ANCIENT ESTABLISHMENTS, STILL IN EXISTENCE. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, IN RIPON. AMONG the ancient Establishments, which are still in existence, may be mentioned The Hospital of St. John the Baptist, in Ripon,-to which THOMAS the Second, who was Archbishop of York, in the year 1109, gave certain lands for it's support.1 THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN, IN EXETER. The Hospital, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, in the City of Exeter, and appropriated for the reception of Leprous persons, existed at a very early period. BARTHOLOMEW, who was Bishop of Exeter from the year 1161 to the year 1184, was a Benefactor to it,-and his charter was confirmed by Pope CELESTINE the Third, in the second year of his Pontificate, 1192. The application of the revenues of the Hospital to the support of the description of persons now inhabiting it, is as near as circumstances will permit to the original object of the Charity,-as, happily, the dreadful disease of Leprosy no longer exists in England.2 The Leprosy, which is a disorder of the most malignant and disgusting nature, was once common in Europe. Those infected with it, were called "Lazars" who were separated from all human society (the disease being highly contagious) and were confined in Hospitals, called "Lazarettos," of which it is said there were no less than Nine Thousand at one time in Europe. For the last two hundred years this distemper has almost entirely 2 Rep. viii. pp. 54, 60. vanished from this and other Countries of Europe, and an instance of it now is but seldom to be met with. In the East it still exists to a certain degree;-and there, in former ages, it had it's source and origin, and raged for a great length of time with extraordinary violence.3 The separation of Leprous persons from their fellow creatures, has been an established rule from the earliest antiquity. Among the Israelites, during their pilgrimage through the Wilderness, it was a solemn command, as mentioned in Leviticus, cap. xiii. ver. 45, 46. "And the Leper in whom the Plague "is, his clothes shall be rent, and his “head bare, and he shall put a covering 66 upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Un "clean! Unclean!". "All the days wherein the plague shall "be in him, he shall be defiled, he is 66 unclean, he shall dwell alone,-with❝out the camp shall his habitation be." 3 Bishop Porteus's Lectures, vol. i. p. 226. Edit. 1819. The same precautions seem to have been continued among Christians,—and with respect to those unhappy objects in England, it is recorded, that in a Provincial Synod, which was holden at Westminster, by HUBERT, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the year 1200, it was decreed, according to the institution of the Lateran Council, that "when so many Leprous "people were assembled, that might be "able to build a Church, with a churchyard, to themselves, and to have one I especial Priest of their own, that they "should be permitted to have the same "without contradiction,-so they be not "injurious to the old Churches, by that "which was granted to them for pity's "sake."-And it was further decreed, “that they be not compelled to give any tythes of their gardens, or increase of "cattle." 66 66 66 So cautious, indeed, were our Ancestors in their care to remove the infectious, that a Writ is preserved in our antient Law-books, intituled "de Leproso amo vendo," and is thus stated by Judge FitzHERBERT in his Natura Brevium, p. 534. (Eighth edition. 4to., 1755);— "The Writ de Leproso amovendo lieth, "where a man is a Lazar or a Leper, and "is dwelling in any Town, and he will "come into the Church, or amongst his Neighbours where they are assembled, “to talk with them, to their annoyance “and disturbance, then he or they may 66 Isue forth that Writ for to remove him "from their Company; and the Writ is "such : "The King to the Sheriff, &c., or to the Mayor "and Sheriffs of London, greeting: Because we have "received information that I. of N. is a Leper, and is commonly conversant amongst the men of the City "aforesaid, and hath communication with them as well ❝ in publick as in private places; and refuses to remove "himself to a solitary place, as the custom is, and to "him belongs to do, to the great damage of the men aforesaid, and manifest peril by reason of the Con"tagion of the Disease aforesaid; We being willing "to take precaution against such Danger, as to us 66 appertains, and that that which is just and hath been "used, be done touching the premisses, command you, that taking with you certain discreet and law |