During the first part of the fourteenth century, leprosy was widespread, but by no means as common as formerly. Directly or indirectly, testimony is borne to the fact of its prevalence by national laws, by hospital authorities and by the charitable public. In the first place there is the witness of external legislation, which is two-fold. Schemes of taxation refer constantly to lepers (_Rolls of Parliament_, 1307–1324). Measures were repeatedly taken for their expulsion from towns. An ordinance was made in the Parliament of Lincoln (1315) commanding that houses founded for the infirm and lepers should be devoted to their use. The admission of other persons was now refused, as, for example, at St. Giles’, London, and St. Bartholomew’s, Oxford.[24] There is, secondly, the phraseology of contemporary leper-house statutes, e.g. those drawn up by the Abbot of St. Alban’s (1344), and by the Bishop of London for Ilford (1346). Here it is right to note a case where infected inmates were already in a minority. A summary of the history of St. Nicholas’, Carlisle (1341), includes this definite statement:—“until by lapse of time the greater part of the lepers died, when . . . their places were filled by poor impotent folk.”[25] Thirdly, it is evident from the gifts of charitable persons that there were still many outcasts in need of assistance. Bishop Bitton of Exeter left money to lazars in thirty-nine localities within his diocese (1307). [p039] Practically all the wills of the period allude to the presence of lepers in the neighbourhood. Although there already existed two asylums outside Rochester (St. Bartholomew’s and St. Nicholas’ at Whiteditch), to which bequests were continuously made until far into the next century,[26] St. Katherine’s hospital was founded in 1316 for lepers and other mendicants:— “if it happe anie man or woman of the cittie of Rouchester to be uisited with lepre, or other suche diseases that longe to impotence, with unpower of pouertie, there sholde be receaued.” If leper-houses were empty, the fact is largely accounted for by the mismanagement and poverty of charitable institutions at that period. This aspect of the subject has never received adequate attention. Destitute persons were ousted to make way for paying inmates. One thirteenth-century master of St. Nicholas’, York, admitted thirty-six brethren and sisters, of whom four were received _pro Deo_, because they were lepers, but the rest for money. This practice was sadly common, and notorious instances might be cited from Lincoln (Holy Innocents’), London (St. Giles’), and Oxford (St. Bartholomew’s).