Louis there were eight hundred in France alone. It is not proven, though it has been asserted, that this was the case at Jerusalem.įrom the time of the crusades, followed by the spread of leprosy, leper hospitals became very numerous throughout Europe, so that at the death of St. In some leper hospitals of the Middle Ages even the master had to be chosen from among the lepers. In return they were regarded as brothers or sisters of the house which sheltered them, and they obeyed the common rule which united them with their religious guardians. Lazarus on the contrary were condemned to perpetual seclusion. John were merely visitors, and changed constantly the lepers of St. Because of its special aim, it had quite a different organisation. John, but without encroaching on the field of the latter. The Order of Saint Lazarus was indeed solely an order of hospitaller monks at the beginning, as was that of St. These eastern leper hospitals followed the Rule of Saint Basil, while that of Jerusalem adopted the hospital Rule of St. Lazarus claimed to be the continuation, in order to have the appearance of remote antiquity and to pass as the oldest of all orders. 8 List of other self-styled 'Orders of Saint Lazarus'Įven prior to the twelfth century there were leper hospitals in the Near East, of which the Knights of St.7 Protectors/Grand masters/Administrators of the self-styled order(s).6 Protectors/Grand masters/Administrators of the historic order.