Little St. Hugh of Lincoln, Researches in History, Archaeology and Legend

<plain_text><page sequence="1">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN.1 RESEARCHES IN HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, AND LEGEND. By JOSEPH JACOBS. 0 yonge Hugh of Lincoln, sleyn also With cursed Iewes, as it is notable, For it nis but a litel whyle ago ; Pray eek for vs, we sinful folk vnstable That of his mercy G-od so merciable On vs his grete mercy multiplye, For reuerence of his mooder Marye. Amen. Thus sings and prays Chaucer at the end of his " Prioresse's Tale," which is supposed to deal with the " cause celebre " of Hugh of Lincoln. This is not the fact, since he locates his tale " in Asie in the gret citee." But the invocation to the little Hugh at the end, marked as it is with signs of the most earnest and naive piety is even more significant of the general and thorough-going belief in the martyrdom of the little lad of Lincoln. And indeed we know from the widespread and popular ballads devoted to this subject that the case must have made a profound sensation in England, and remained as a standing example in the folk-mind of Jewish cruelty and fanaticism. Such a case as this therefore well deserves the attention of the Jewish Historical Society of England. We may be tolerably confident at the start of our inquiry that we shall not be so easily convinced of any specific Jewish cruelty and fanaticism in the case. On the other hand, as Englishmen, we shall not be too ready to accuse the Englishmen of the thirteenth century of any deliberate falsifica? tion of evidence, or malversation of justice. They were thinking and 1 The boy martyr is called Little St. Hugh to distinguish him from great St. Hugh of Lincoln, the Bishop of that See, who died in 1200, and was curiously enough a friend of the Jews (see Jacobs' Jews of Angevin England, p. 207).</page><page sequence="2">90 little st. hugh of lincoln. acting under the prejudices of their time, and it will be part of our inquiry to consider the rise of the said prejudice. Mathematicians are accustomed to speak of " pretty problems " requiring special ingenuity or peculiarly elegant methods for their solution. The history and legend of Hugh of Lincoln presents in this sense to the historian and folk-lorist a specially " pretty problem." It might indeed be easily made into an object-lesson of the modern methods of research in History, Archaeology, and Legend. I. Let us take the facts of the case first; and here we are especially fortunate in having them stated for us as they presented themselves to the mind of the time by Matthew Paris, the greatest historian of medieval England. We cannot start our inquiry better than by giving in English the contents of the Monk Matthew's by no means inelegant Latinity.1 Of the Boy Hugh of Lincoln. This year, about the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul [July 27], the Jews of Lincoln stole a boy called Hugh, who was about 8 years old. After shutting him up in a secret chamber where they fed him on milk and other childish food, they sent to almost all the cities of England in which there were Jews, and summoned some of their sect from each city to be present at a sacrifice to take place at Lincoln, in contumely and insult of Jesus Christ. For, as they said, they had a boy concealed for the purpose of being crucified ; so a great number of them assembled at Lincoln, and then they appointed a Jew of Lincoln judge, to take the place of Pilate, by whose sentence and with the concurrence of all the boy was subjected to various tortures. They scourged him till the blood flowed, they crowned him with thorns, mocked him, and spat upon him ; each of them also pierced him with a knife, and they made him drink gall, and scoffed at him with blasphemous insults, and kept gnashing their teeth and calling him Jesus, the false prophet. And after tormenting him in divers ways they crucified him, and pierced him to the heart with a spear. When the boy was dead, they took the body down from the cross, and for some reason disem bowled it; it is said for the purpose of their magic arts. The boy's mother, when her son had been missing several days, sought for him diligently, and the neighbours told her that they had last seen him playing writh some Jewish boys 1 Matthew Paris, Ilistoria Major, ed. Luard (Rolls Series) V., pp. 516-8, 522, 543 (?). See Appendix.