ARCHÆOLOGICALsmallFINDS
Question
Asked 16 December 2014
Do you know any leper burials (not leper hospitals) that were not isolated from the rest of the burials in a single graveyard?
I'm interested in (medieval) cases where burials with people who had leprosy were not isolated, but were included in the settlement's graveyard, thus perhaps showing some sort of care for the sick etc.
There's a case in Croatia where 4 leper burials were found in a single graveyard of all together 112 burials. The leper burials were obviously not isolated, the artifacts found in the graves didn't differ from other graves and there were even two dual burials (sick female + healthy male).
Most recent answer
Another example might be grave 18 in the Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Edix Hill, Cambridgeshire. It is published in Malim, T. and Hines, J., 1998 The Anglo–Saxon Cemetery at Edix Hill (Barrington A), Cambridgeshire: excavations 1989–1991 and a summary catalogue of material from 19th century interventions, CBA Research Report 112. Council for British Archaeology, York.
It is availble from the ADS and Tim Malims' Academa profile
Sorry, the link here is highjacked by ResearchGate where the file is not available, so for anyone interested in the book, go to his Academia profile
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Popular answers (1)
Philipps University of Marburg
Thank you Steven, I found a newspaper article about the woman but no relevant publication. I'll keep looking!
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All Answers (16)
University of Debrecen
Dear Petar,
You can ask information from leprosy museums and graveyards
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Headland Archaeology
Have a look at medieval york, specific case of a young woman with leprosy who appeared to live and work in york also buried with general population. Sorry don't have ref. to hand, will try and dig it out
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Headland Archaeology
Try university of Glasgow, luoisa Cunningham, The walking dead. Challenging the image of the outcast leper using burial evidence from English medieval cities
Philipps University of Marburg
Thank you Steven, I found a newspaper article about the woman but no relevant publication. I'll keep looking!
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Pueblo of Isleta
Petar,
this appears to be a case of non-isolated burial: M. Rubini and P. Zaio, Lepromatous leprosy in an early mediaeval cemetery in Central Italy (Morrione, Campochiaro, Molise, 6th–8th century AD), Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 12 (Dec. 2009): 2771-2779.
University of Bradford
If you've not already done so, read this paper: Lee, C. 2008. ' forever young: child burial in anglo-Saxon England.' In Lewish-Simpson, S. (ed.) Northern World: Youth and Age in the Medieval North. Boston: Brill: 17-36.
Lee talks about special leper burials at various sites and child burials that were associated with them.
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Headland Archaeology
You should find copy of paper at academia.edu
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University of Southern Denmark
Hi Petar,
Happy New Year!
Numerous cemeteries from Germany, Sweden and Denmark have hog frequencies of burials of people who when they were alive suffered from leprosy. Using the epidemiological method for estimating leprosy frequency in cemetery samples that I have published in several papers in e.g. American Journal of Physical Anthropology and Anthropologischer Anzeiger frequencies of sufferers of leprosy (the unfortunate people suffering from leprosy prefers that we scientists do not use the stigmatizing term leper for them) have been found to range from 0 - 45 %. Many of the people who indeed suffered from leprosy in early stages when they died would in classical paleopathology not be classified as having the disease; but several of them would be.
In an unpublished study of the distribution of people who suffered from leprosy in the Tirup cemetery it has been found that the sufferers were distributed non-randomly on the cemetery; but there was no clear segregation.
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Università degli studi di Foggia, Ministero per i Beni Culturali, Ambientali e del Turismo
Dear Petrac,
happy new year. For my personal experience in Italy there are only graveyard with lepers in normal cemetery at this moment. These are distributed in a chronological range that occur from the first millennium BCE (Casalecchio del Reno) to renaissance (Fornaciari et al.). There are tombs with lepers in roman age (Martellona, Palombara, Casale del Dolce) and in middle age (Campochiaro, Puglia, etc.).
Best wishes and let me know if you have necessity of further information
Mauro
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Jesper Boldsen has published his extensive research in medieval leprosy; I suggest that you contact him for a more detailed answer to your question.
University of Winchester
Cunningham's thesis is indeed available at academia.edu. It is worth noting that she argues that in some English cases leprosaria and hospitals did not have their own cemeteries and buried their dead in the local churchyard. That seems fairly unlikely to me, but would require good information about all local places caring for lepers to be able to rule it out.
