singing the psalm ‘Libera me domine,’ and the crucifix and bearer going before. In the church a black cloth was stretched over two trestles in front of the altar, and the leper leaning at its side devoutly heard mass. The priest, taking up a little earth in his cloak, threw it on one of the lepers feet, and put him out of the church, if it did not rain too heavily; took him to his hut in the midst of the fields, and then uttered the prohibitions: ‘I forbid you entering the church . . . . or entering the company of others. I forbid you quitting your home without your leper’s dress.’ He concluded: ‘Take this dress, and wear it in token of humility; take these gloves, take this clapper, as a sign that you are forbidden to speak to any one. You are not to be indignant at being thus separated from others, and as to your little wants, good people will provide for you, and God will not desert you.’ Then in this old ritual follow these sad words: ‘When it shall come to pass that the leper shall pass out of this world, he shall be buried in his hut, and not in the churchyard.’ At first there was a doubt whether wives should follow their husbands who had been leprous, or remain in the world and marry again. The Church decided that the marriage-tie was indissoluble, and so bestowed on these unhappy beings this immense source of consolation.