</page><page sequence="3">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 91 of his own age, and going into the house of a Jew. So the mother entered the house suddenly and saw the boy's body lying in a well ; the bailiffs of the city were then cautiously summoned, the body was found and drawn up. It was a remarkable sight which then presented itself to the people ; the mother's cries and lamentations provoked all the citizens assembled there to tears. There was present John of Lexington, a man of learning, wise and prudent, who said, " We have heard sometimes that Jews have dared to attempt such things in insult of our crucified Lord Jesus Christand then addressing the Jew whose house the boy had entered whilst at play, and who, as being for that reason a greater object of suspicion, had been arrested, " Wretched man, dost thou not know that a speedy end awaits thee ? All the gold in England would not suffice to ransom or save thee. Yet unworthy though thou art, I will tell thee how thou can3t save thy life and limb from destruction. Both of these will I save thee, if without fear or falsehood, thou wilt expose unto me all that has been done in this matter." Then the Jew, whose name was Copin, thinking that he had found a way of escape, answered : " My Lord John, if thou wilt repay my words with deeds, I will show wondrous things unto thee." Then when John zealously urged and encouraged him, the Jew continued :?" What the Christians say is true. Almost every year the Jews crucify a boy in injury and insult to Jesus. But one is not found every year, for they do this privately and in remote and secret places. This boy whom they call Hugh, our Jews crucified without mercy, and after he was dead, and they wished to hide his corpse, they could not bury or conceal it. (This they wished to do, as the body of an innocent boy was considered useless for augury, which was the reason for disembowelling it.) In the morning when they thought it was hidden away, the earth vomited and cast it forth, and there it lay unburied on the ground to the horror of the Jews. At length they threw it into a well, but still they could not hide it, for the mother never wearied in her search, and finding the body informed the bailiffs." The Jew was kept in chains, and the body given to the canons of Lincoln, who had asked for it, and who, after displaying it to an immense number of people, buried it honourably in the church of Lincoln, as if it had been that of a precious martyr. The king, when he heard what had happened, was angry with John for having promised life and limb to such a wicked being, which he had no right to do : for a blasphemer and murderer such as that man deserved to die many times over. Then the guilty man said, " My death is imminent, nor can John give me any assistance. I will tell the truth to you all. Nearly all the Jews in England agreed to the death of this boy, and from nearly every English city where Jews live some were chosen to be present at this sacrifice as a Paschal offering." Then he was tied to a horse's tail and dragged to the gallows, where he was delivered body and soul to the cacodoemens of the air. The other Jews who shared in the guilt, to the number of 91, were taken to London, and imprisoned there ; and if any Christians pitied them, they were only dry tears which their rivals the Caursines shed.</page><page sequence="4">92 little st. hugh of lincoln. of a certain scandal which arose in london against the franciscans although they were innocent. At the same time certain Jews notorious for the strange death of a boy crucified by them at Lincoln, having been condemned to imprisonment and death on the oaths of 25 knights, 71 of them were being kept in the Tower of London, and were about to be hanged. But they sent secret messengers to the Franciscans, as the rivals of these latter aflirm, that they might intercede for them and rescue them from death and imprisonment though they deserved a most dishonourable death. And they indeed did rescue those Jews by their prayers and intercession from the imprisonment and death which they merited, being induced thereto by their money, as all the world believed, if the world can be believed in such a case, or rather, as I prefer to believe, led by a spirit of piety; since as long as any one is on earth because he has free will he can be saved and there is hope for him, but for the devil and the manifestly damned one must not either hope or pray, because there is no hope for them, for death and an unavoidable sentence has once for all irrevocably ensnared them. But the above scandal besmirched them although they were innocent. But the common people did not help them as before in their alms, but withheld their hand from them. Jews are set free who were detained in the Tower of London. The same year on the Ides of May 91 Jews were set free from the Tower of London who were kept there as criminals, bound hand and foot, for the cruci? fixion of St. Hugh, the boy of Lincoln. These Jews, I say, were guilty by the assertion of a Jew who had been hanged at Lincoln in the first instance. In this account it will be seen that all turns on the evidence of Copin, Jew of Lincoln. It was his evidence that gave to the case the character of a ritual murder connived at by all the Jews of England. It is clear that his evidence was, in the first instance, extorted from him by the unveiled threats of John of Lexington. It was Sir John who first suggested that the little boy's body, found in the pit, had been murdered ; for all the evidence we have before us the whole case