The village of St. Giles in the Fields, as shown in the accompanying plan, is of great interest, largely because the place still retains some of its old special features. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Rookery of St. Giles's was destroyed, and New Oxford Street was built on the site, the lines of its contour were little altered since the Hospital was founded at the beginning of the twelfth century.
The Ordinance of Edward III. (1346), and the swearing of the porters of the city gates that they will prevent lepers from entering the city, are printed in Riley's _Memorials_ (pp. 230, 384).
Dr. Creighton states that, as far as he knows, the Ordinance of 1346 is the only one of the kind in English history, and adds: 'The statutes of the realm contain no reference to lepers or leprosy from first to last; the references in the Rolls of Parliament are to the taxing of their houses and lands. The laws which deprived lepers of marital rights and of heirship appear to have been wholly foreign; in England, leprosy as a bar to succession was made a plea in the law courts.'[161]
Doubtless there were many cases of true leprosy in the Middle Ages, but there was a great confusion of diseases under this generic term, and we are told that, 'in some instances of leper hospitals with authentic charters, the provision for the leprous was in the proportion of one to three or four of the non-leprous inmates.'[162]
It was a very terrible fate for a man or woman to be accused of being a leper, for the sufferers were driven from the haunts of men, and being in many cases uncared for, they grew worse and worse. The disease was largely caused by bad food, and this cause was quite neglected in many places.
A monstrous Ordinance of the Scottish Parliament at Scone in 1386 is recorded in the _Ancient Laws and Customs of the Burghs of Scotland_: 'Gif ony man brings to the market corrupt swine or salmond to be sauld, they sall be taken by the bailie, and incontinent, without ony question, sall be sent to the lepper folke; and gif there be na lepper folke, they sall be destroyed all uterlie.' The Rev. W. Denton, in quoting this instance of horrible cruelty, writes: 'Sir Walter Scott must have had instances of such economy in his mind when he put into the mouth of John Girder the directions--"Let the house be redd up, the broken meat set by, and if there be ony thing totally uneatable, let it be gien to the puir folk."--_Bride of Lammermuir._'[163]