The English province

The order of St Lazarus in England underwent far reaching organisational change during the 400 years of its existence. Central to this development was the relationship between the English province and the master-general, and this fundamental issue was to have repercussions in many different areas. One of these concerned the question of authority and control; another touched on the important matter of funds, and, in particular, where and how they were to be directed. The order also had to respond to changing economic circumstances and different notions of piety among the laity, especially after 1350. But these potential difficulties could not have been predicted in the euphoria of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when patrons, inspired by the potent image of the leper knight, gave generously to the hospitals in Jerusalem and Acre to speed forth the Crusade. By 1291 the English estate had reached considerable proportions, and the chief preceptory at Burton Lazars was administering dependencies in several different parts of the country. Although this provided much-needed revenue for the work of the order in the Latin kingdom, little is known about the precise relationship between the master-general in the Holy Land and his subordinates in western Europe.

What is clear, even in the early years, is that the master of Burton was an important figure, and increasingly so as the extent of the English estate grew in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries (Appendix 1). Modes of description varied considerably. After 1150 there are references to a ‘prior’, or one member of the order being deemed to act ‘for the other brethren in England’. By the thirteenth century more obviously legalistic forms were in use, such as ‘preceptor of all the alms of St Lazarus in England and warden of the brethren in England’; ‘preceptor and custodian of all the alms of St Lazarus on this side of the sea’; ‘master of the house of St Lazarus in England and its convent’; or ‘master of the house of St Lazarus, Burton, and proctor in England of the lepers of St Lazarus of Jerusalem’.