might be one of accident. It was John of Lexington who started the idea that it was a case of mock crucifixion. It may be said at once as a key to the whole history, that it was the confirmed and prejudiced belief of all England in the practice of mock crucifixion by the Jews that gave rise to the belief in the " martyrdom " of little St. Hugh. We must first trace this belief to its source before proceeding farther. England, I regret to say, is the source and origin of the</page><page sequence="5">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 93 myth concerning the practice of ritual murder of young children by Jews in contempt and derision of crucifixion.1 The myth first arose in connection with the death or murder of the boy William of Norwich in 1144. It sprung fully armed from the vile imagination of an apostate Jew of Cambridge, named after his conversion, Theobald.2 He, for reasons which we are at present un? able to penetrate, first suggested that Jews were in the habit of sacrificing little children to gratify their hatred of the Christian religion. He seems to have implicated the Jews of the whole world in the crime, since he suggested that lots were cast each year in Europe as to the place m which the next sacrifice should take place. Thus he asserted that the ?t martyrdom " of William at Norwich had been fixed upon at a Council of Jews in Narbonne. Incalculable has been the mischief which Theobald's accursed lies have inflicted upon the Jews. They were published, and obtained credence throughout Europe just at the time of the Second Crusade, when men's religious passions were aroused to fanatical fury, and Jews fell martyrs all along the track of the Crusaders. Ever since his time, whenever a little child has been missing about the Passover, near a Jewish quarter in Europe, it has been but a chance if the terrible suspicion of ritual murder has not again been raised. I have been surprised to find in conversation with Christian friends, who have not the slightest taint of Anti-Semitism, how general is the impression that there must be something at the bottom of all these charges, and perhaps for their sakes it may be desirable to point out how impossible it is for Jews as Jews to use human blood or human sacrifices in any way as a part of their religious rites. In the 1 I speak here, of course, of the " blood accusation" in its modern form. There was no popular belief in it till after the case of William of Norwich. Lt is referred to as " fama communis" in 1236 (Strack, Der Blut aber glaube, p. 154. It is necessary to emphasise this, as the Athenaeum, in reviewing an earlier form of this paper, referred to the murder of a child by some drunken Jews mentioned by Eusebius as the origin of the myth. But a myth must live in the minds of men, and there is no evidence of such a belief till after the case of William of Norwich. 2 We are still awaiting the full account of the martyrdom of William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth. Short abstracts are given in Jacobs, I. c, pp. 256-8, and Jessopp, The Nineteenth Century, May, 1893.</page><page sequence="6">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. first place, contact with a corpse renders a Jew impure from that moment, and incapable of performing any religious rite whatever till he has been purified. For eating any blood or anything compounded with blood there is the stringent Biblical prohibition (Lev. xvii. 14) : " Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh : for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off." Besides this, human sacrifice has been unknown in Israel since at least the time of the Judges, and the Levitical legislation restricted sacrifices of any kind whatever to the Temple. Since the destruction of the Temple, therefore, no sacrifice has been performed by Jews, except by the Samaritans, who still keep up the Paschal sacrifice to the present day. With the fall of Jerusalem the Rabbis laid down the fine principle that Prayer has replaced Sacrifice. From all this it is obvious that no Jews who believe in the Bible or follow the precepts of the Rabbis would ever think of sacrificing even an animal as part of a ceremony which they could consider pleasing to God. But, my friends rejoin, may it not be possible that some secret sect of Jews exist who disagree with the general opinions of their fellows, and believe in the efficacy of human sacrifice ? It is im? possible that such a sect should exist without having left some trace of their existence in the vast literature of the Jews. This has been searched by the bitterest enemies of the Jews in the hope of finding some such evidence, but in vain.1 That some Jews may have been murderers of little children during the long course of Jewish history no one for a moment would deny, but that they did so for any religious reason there is absolutely not a vestige of evidence to show, except the &lt;? confessions " of Jews extracted under torture, and the original assertion of the renegade Theobald, with whom the whole story arises. There remained only the possibility of certain Jews having indulged in these crimes for magical purposes, but if they did so they must have learnt their magic elsewhere than from Judaism, and were equally bad Jews as they were cruel and wicked men. Similar charges have been brought against all peoples who have incurred the distrust or hatred 1 On the whole subject see the admirable monograph of Professor Strack, Protestant Professor of Theology at the University of Berlin, and the leading Conversionist of G-ermany. Der Blutaberglaube, vierte Auflage. (Munich, 1892.)