"What do you mean by outside?"

"On the margin. Peasants: only they are not really peasants, because they have no land, or what land they have does not feed them. And citizens: only they are notcitizens, becasue they do not belong to a guild or a corporation: they are the little people, prey of anyone. Have you sometimes seen groupsof lepers in the countryside?"

"Yes, once I saw a hundred together. Misshapen, their flesh decaying and all whitish, hobbling on their crutches, with swollen eyelids, bleedings eyes. They didnt speak or shout; they twittered, like mice."

"For the Christian people they are the others, those who remain on the fringe of the flock. The flock hates them, they hate the flock, who wish all lepers like them would die."

-conversation between William and Ado, page 201, from U. Eco's, The Name of the Rose