From the following circumstance, it would seem that the converts were expected to join their patrons in their railing accusations against their unbelieving brethren. The poor converts found themselves, therefore, very awkwardly situated, as will evidently appear to every intelligent reader of the following occurrence.
The Jews were again accused of crucifying a child. The story and the made-up circumstances are so extraordinary, that I shall give you the whole account, as given by Matthew Paris, and translated by William Prynne, in his malicious Demurrer.
“Anno 1244 in August, the corpse of a little male child was found buried in the city of London, in whose thighs and arms, and under whose paps, there was a regular inscription in Hebrew letters. To which spectacle when as many resorted, admiring at it, and not knowing how to read the letters, knowing that the letters were Hebrew, they called thither converted Jews who inhabited the house which the king had founded in London, that they as they loved their life or members, for the honour, love, and fear of their Lord the King, without figment of falsehood, might declare that writing. For the king’s bailiffs, and conservators of the peace were present. They likewise believed, neither without cause, that the Jews had either crucified that little child in obloquy and contumely of Christ (which was related frequently to have happened) or had afflicted him with sundry torments to crucify him, and when he had given up the ghost, they had now cast him there, as unworthy the cross. Moreover, there appeared in his body blue marks, and rents of rods, and manifest signs and footsteps of some other torment. And when as those converts were brought to read those things that were inscribed, and studied that they might perfectly read them, they found the letters deformed, and now not legible, being many ways disordered, and tossed up and down, by reason of the extension and contraction of the skin and flesh. But they found the name of the father and mother of the little child, suppressing their surnames, and that the child was sold to the Jews; but to whom, or to what end, they could not find. In the mean time, certain of the London Jews took a secret and sudden flight, never to return again, who by this very thing rendered themselves suspected. And some affirmed, that the Lord had wrought miracles for the child. And because it was found that the Jews at other times had perpetrated such wickedness, and the holy bodies crucified had been solemnly received in the Church, and likewise to have shined brightly with miracles, although the prints of the five wounds appeared not in the hands and feet and side of the said corpse, yet the canons of St. Paul took it violently away, and solemnly buried it in their church, not far from the great altar.” To the honour and credit of the then Jewish converts, let this event be recorded, that though they were stimulated by the Christians to accuse their unconverted brethren, by whom they were so violently hated, they brought no accusation whatever against their enemies; and their total silence respecting the charge of crucifying Christian children should have convinced the dignitaries of the Church, that that charge was nothing more but a base and false calumny.
The king, after his return to England, found himself very much impoverished, having lost his military chest, and his moveable chapel royal, with all its rich plate, at the battle of Taillebourg. Henry wishing, however, to celebrate the wedding of his brother Richard with his sister-in-law, Sancha, in royal style, he called, therefore, upon the poor Jews to furnish the funds for the splendid festivities. And Aaron of York alone was compelled to pay no less than four thousand marks of silver and four hundred marks of gold; and the Jews of London were mulcted in like proportion.[1] He was still poor, and wanted more money; he applied, therefore, to his parliament for it. They well knew, that vast sums had been exacted by him from the Jews; the barons, therefore, inquired, what became of all their money. The king did not relish this sort of procedure on the part of those noblemen, and appeared to refuse an answer to such an ill-timed query. The barons, in order to be acquainted in future with his revenues derived from the Jews, insisted on having one, at least, of the justices of the Jews appointed by parliament. The king found himself obliged to acquiesce in that bold proposal, and moreover to confirm it by charter. The Jews were by no means sorry for this baronical step, for it afforded them a little respite. For in return for the king’s consenting to the new parliamentary measure, the barons were likewise obliged to yield to his request, and supply his pecuniary wants, so that the Jews had peace from him, during the whole of that year. But it was only for that year. The next one was introduced with another demand.
[1] – M. Paris; A. [♦]Strickland.
[♦] ‘Stricland’ replaced with ‘Strickland’
In consequence of the king’s again wanting money to meet the Welsh incursions, the Jews were once more applied to and despoiled of, 10,000 marks: transportation to Ireland was the punishment in case of refusal.
Many families removed and hid themselves, fearing Ireland, as it would seem, more than England;[1] so that the king had recourse to his father’s measures, and issued a most cruel proclamation respecting their wives and children: in which, orders were given to the justices appointed for the protection of the Jews, that they should cause to be proclaimed throughout all the counties of England, where the Jews were, that if a Jewess, the wife of any Jew, or their children, fly, or take to flight, or in any way skulk from the village where they were on the festival of St. Andrew, in the twenty-ninth year of that reign, up to the year following: so that if they did not promptly appear, at the summons of the king, or of his bailiffs, in the bailiwicks in which they dwelt, that the husband of that Jewess, and even the Jewess herself, and all their children, shall be presently outlawed; and all their lands, revenues, and all their chattels, shall come into the hands of the king, and be sold, for the assistance of the king, and for the future, they shall not return into the kingdom of England, without the king’s special orders.
[1] – It is a favourite boast on the part of many Irish Christians, that their countrymen never persecuted the Jews. The above incidental piece of information may account for it.
Westminster Abbey was about this time rebuilt; and the Jews, who were prohibited from entering any Christian place of worship, were at the same time commanded to aid in the rebuilding and ornamenting of that magnificent church.