Spiritual privileges

Because of its origins and self-conscious perception of its role in the Crusade and provision for the sick, the order of St Lazarus enjoyed certain significant privileges in the sphere of its ecclesiastical activities. These included exemption from clerical taxation and the right to gather alms and sell indulgences, concessions that were not universally popular. In terms of its overall income, Orme has commented on the extent to which the order was dependent on tithes (a form of support unusual for leper-houses), and this proved to be another controversial issue since by collecting and spending this parochial income local communities were being deprived of resources that were, arguably, theirs. ‘The appropriation of parish churches has often been regarded as one of the great evils of the late-medieval church.’ Between them these issues were to raise the hackles of both clergy and laity in medieval England.

The extent to which all of this posed a difficulty for the order, especially in the more spiritually aware environment of the late Middle Ages, is the theme of this chapter. In this context it is important not to embrace too readily the seductive rhetoric of the Lollards and see medieval spirituality merely as a prelude to an inevitable Reformation. Many aspects of popular piety, such as the successful confraternity of St Lazarus, integrated well with the spiritual preoccupations of the age, and Harper-Bill has concluded, along with Duffy, that the people of late-medieval England enjoyed ‘a vibrant faith which satisfied all levels of society’. Nevertheless, it is equally relevant to observe, perhaps, that when the day of reckoning came the order of St Lazarus had virtually no one to stand up for it, not even its knightly master, bred on a legend of chivalry and the gallant deeds of the past.

The clearest early pronouncement of the spiritual privileges of the order came under Innocent III in the bull Licet Universorum Fidelium, which permitted it rights of burial for its own members and exempted it from the payment of tithe on trees and animals. In addition, the Lazarites were permitted to receive ‘men fleeing from the world … and to retain [them] without contradiction’, in other words, a right of sanctuary for those who agreed to commit themselves to the objectives of the order.