The Jews were again accused of crucifying a boy at Lincoln, Hugo by name, eight years of age. They are reported to have first fattened the boy for ten days with white bread and milk, in a secret chamber, and then sent for the principal Jews from all the cities of England, and appointed one to act as Pilate, others as the tormentors, and then re-enacted all the indignities mentioned in Scripture; scourged him, cruelly crowned him with thorns, fastened him to a cross, gave him gall to drink, and lastly, when dead, pierced his side with a spear. To crown all, they took out his bowels, as being particularly serviceable in their magic practices, and then, that the matter might not be known to Christians, diligently concealed the corpse. The earth, however, vomited forth the innocent body, worthy of a more honourable sepulchre, and as often as the Jews tried to bury it, it showed itself again next day above ground. Terrified beyond measure, they threw it into a well, where the mother at last found it. The master of the house was seized, and confessing the whole matter, was tied to horses’ tails, and thus torn to pieces. Ninety Jews were carried off in chains to London, and received due punishment.
The whole story is thus related by Matthew Paris, and copied by Prynne into his Demurrer, part first, pp. 29–32:—
“The same year, [i.e. when the king wanted so much money, and the Jews began to remonstrate], about the feast of Peter and Paul, the Jews of Lincoln stole a child called Hugo, being eight years old; and when as they had nourished him in a certain most secret chamber, with milk and other childish aliments, they sent to almost all the cities of England wherein the Jews lived, that, in contempt and reproach of Jesus Christ, they should be present at their sacrifice at Lincoln; for they had, as they said, a certain child hid to be crucified. Whereupon many assembled at Lincoln. And coming together, they appointed one Lincoln Jew for the judge, as it were for Pilate. By whose judgment, by the consent of all, the child is afflicted with sundry torments. He is whipped even unto blood and lividness, crowned with thorns, wearied with spittings and strickings; and moreover he is pricked by them all with poniards, made to drink gall, derided with reproaches and blasphemies, and frequently called by them with grinding teeth, Jesus the false prophet. And after they had derided him in divers manners, they crucified him, and pierced him with a spear to the heart. And when the child had given up the ghost, they took down his body from the cross, and took the bowels out of his corpse, for what end is unknown; but it was said it was to exercise magical arts. The mother of the child diligently sought for her absent son for some days, and it was told her by neighbours, that the last time they saw her child whom she sought, he was playing with the children of the Jews of his age, and entered into the house of a certain Jew. Whereupon the woman suddenly entered that house, and saw the body of her child cast into a certain pit. And having warily called the bailiffs of the city together, the body was found and drawn forth, and there was made a wonderful spectacle among the people. But the woman, mother of the child, complaining and crying out, provoked all the citizens there assembled together, to tears and sighs. There was then present at the place John de Lexinton, a circumspect and discreet man, and moreover elegantly learned, who said—‘we have sometimes heard that the Jews have not feared to attempt such things in reproach of Jesus Christ, our crucified Lord.’ And one Jew being apprehended—to wit, he into whose house the child entered playing, and therefore more suspected than the rest, he saith unto him, ‘O wretch, knowest thou not that speedy destruction abides thee? All the gold of England will not suffice for thy deliverance or redemption. Notwithstanding I will tell thee, although unworthy, by what means thou mayest preserve thy life and members, that thou mayest not be dismembered. I will save both to thee, if thou dost not fear to discover to me whatsoever things are done in this case, without falsehood.’ Whereupon the Jew, whose name was Copin, believing he had thus found out a way of escape, answered, saying, ‘Sir John, if thou makest thy words good by thy deeds, I will reveal wonderful things to thee.’ And the industry of Sir John animating and exciting him thereto, the Jew said, ‘those things are true which the Christians say. The Jews almost every year crucify one child, to the injury and contumely of Jesus; but it is not found out every year, for they do this secretly, and in hidden and most secret places. But this child whom they call Hugo, our Jews have most unmercifully crucified, and when he was dead, and they desired to hide him, being dead, he could not be buried in the earth, nor hid. For the corpse of the innocent was reputed unprofitable for divination, for he was unbowelled for that end. And when in the morning it was thought to be buried, the earth brought it forth, and vomited it out, and the body sometimes appeared inhuman, whereupon the Jews abhorred it. At last it was cast headlong into a deep pit; neither as yet could it be kept secret, for the importunate mother diligently searching all things, at last showed to the bailiffs the body she had found.’