“At the same time David (King of Scotland), the brother of Matilda, Queen of the English, came to England to visit his sister, and when, on a certain evening, he came by her invitation to her chamber, he found the house filled with lepers (_domum invenit Leprosis plenam_), and the Queen standing in the midst, having laid aside her cloak, she with both hands girded herself with a towel, and water being placed in readiness, she began to wash their feet, and wipe them with the towel, and embracing them with both hands, kissed them with the utmost devotion. Upon which her brother addressed her thus; ‘What is this which you are doing, my Lady? in truth if the King knew this, he would never deign to kiss with his lips your mouth, contaminated by the pollution of the lepers’ feet!’ and she, smiling, replied, ‘Who knows not that the feet of an Eternal King are to be preferred to the lips of an earthly king? Behold it was for this that I invited you, dearest brother—that you might learn by my example to perform similar actions. Do, I beseech you, that which you see me doing.’ And when her brother had made answer that he would by no means do such things, as she persevered in her employment David with a smile withdrew.”[321] In quoting, against the alleged strong contagion of the olden leprosy, the preceding instances of complete exposure to the infection of the disease, and yet, at the same time, of complete escape from it in some well-known historical personages, let it not be inferred that the victims of the malady were usually looked upon by the general community with feelings of devotion and pious commiseration. On the contrary, the subjects of this “_foedissimus omnium morborum_” were, as a body, regarded alike by the church and by the people as objects of disgust. The Council of Ancyrus decreed that lepers were only to be allowed to worship amongst the Hyemantes, or those public penitents who, on account of the enormity and turpitude of some of their sins, were obliged to stand in the open air, and not even allowed to come under the porch of the church.[322] The Council of Worms granted to lepers a liberty of receiving the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, but not with those in perfect health.[323] Guido de Monte Rocher, in his _Manual for Curates_, states, that to some lepers the sacrament cannot be given, because “non possunt corpus Dominicum sic recipere et tractare in ore suo, quin rejicerent ipsum, sic multi, quibus reciderunt labia et dentes et sunt totaliter corrosi usque ad guttur.”[324]