As to the intercourse of lepers with the outside world, there was a curious admixture of strictness and laxity. The ordinances of early lazar-houses show that the theory of contagion had little place in their economy. They recognized that the untainted need not be harmed by slight communication with the infected. When visitors came from a distance to Sherburn they were permitted to stay overnight. The lepers of St. Julian’s were allowed to see friends—“if an honest man and true come there, for the purpose of visiting an infirm brother, let him have access to him, that they may mutually discourse on that which is meet”—but no woman was admitted except a mother, sister or other honest matron. The general public was protected, inmates not being permitted to frequent the high-road or speak to passers-by (1344). At the time of seclusion, the leper was forbidden henceforth to enter church, market or tavern. At St. Julian’s, the mill and bakehouse were likewise forbidden. The statutes of Lynn required that the infirm should not enter the quire, cellar, kitchen or precincts, but keep the places assigned in church, hall and court. So long as they did not eat or drink outside their own walls, lepers might roam within a defined area. The Reading lepers might never go out without a companion. At Harbledown they might not wander without permission, which was granted for useful business, moderate recreation, and in the event of the grievous sickness or death of parents and friends. [p137] Such rules were more a matter of discipline than of public health. It was not merely lepers who were required to keep within bounds, for ordinary almsmen had similar restrictions. At Croydon they were forbidden to walk or gaze in the streets, nor might they go out of sight of home, excepting to church. The rules of St. Katherine’s, Rochester, were drawn up by the innkeeper Symond Potyn. He stipulates that if the almsmen buy ale, it shall be consumed at home:— “also that none of them haunt the tauerne to go to ale, but when theie have talent or desier to drynke, theire shall bye theare drynke, and bringe yt to the spitell; “also that none of them be debator, baretor, dronkelew, nor rybawde of his tounge.”[86] If any thus offend, the prior with twain good men of Eastgate shall go to the Vicar of St. Nicholas’ and the founder’s heirs, who “shall put them oute of the same spittle for euermore, withoute anie thing takinge with them but theare clothinge and their bedde.” (c) _Supervision._—In ecclesiastical hospitals, the approved method of maintaining order was by weekly chapter, at which correction was to be justly administered without severity or favour. The injunctions at St. John’s, Nottingham, were as follows:—