ABSTRACT
Leprosaria, the institutions that provided for lepers, were situated firmly outside the walls of medieval cities, apparently pointing to the exclusion of lepers. In Rouen, the city’s two main leprosaria, Mont-aux-Malades and Salle-aux-Puelles, were situated northwest and southwest of the city respectively, while smaller institutions were located at the city’s four main gates and elsewhere outside the city. However, in twelfth-and thirteenth-century Rouen, the second most populous city of France at this time and a major commercial center, there is much evidence to suggest that lepers were still members of civic society. Mont-aux-Malades, established between 1106 and 1135, was patronized by the Anglo-Norman royal family and (after Rouen came under the control of the French monarchy in 1204) the kings of France, and received numerous donations from Rouen’s citizens. Gifts of land and property, revealed in the many charters in Mont-aux-Malades’s archive, established links between the healthy and the leprosarium’s community.2 In September each year, Mont-aux-Malades hosted a popular fair, indicating that the people of Rouen and the surrounding area were not afraid to risk potential contact with the resident lepers.
