The Melton Mowbray "leper head": an historical and medical investigation.

For the last forty years, the vestry of St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray, has been home to a remarkable, yet little known, piece of medieval sculpture known locally as the "leper head" and linked by tradition to the nearby hospital foundation at Burton Lazars. Doubts have been cast on this over the years by both professional and amateur historians, who have alleged that the distinctive features of the head merely represent damage or are part of a broader and more commonplace medieval tradition of grotesques, good examples being on display in the south porch of Bakewell Church, Derbyshire. The purpose of the present paper is to examine the "leper head" in its historical and medical context in order to establish its likely provenance and identity.