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Università degli studi di Foggia, Ministero per i Beni Culturali, Ambientali e del Turismo
Dear Petar,
at this moment, all the the leprosy cases from Italy came from "normal" cemetery. This situation is present in the first millennium BC as in first millennim AD. I do not know if this condition is casual or due to the scarce presence of the disease. For a survey can see on leprosy situation in Italy you can see Rubini and ZAio, 2009 JAS or Rubini et al. 214 HOMO
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Arkansas State University
Roberta Gilchrist's Requiem: the Medieval Monastic Cemetery in Britain offers a survey of burial patterns that might be useful to you as comparative evidence. Some other reports from England and Ireland:
Bruintje, Tj. D. “The Auditory Ossicles in Human Skeletal Remains from a Leper Cemetery in Chichester, England.” Journal of Archaeological Science 17 (1990): 627-33.
Farley, Michael, and Manchester, Keith. “The Cemetery of the Leper Hospital of St. Margaret, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.” Medieval Archaeology 1 (1989): 82-89.
Buckley, Laureen, and Alan Hayden. “Excavations at St Stephen's Leper Hospital, Dublin: a summary account and an analysis of burials.” In: Medieval Dublin, III: Proceedings of the Friends of Medieval Dublin Symposium 2001, edited by Sean Duffy, 151-194. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002.
Catling, Christopher. “The Archaeology of Leprosy and the Black Death.” Current Archaeology 236 (2009): 22–9.
Gilchrist, Roberta. “Christian Bodies and Souls: The Archaeology of Life and Death in Later Medieval Hospitals.” In: Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, 100-1600, edited by Steven Bassett, 101-118. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992.
Roffey, Simon. “Medieval Leper Hospitals in England: An Archaeological Perspective.” Medieval Archaeology 56 (2012): 203-33. (I attach here a copy.)
I confess that I myself have been frustrated by my inability to find many records of similar archaeological projects in Germany, though you might look at:
Koch, Wilfred Maria. “Archäologischer Bericht 1988/1989: Das Leprosorium Aachen-Melaten. Vorbericht der Ausgrabungen 1988/89.” Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsvereins 96 (1989): 409-419.
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ARCHÆOLOGICALsmallFINDS
Another example might be grave 18 in the Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Edix Hill, Cambridgeshire. It is published in Malim, T. and Hines, J., 1998 The Anglo–Saxon Cemetery at Edix Hill (Barrington A), Cambridgeshire: excavations 1989–1991 and a summary catalogue of material from 19th century interventions, CBA Research Report 112. Council for British Archaeology, York.
It is availble from the ADS and Tim Malims' Academa profile
Sorry, the link here is highjacked by ResearchGate where the file is not available, so for anyone interested in the book, go to his Academia profile
1 Recommendation
Similar questions and discussions
What period would you say the pictured cross slab is from? (archaeology)
The pictured cross slab is from Kilsharvan (Cille Sarbhán) near Duleek, Co. Meath, Ireland. The site is associated with the abbey of Colp near Drogheda and had de Lacey patronage in the early medieval period. The present church ruin is 13th century and reconfigured in the 17th century before being abandoned.
Kilsharvan (Cill Searbhain, or Cell Serbáin[1]), a townland in the barony of Lower Duleek in County Meath is well known locally for its graveyard and church (SMR ME027-009) and a number of local historical figures are interred therein. The graveyard is a stop on the local tourist route[2] (Beamore – Kilsharvan Trail, Meath County Council). However, the tourist literature makes no mention of the rough-hewn stone (Figure 1.) with a representation of three crosses. Gothic Past[3], holds no record for Kilsharvan and whereas the National Monuments’ Service[4] records the church and graveyard, no mention is made of the rough-hewn stone. The dedication of the site to Searbhain (“The Bitter Tongued”) or Serbáin (St. Serban?) is unusual if either is taken as correct. The former and the one most commonly linked to Kilsharvan is a epithet for St. John the Baptist who complained ‘bitterly’ of the moral rectitude of the Herodians in Jerusalem, this is the explanation the tourist and local history favours; on the other hand Monasticon Hibernicum[5] lists a Serbáin (‘male’) as the association to Kilsharvan, but no such saint appears in the martyrologies and it is not a name known in Irish.
Kilsharvan church is thought to date to around 1300, but, there is a reference to the tithes of Kilsharvan being allocated to the new Augustinian monastery at Colpe in 1182 when it was built by Hugh de Lacy (the Irish house of the Abbey of Llanthony Prima in Wales)(Mullen, 1988/9). Hugh (born c. 1124 – 1185) came to Ireland with King Henry II and was granted the Kingdom of Meath (as Earl). His son Hugh de Lacy (Earl of Ulster, born c.1179 - 1242) was a substantial benefactor of Llanthony Prima Abbey in Wales as was the de Lacy family in general. It is not known if a church existed prior to 1300. The importance of the tithe reference is that it places Kilsharvan, as a place at least, earlier on the ecclesiastical landscape. The calvary stone might predate the current ruin, but what is its date?
[1] According to Monasticon Hibernicum (http://monasticon.celt.dias.ie)
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