1321

Leper Massacre in southern France, spurred by specious claim of leper plot to poison the wells throughout France (T. Miller & Nesbitt, 96-97, 106ff.). The massacre followed from the greater fear of leprosy in Western Europe than in the Byzantine East. Whereas Byzantine physicians “repressed any suggestions that leprosy was contagious,” this was not true in some regions of Western Europe, where “social attitudes, reflected in legal codes [rooted in Germany customary law, not Roman law] and customary practices, played perhaps the central role in placing victims of Elephant Disease ‘outside the camp’.” Byzantine law “did not allow for any expulsion or quarantine of lepers by the state” (117).