strict. The inmates were
allowed to walk within certain prescribed limits only, generally a
mile from the house. They were forbidden to stay out all night, and
were not on any account permitted to enter the bakehouse, brewhouse,
and granary, excepting the brother in charge, and he was not to dare
to touch the bread and beer, since it was "most unfitting that persons
with such a malady, should handle things appointed for the common use
of men." A gallows was sometimes erected in front of the houses, on
which