Lincoln, UK - Lincoln Cathedral and the Leper Window

Depicted in this stained glass window is a leper being ministered to by the bishop Saint Hugh of Avalon. This piece of work can be found in England in the Lincoln Cathedral chapter house.

Saint Hugh, like many other saints, has a rather interesting life. He was born to William, Lord of Avalon, and Anna. William was from one of the noblest of the Burgundian houses, but very little is known about his mother's heritage. When Anna passed away William decided to leave the life he knew and go to the Augustinian monastery of Villard-Benoît, taking his son with him. At the age of 19 William became an ordained deacon; in the “year 1159 he was sent as a prior to the cell, or dependent priory, of St-Maximin, not far from his ancestral home of Avalon, where his elder brother, William had succeeded his father” (Butler). There he worked hard and fully devoted himself to his religious life. This was when he decided to become a Carthusian and was ordained. After about ten years he became procurator and in 1175 became Abbot of the first Carthusian monastery in England. When ordered to do so by the prior of the Grande Chartreuse he was then named bishop of the eighteen-year-old vacant See of Lincoln in 1186:  “Hugh quickly restored clerical discipline, labored to restore religion to the diocese, and became known for his wisdom and justice” (“St. Hugh of Lincoln - Saints & Angels”). Something rather interesting was that he was one of the leaders in denouncing the persecution of the Jews that swept England in 1190-91. After going on a diplomatic mission to France for King John in 1199, he returned from the trip in poor health. A few months later, he was stricken and died two months later on November 16: “He was canonized twenty years later, in 1220, the first Carthusian to be so honored” (“St. Hugh of Lincoln - Saints & Angels”).

With his great history it is easy to see why he was held in such high respect and why he was memorialized in stained glass helping a leper. What is a leper? “Medieval sources represent leprosy (lepra in Latin, “lepre” in Middle English) as a grave illness, usually incurable except through divine intervention” (Orlemanski). The illness would first appear on a person's skin, but soon after start to deform their face and limbs. This could then eventually lead to death. Throughout the medieval time period and the different regions the definition and knowledge of this affliction, and not until after the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century, did doctors realize this disease was contagious, in the way we know the word today.

This illness goes by many different names. In modern times, it is referred to as Hansen's disease. In the Middle Ages, it was called leprosy, and often the person afflicted with it would be called a leper: "'Leper' (leprosus in Latin) is the term used to designate someone suffering from leprosy. It is now considered a slur, but in the Middle Ages it was used without necessarily derogatory implications. In Old French or Middle English, a leper might also be known as a 'lazer' — after the figure of Lazarus 'covered in sores,' in Jesus’s parable of the rich man and the poor (Luke 16: 19-31)" (Orlemanski).  

I believe the importance of Saint Hugh helping a leper shows how kind and fearless he was. He understood that this illness was not sent to that man as a punishment, but it was an illness. It was a very infectious illness, meaning he could have easily gotten this illness, yet he did not fear that. Saint Hugh felt it was more important to help his people.

Butler, Richard Urban. "St. Hugh of Lincoln." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 7, Robert Appleton Company, 1910, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07519c.htm.

Orlemanski, Julie. “Leprosy.” Medieval Disability Glossary, https://medievaldisabilityglossary.hcommons.org/leprosy/. 

“St. Hugh of Lincoln - Saints & Angels.” Catholic Online, www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=287.