[1] But Sir John, notwithstanding this, kept the Jew bound in chains. When these things were known to the canons of the church of Lincoln, they requested the body to be given to them, which was granted; and when it had been sufficiently viewed by an infinite company of people, it was honourably buried in the church of Lincoln, as the corpse of a most precious martyr. The Jews kept the child alive for ten days, that being fed for so many days with milk, he might living suffer many sorts of torments. When the king returned from the northern parts of England, and was certified of the premises, he reprehended Sir John that he had promised life and members to so flagitious a person, which he could not give; for that blasphemer and homicide was worthy the punishment of many sorts of death. And when as unavoidable judgment was ready to be executed upon this offender, he said, ‘my death is now approaching, neither can my Lord John preserve me, who am ready to perish. I now relate the truth to you all. Almost all the Jews of England consented to the death of this child, whereof the Jews are accused; and almost out of every city in England wherein the Jews inhabit, certain chosen persons were called together to the immolation of that child, as to a Paschal sacrifice. And when as he had spoken these things, together with other dotages, being tied to an horse’s tail and drawn to the gallows, he was presented to the æreal Cacodæmons in body and soul; and ninety-one other Jews, partakers of this wickedness, being carried in carts to London, were there committed to prison. Who if so be they were casually bewailed by any Christians, yet they were deplored by the Caursini (the pope’s Italian usurers), their co-rivals, with dry eyes. Afterwards, by the inquisition of the king’s justices, it was discovered and found, that the Jews of England, by common counsel, had slain the innocent child, punished for many days and crucified. But after this, the mother of the said child constantly prosecuting her appeal before the king against them for that iniquity, and such a death, God, the Lord of revenges, rendered them a condign retribution, according to their merits; for on St. Clement’s day, eighty-eight of the richest and greatest Jews of the city of London [what a bountiful harvest for the needy king], were drawn and hanged up in the air upon new gibbets, especially prepared for that purpose; and more than twenty-three others were reserved in the Tower of London to the like judgment.”[2][,3]
[1] – Contrast this again with the conduct of the converted Jews of that time.
[2] – “Lying wonders form as much a part of the stories concerning the murdered children, as those which describe bleeding crucifixes, or flying sacramental wafers. Contemporary writers may be cited for the one set of facts as well as for the other. The atrocious and murderous lies which envelope this charge of using blood, give us strong reason for suspecting, that it is as devoid of truth, as calumnious, and as devilish as those image and wafer stories, by means of which so many thousands of unhappy Israelites were put to the sword, whose blood still cries to heaven for vengeance.”...
“The mere recital of these follies shows that they are the offspring of an unenlightened imagination, if not the invention of a malignant heart.
“The total absence of all credible testimony compels us to refuse our belief. The only evidence to be had is that extracted from the victims of the torture. But that mode of examination would have made the same persons confess that they were metempsychoses of Judas Iscariot or Pontius Pilate, that they had caused the ruinous convulsions of an earthquake or the devastations of the cholera morbus.”—Dr. M‘Caul’s Reasons for believing that the Charge lately revived against the Jewish People is a baseless Falsehood, pp. 16, 24.
[3] – See [Appendix O].
Earl Richard, having obtained his election as successor to the Emperor of Germany, he named himself King of the Romans. This exaltation had no favourable effect upon the unfortunate Jews. Tyranny and cruelty seem to have been the predominant features of royalty in those dark ages. He caused them to be arrested, and would not accept of any bail. The attorneys he employed were Jews, and in all probability of very indifferent characters—such as his favourite Abraham, the murderer of his own wife—who made, no effort to alleviate the oppression of their suffering brethren; perhaps helped forward their affliction by telling the Roman king they could raise the money at once, if made to do it.
There can be no doubt that the Jews had then able judges and lawyers of their own, and whom the king’s court considered competent to decide all sorts of questions, spiritual as well as temporal. This circumstance annoyed the ecclesiastics not a little, which they did not fail to resent.