</page><page sequence="7">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 95 of their fellow-men. They were brought against the early Christians, against the Cavaliers, against the Templars, against the Franciscans. A writer named Daumer has written a book, Geheimnisse des christ? lichen Alterthums (Haniburg, 1847), to prove that the characteristic of the Christian religion, from its origin to the end of the Middle Ages, consisted in human sacrifice and cannibalism, and the use of human blood. When Thackeray came over from India, Napoleon was shown to him at St. Helena ; he was told : " That is Bonaparte ; he eats three sheep every day and all the little children he can put his hands on." The moment a myth of that kind arises, who can tell to what length it will be carried ? At Gloucester, in 1168, the disappearance of the boy Harold was attributed to the guile of the Jews.1 At Bury St. Edmunds, in 1181, the little boy Robert was made into a martyr by the same prejudice ;2 and these seeming confirmations of the myth must have deepened the conviction of England as to its truth. We can see in the case of Hugh how the very existence of the myth would Jead to further complica? tions of it. The moment the little lad's corpse is found, without any inquiry as to whether the death had not been the result of accident, the legend of ritual murder by the Jews immediately occurs to men's minds, and John of Lexington gives voice to the suspicion by recalling the myth to the memory of his hearers. Mark what he does next without any further inquiry. Trusting practically to the truth of the myth, the Jew in whose house, or probably courtyard, the boy had last been seen to enter, is taken into custody and threatened that unless he tells the truth he will be torn to pieces. The " truth " he tells is filled with a mass of impossibilities. The body of the boy, according to his account, was supernaturally endowed with a capacity for escaping from concealment. Buried in the earth it rises to its surface again. There is one further touch which connects the whole incident with another set of legends connecting this disappearance of children with practices of Jewish magic. Copin asserts that the entrails of the lad had been removed for purposes of u augury." This is again an English tradition, for in 1222 a deacon of the English Church was executed on the charge of having been converted to 1 Jacobs, I. c, pp. 45-7. 2 Ibid., p. 75.</page><page sequence="8">96 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. Judaism, and having been particeps criminis in the evisceration of a Christian lad for magical purposes.1 It would seem as if the accusers of the Jews had a second string to their bow ; if they could not prove them guilty of crucifixion they would attempt to convict them upon an equally terrible charge of magic by evisceration. How far the confirmation by Copin of these charges was the result of a mixture of leading questions and violent threats by John of Lexington we are unable to determine from Matthew Paris's rather confused account. Nor does he tell us from what source was derived the further piece of evidence that the Jews had kept and tortured Hugh ten days before his crucifixion. As to the later evidence of Copin implicating the whole of the Jews of England in the charge, even Matthew Paris calls this his ravings (" deliramenta "). I fancy there was more method in Copin's madness than might at first sight appear. It was his last frantic effort to get his doom postponed. If he could implicate the whole of the Jews in his guilt, or in the charge with himself, he might hope to be kept alive as the chief witness while a long and protracted inquiry into the matter was being made. The whole of the Jewish influence would also be enlisted on his side by his perfidious trick. Perhaps I am doing poor Copin an injustice, and his motives were less profound and sinister than I have suggested. He may have been literally driven mad by fear. Both his original charge, and his final reiteration of it may have been but the delirious ravings of a lunatic. Indeed, Matthew Paris, by calling them " deliramenta," seems to favour this interpretation of Copin's action. There can be little doubt, however, that a confession of some kind must have been extorted, for it is referred to in another con? temporary account in the annals of the Abbey of Burton-on-Trent.2 This differs in several respects from Matthew Paris's account, and on the whole must be regarded as the superior authority. The boy is kept alive for twenty-six, instead of ten days, with nothing to eat, instead of being pampered on milk food. His death is decreed by a council of Jews, who cut off his nose and crucified him. Suspicion is aroused 1 Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, III., 71. 