The fermery was the hospital or ‘spital’[180] attached to each religious house, and was under the immediate control of the above-mentioned officer. It is with him, therefore, we may fitly ally ‘Robert le Almoner,’ or ‘Michael le Aumoner,’ a name still abiding with us, and representative of him who dispensed the alms to the lazars and the poor. It is in allusion to this his office that Robert Brunne in one of his tales says:— Seynt Jone, the aumenere,[181] Saith Pers, was an okerere And was very coveytous And a niggard and avarus. Of the same officer in more lordly society the ‘Boke of Curtasye’ thus speaks— The Aumonere a rod schalle have in honde, An office for almes, I understonde; Alle the broken mete he kepys in wait To dele to pore men at the gate. Many of those who were supported at this time and in this manner were lepers. We can take up no record, large or small, of the period without coming across a ‘Nicholas’ or ‘Walter le Leper.’ Leprosy was introduced into Western Europe with the return of the Crusaders. To such a degree had it spread in England, that in 1346 Edward III. was compelled to issue a royal mandate enjoining those ‘smitten with the blemish of leprosy’ to ‘betake themselves to places in the country, solitary, and notably distant’ from the dwellings of men. Such a distinctive designation as this would readily cling to a man, even after he had been cured of the disorder,[182] and no wonder that in our ‘Lepers’ and ‘Leppers’ the name still remains as but one more memorial of that noble madness which set Christendom ablaze some six centuries ago. A term used synonymously at this time with leper is found in such an entry as ‘Richard le Masele’ or ‘Richard le Masle,’ that is, ‘Measle.’ Wicklyffe has the word in the case of Naaman, and also of the Samaritan leper.[183] Langland speaks of those who are afflicted with various ailments, and adds that they, if they Take these myschiefs meeklike, As mesels, and others, Han as pleyn pardon As the plowman hymselve. Capgrave, too, to quote but one more instance, speaking of Deodatus, a Pope of the seventh century, says ‘He kissed a mysel and sodeynly the mysel was whole.’ Strange to say, this name also is not extinct. Our ‘Badmans’ are not so bad as they might seem. They, and our ‘Bidmans,’ are doubtless but corrupted forms of the old ‘bedeman,’ or ‘beadman,’ he who professionally invoked Heaven in behalf of his patron. It is hence we get our word ‘bead,’ our forefathers having been accustomed to score off the number of aves and paternosters they said by means of these small balls strung on a thread. This practice, I need not say, is still familiar to the Romish Church.