ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I examine two Middle English works that seem to imply or state some relationship between leprosy and sexuality. On closer examination, only one of these works, The Pricke of Conscience, conveys a relationship between leprosy and lechery somewhat similar to modern definitions of a venereal disease. However, this work’s connection between leprosy and lechery seems not to have taken hold in the literature of the Middle Ages, for numerous other works identify leprosy as a punishment for various spiritual sins, rather than carnal sins. The second half of this chapter examines Chaucer’s Summoner, the anonymous Amis and Amiloun, and Robert Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid in order to establish that leprosy was more commonly associated with spiritual sins than the carnal sins. The spiritual sins that the lepers were often supposed to have committed were sins that threatened the stability of the community. God infects people with leprosy in order to identify those who threaten the power structure of the society. The disease, therefore, is a defender of the status quo because it protects those already in power from being usurped by others.