2 Annales Monastici, edit. Luard (Roll Series), I., 340 seq. See Appendix. There is another and shorter account in the Annals of Waverley, Ibid., II., 346. This adds the trait that the body was thrown into a drinking-well.</page><page sequence="9">LITTLE ST. HUGH OP LINCOLN. 97 against the Jews by the large number who had assembled at Lincoln under pretext of attending a grand wedding. The mother starts off to Scotland to petition the king for an inquisition, and the Jews then throw the body into a well. When it is drawn out a blind woman touches it with her hands, and says : " Sweet little Hugh, alas ! that so it happened," and rubbed her eyes with the moisture of the body. By this means she recovered her sight. Thereupon the corpse is carried to the Minster, notwithstanding the protests of the parish priest, who would have liked to obtain the great prize of a boy martyr for his own church. The king then arrives at Lincoln and investigates the charges, and orders the Jews to be arrested. Thereupon a riot occurs, and the houses of the Jews are stormed. As in Matthew Paris, John of Lexington promises life to Copin, "the head of the Jews and their priest," if he confesses?which he does, but fails to save his life. Eighteen more were hanged at London, though the Dominicans (not the Franciscans) tried to save them. Seventy-one others, the richest Jews of the land, were saved by Richard of Cornwall. IT. So far we have treated the subject entirely from the point of view of the materials offered us by the historians. The Science of History has nowadays more means at its command for arriving at the truth than its artistic presentment as given by contemporary historians. In England especially we have almost from the earliest times contemporary records of the Kings' Courts and Chancery with regard to such charges as these. When I first commenced my inquiries into this subject, I was hoping that among the mass of records preserved in Fetter Lane we should be able to come across the official account of the trial of the Jews for the murder of Hugh of Lincoln. For days and days I have searched the Records with this hope. I have found much bearing upon the externalities of the trial, but I regret to say have failed to find the record of the trial itself. The records of the king's jurisdiction in Henry III. are still preserved in tolerable fulness. The trial at Lincoln, if there was a trial, must have occurred somewhere about September, 1255, in the thirty-ninth year of the king's reign, as we have just heaid from the historian, and shall find confirmed by the VOL. I. H</page><page sequence="10">98 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. records I have discovered. A further trial seems to have taken place in London, at the Tower, in November of the same year?i.e., in the fortieth year of the reign. I have therefore looked through the Assize Rolls of the Justices Errant in Lincoln, 39 Hen. III., and for the Tower Assize Rolls for 40 Hen. III. ; but unfortunately neither of these contain any reference to the cause celebre of the year. I imagine that the record of the Lincoln trial must have been sent up to London for use in the Trial at the Tower, and that both that and the record of the London trial and verdict were kept together in a special Roil which has disappeared. We must, therefore, be content with a few items which occur in the various classes of Rolls. Thus we can trace the journey of the Jews from Lincoln to London by three entries on the Close Roll of 39 Hen. III. The first of these orders the Constable of Lincoln Castle to deliver the Jews accused of the crucifixion to the Sheriff of Lincoln in order that he may bring them to Westminster.1 The others give orders to the Sheriffs of Huntingdon and Hertford to assist him of Lincoln on his way through their counties. These are dated 14th of October.2 We then learn from the legal annals of London that on the Feast of St. Cecilia?i.e., November 22nd?the Jews, then imprisoned in the Tower, had been brought to the number of 92 before the king at Westminster, and 18 of them had refused to submit them? selves to the verdict of a Christian jury, unless there were Jews upon it.3 These 18 were indicted before the king and condemned and executed before the close of the day. Doubtless this condemnation and execution were legal according to the law of the time which regarded refusal to plead as a confession of guilt. But it was obviously unfair to press this on the present occasion without at least change of venue, and especially when the charge was practically one of conspiracy, notoriously one of the most difficult to prove. This was a severe lesson for the remaining 74, who, as we shall see, were prepared to submit their case to a Lincoln jury, notwithstanding the obvious prejudices which existed against them in the county. On the 7th of January, 1256, the king sends a royal letter to the Sheriff of Lincoln stating 1 Close Roll, 39 Hen. III., m. 2. See Appendix. 