{"id":783120,"date":"2026-09-26T10:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783120\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T10:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:28:09","slug":"lincoln-dig-to-unearth-the-lost-world-of-medieval-leprosy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783120\/","title":{"rendered":"Lincoln dig to unearth the lost world of medieval leprosy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It has long been thought of as one of the most feared diseases in the medieval world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leprosy was capable of inspiring religious debate and, for those who bore its symptoms, reshaping their place in society.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But an archaeological project in Lincoln is presenting a more complex picture of how this misunderstood condition was treated and patients were perceived.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Next month, a dig will begin to uncover the Hospital of the Holy Innocents, which was founded in about the year 1100 to offer care and shelter to those living with the disease.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We have this idea that individuals with leprosy were ostracised or shunned, that&#8217;s a very Victorian view,&#8221; says Samantha Tipper, a senior lecturer in forensic science at Anglian Ruskin University. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Actually, places like this may have been nice religious communities and a lovely place to live&#8230; apart from the leprosy.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has long been thought of as one of the most feared diseases in the medieval world. Leprosy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}