The preamble to the laws of the hospital of St. Julian’s, drawn up by Abbot Michael, asserts, that “amongst all infirmities the disease of leprosy may be considered the most loathsome, and those who are smitten with it ought at all times, and in all places, and as well in their conduct as in their dress, to bear themselves as more to be despised and as more humble than all other men.” The canons of the Church of Scotland, as drawn up in the thirteenth century, deal with the unfortunate lepers more humanely than most other ecclesiastical judicatories; for after recommending them to be admonished to respect the churches of their districts, it is added that, if they cannot be induced to do so, let no coercion be employed, seeing that affliction should not be accumulated upon the afflicted, but rather their miseries commiserated (_cum afflictis addi non debeat afflictio, sed ipsorum, miseriis sit potius miserandum_.)[325] But the contempt displayed towards them seems to have been almost proverbial as late as the age of Elizabeth. Thus Shakespeare makes Margaret of Anjou exclaim to the afflicted and suspicious Henry VI., after the murder of his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, Why dost thou turn away and hide thy face? I am no loathsome leper, look on me.[326] Maundrell, one of our early English travellers in Palestine, alludes to some cases of leprosy in terms portraying simply but strongly the fearful effects and character of the disease. After speaking of some cases of leprosy that he met with in his journey, he states (to quote his own words), “At Sichem, near Naplous, there were not less than ten lepers,—the same number that was cleansed by our Saviour not far from the same place, that came a-begging to us at one time. Their manner is to come with small buckets in their hands to receive the alms of the charitable, their touch being still held infectious, or at least unclean. Their whole distemper was so noisome that it might (he adds) well pass for the utmost corruption of the human body on this side the grave.”[327] Various authors have alleged that the institution of leper hospitals, and laws for the separation and seclusion of the infected, were formed more from imitation of the Levitical institutions regarding the leprosy than from direct observation and proofs of the contagious character of the disease. The avoidance, however, and separation of the sick, have been recommended and followed by authors and by communities over whom the Levitical laws could have exercised no influence, direct or indirect, and to whom, indeed, these laws were in all probability totally unknown.