Although leprosy affected only a small minority of people in the Middle Ages, its presence is very much felt in the sermons, literature and material culture of the period. In the past twenty-five years, historians have paid increasing attention to the social and religious dimensions of responses to leprosy, and have underlined the extent to which Christian society took responsibility for the needs of lepers, albeit placing them at a physical distance in leprosaria. Indeed, the leprous were a major focus of charity, particularly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was widely recognised by contemporaries that leprosy could not be cured through medical intervention: thus, the care of the leprous focused on the alleviation of their physical suffering and the attainment of salvation for their souls. Since leprosy was a chronic illness that often afflicted individuals for a number of years, the care of sufferers needed to take into account their long-term needs and gradual physical deterioration.

This chapter explores the intersection between bodily care and spiritual care within and outside leprosaria in northern France and England between 1100 and 1500, particularly in the region of Normandy. Leprosaria, often monastic institutions equipped with a chapel and religious personnel, provided spiritual facilities for their leprous residents, including the performance of Mass, confession, funerary rites, burial and commemoration. However, leprosarium statutes reveal that these communities also tended the bodies of the sick, through dietary regulation, bathing, exercise, the supply of clothing and shelter, bloodletting, the dressing of sores and other measures. In theory at least, therefore, the overall environment of the leprosarium was highly beneficial to both soul and body.

Much as was the case for members of healthy society, the experience of leprous individuals was shaped by their gender, social status and degree of access to medical care. Within leprosaria, particular emphasis was placed on the chastity of leprous women, whose pursuit of a religious vocation needed to be protected, and who were associated in medical texts with the sexual transmission of the disease. Some high status, wealthy lepers apparently did not enter leprosaria, receiving private care from medical practitioners. The Montpellier physician Bernard de Gordon (fl. 1283–1308), for example, treated a leprous countess.