(a) _The Writ for Removal._—The right to expel lepers was acknowledged before it was legally enforced. An entry upon the statute-book may be merely the official recognition of an established custom. The fact that where use and wont are sufficiently strong, law is unnecessary, is illustrated to-day in Japan, where public opinion alone enforces the separation of lepers. At length English civil law set its seal upon the theory of infection by the writ _De Leproso Amovendo_, authorizing the expulsion of lepers on account of manifest peril by contagion. An early instance of removal occurs in the Curia Regis Rolls (1220). It is mentioned that William, son of Nicholas Malesmeins, had been consigned with the assent [p053] of his friends to a certain Maladria in Bidelington, where he abode for two years. This was the leper-house near Bramber, mentioned four years previously in a Close Roll as “the hospital of the infirm of St. Mary Magdalene of Bidelington.” Legislation on this subject was chiefly local. The Assizes of London had proclaimed in 1276 that “no leper shall be in the city, nor come there, nor make any stay there.” Edward III supplemented existing measures by an urgent local edict for London and Middlesex. The royal proclamation sets forth that many publicly dwell among the citizens, being smitten with the taint of leprosy; these not only injure people by the contagion of their polluted breath, but they even strive to contaminate others by a loose and vicious life, resorting to houses of ill-fame, “that so, to their own wretched solace, they may have the more fellows in suffering.”[35] All persons proved leprous—citizens or others, of whatever sex or condition—are to quit the city within fifteen days, “and betake themselves to places in the country, solitary, and notably distant from the city and suburbs.” This order, sent to the mayor, was followed by a proclamation to the sheriff of the county. Lepers are to abandon the highways and field-ways between the city and Westminster, where several such persons sit and stay, associating with whole men, to the manifest danger of passers-by.[36] This social problem continued to vex municipal authorities. A precept was issued (1369) “that no leper beg in the street for fear of spreading infection.” The porters of the eight principal gates of the city were sworn [p054] to refuse them admittance. (That _barbers_—forerunners of the barber-chirurgeons—were included among the gate-keepers in 1310 and 1375, was perhaps due to their supposed capability of recognizing diseases.) If a leper tried to enter, he should forfeit his horse or his outer garment, and if persisting, be taken into custody. The foreman at “le loke” and an official at the Hackney lazar-house were also bound to prevent their entry into the city.