The hospital inmate in his coarse warm clothing was readily distinguished from the ragged mendicant. The brothers and sisters at Harbledown were supplied with a uniform dress of russet, that is to say, a closed tunic or super-tunic; the brethren wore scapulars (the short working dress of a monk), and the sisters, mantles. At St. Julian’s hospital, the cut of the costume was planned; thus the sleeves were to be closed as far as the hand, but not laced with knots or thread after the secular fashion; the upper tunic was to be worn closed down to the ankles; the close black cape and hood must be of equal length. The amount of material is recorded in the case of Sherburn, _viz._ three ells of woollen cloth and six ells of linen. At Reading the leper’s allowance was still more liberal, for the hood or cape contained three ells, the tunic three, the cloak two and a quarter; they also received from the abbey ten yards of linen, besides old leathern girdles and shoes. Lepers were forbidden to walk unshod. At Sherburn, each person was allowed fourpence annually for shoes, grease being regularly supplied for them. Inmates of both sexes at Harbledown wore ox-hide boots, fastened with leather and extending beyond the middle of the shin. High boots were also worn by the brethren at St. Julian’s “to suit their infirmity”; if one was found wearing low-cut shoes—“tied with only one knot”—he had to walk barefoot for a season. For headgear at Harbledown, the men used hoods, and the women covered their heads with thick double veils, white within, and black without. Hats were sometimes [p177] worn, both in England (Fig. 9) and in France. (Fig. 26.) In the Scottish ballad (_circa_ 1500), Cresseid is taken to the lazar-house dressed in a mantle with a beaver hat. This was probably a secular fashion. [Illustration: 26. A LEPER (With clapper and dish)] FOOTNOTES: [103] Surtees, Vol. 56. Gray’s Register, p. 181. [104] _Val. Ecc._, i. 56. [105] Giffard’s Register, p. 388. [106] P.R.O. Chanc. Misc. 20, No. 13. [p178] CHAPTER XIII HOSPITAL FUNDS “_To the which hospitals the founders have given largely of their moveable goods for the building of the same, and a great part of their lands and tenements therewith to sustain impotent men and women._” (Parliament of Leicester.)