HUGH OF LINCOLN.
In the year 1255, we are told by Matthew Paris, in his account of the reign of Henry III., the Jews of Lincoln stole a boy, named Hugh, of the age of eight years, whom, after torturing for ten days, they crucified before a large council of their people, in contempt of the death of the founder of Christianity. The boy was sought by his mother in the house of a Jew, which he had been seen to enter, and his body was found in a pit. The occupant of the house being seized, acknowledged the crime, and avowed, besides, that the like was committed nearly every year by his nation. Notwithstanding the promise of impunity by which this confession had been obtained, the wretch who made it was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged to the gallows, and after a judicial investigation, eighteen of the richest and most distinguished Jews in Lincoln were hanged for participation in the murder, while many more were detained as prisoners in the Tower of London. On the other hand, the body of the child was buried with the honors of a martyr in Lincoln Cathedral, where a construction, assumed without reason to be his tomb, is still shown. The remains of a young person, found near this spot in 1791, were at once taken for granted to be those of
the sainted infant, and drawings were made of the relics, which may be seen among the works of the artist Grimm in the British Museum.
Several stories of the same tenor are reported by the English chroniclers. It may be doubted whether there is a grain of truth in any of them, although it would be no wonder if the atrocious injuries inflicted on the Jews should, in an instance or two, have provoked a bloody retaliation, even from that tribe whose badge has always been sufferance. The annual sacrifice of a Christian child, in mockery of the crucifixion of Jesus, is on a par for credibility with the miracles which are said to have followed the death of those innocents.
The exquisite tale which Chaucer has put into the mouth of the Prioress exhibits nearly the same incidents as the following ballad. The legend of Hugh of Lincoln was widely famous. Michel has published an Anglo-Norman ballad, (Hugo de Lincolnia,) on the subject, which appears to be almost contemporary with the event recorded by Matthew Paris, and is certainly of the times of Henry III. The versions of the English ballad are quite numerous. We give here those of Percy, Herd, and Jamieson, and two others in the Appendix. Besides these, fragments have been printed in Sir Egerton Brydges's Restituta, i. 381, Halliwell's Ballads and Poems respecting Hugh of Lincoln, (1849,) and in Notes and Queries, vol. viii. 614, ix. 320, xii. 496. The most complete of all the versions is to be found in the new edition of the Musical Museum, vol. iv. p. 500; but that copy is evidently made up from others previously published. See, for a collection of most of the poetry, and of much
curious information on the imputed cruelties of the Jews, Michel's Hugues de Lincoln, and Hume's Sir Hugh of Lincoln. The whole subject is critically examined in the London Athenæum for Dec. 15, 1849.
"The text of the following edition has been given verbatim, as the editor took it down from Mrs. Brown's recitation; and in it two circumstances are preserved, which are neither to be found in any of the former editions, nor in any of the chronicles in which the transaction is recorded; but which are perfectly in the character of those times, and tend to enhance the miracles to which the discovery is attributed. The first of these is, that, in order that the whole of this infamous sacrifice might be of a piece, and every possible outrage shown to Christianity, the Jews threw the child's body into a well dedicated to the Virgin Mary; and tradition says, that it was 'through the might of Our Ladie,' that the dead body was permitted to speak, and to reveal the horrid story to the disconsolate mother. The other is, the voluntary ringing of the bells, &c., at his funeral. The sound of consecrated bells was supposed to have a powerful effect in driving away evil spirits, appeasing storms, &c., and they were believed to be inspired with sentiments and perceptions which were often manifested in a very miraculous manner." Jamieson's Popular Ballads, i. 139-156.
Four and twenty bonny boys
Were playing at the ba';
And by it came him, sweet Sir Hugh,
And he play'd o'er them a'.
He kick'd the ba' with his right foot,5
And catch'd it wi' his knee;
And throuch-and-thro' the Jew's window,
He gar'd the bonny ba' flee.