2 Ibid., m. 2. 3 Liber de Antiquis Legibus (Cam. Soc.), p. 23. See Appendix.</page><page sequence="11">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 99 that a certain number of Jews had thrown themselves upon the County to take their trial for the alleged murder of Hugh, son of Beatrice.1 To my mind this is conclusive evidence against their guilt. We have no record of the proceedings taken at Lincoln, but two months after? wards, on March 12th, they were released from the Tower, as we learn from Matthew Paris, who attributes their release to the Francis? cans, while the annals of Burton credit the Dominicans with having brought about this act of mercy or of justice.2 Whether they were all released on that date is somewhat doubtful, for even two years later I find on the Close Rolls an entry commanding the Constable of the Tower and other officials to release all the Jews in their custody, and on the same occasion Haggin and Cresse, Jews of Lincoln, are commanded to make no distress on the Jews till further orders.3 But to go back to our records for the year 1256, we now come upon several that begin to throw some light on the action of the king in this matter. At the end of May of that year, the king orders an inquisition to be made into the value of the houses of the Jews who had been hanged for the crucifixion of Hugh.4 He had previously ordered the chest of the cyrographers of the Jews of Lincoln to be sent up to Westminster, obviously for the purpose of ascertaining what debts had been due to the condemned Jews and claiming them for his own.5 About the same date there is also a significant entry as to a local inquiry to be made as to what Jews were "of the school of Peitevin the Great, who fled for the death of the aforesaid boy."6 We shall meet with this Peitevin again, but meanwhile I would draw attention to the evidence here given of the existence of a regular school at Lincoln at this date. As it is obviously implied that the scholars might possibly be implicated in the death of Hugh, it would seem that this school was grown up people, and was a sort of Jews' College or Beth Hamidrash of the period. But to return to the king's plunder. As the result of the Inquisition of May, the king ordered the houses of Lincoln Jews, in London and 1 Shirley, Royal Letters of Hen. III. (Rolls Series) II., 46. See Appendix. 2 Matt. Paris, v. 552. 3 Close Roll, 42 Hen. III., m 6. d. 4 Close Roll, 40 Hen. III., m. 11. d. 5 Close Roll, 40 Hen. III., m. 16. d. See Appendix. 6 Tovey, Anglia Judaica. See Appendix. H 2</page><page sequence="12">100 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. elsewhere, to be sold on August 20th,1 while he made his profit even out of those that were not sold by claiming fines from those renting the houses. By this means we learn, from entries in the Fine Rolls, the names of five Jews who had been the victims of the terrible prejudices of the times. These are : Elyas fil Jacob, Isaac fil Jude de Ballio, Deulacres de Bedford, Samuel gener Leonis, and Sampson Levy.2 A son of the last-named is mentioned in the Shetavoth published by Mr. M. D. Davis.3 To understand what all this means we must go back a little. The king had been fleecing his Jews so unmercifully that only fifteen months before the alleged martyrdom Elyas of London, the Arch Presbyter of the Jews of all England, had in an indignant speech asked permission for them to leave England and find a dwelling with some Prince, who had bowels of compassion.4 Next year, in February, 1255, they repeated their request in more pressing and indignant terms.5 This the king refused, but at that date sold all his rights to his brother Richard in consideration of a sum of 5,000 marks.6 In other words, just at the time when the accusation is raised at Lincoln against the Jews, the king by his agreement with his brother Richard had no right to extract any money from them except by escheat from condemned criminals. We can now understand his annoyance with John of Lexington for letting his prey out of his hands, and the reasons for his taking up the case again after it had been dropped by the local courts. Henry, like most weak princes, was cruel to the Jews ; his conduct towards them aroused the compassion of even Matthew. Even his very religiousness would predispose him to believe aught of ill from the murderers of Christ. There is no doubt that he approached the case prejudiced doubly by personal interest and religious prejudice, even if both motives were unconscious. 1 Patent Roll, 40 Hen. III., m. 2. See Appendix. 2 Rotuli Finium, edit. Roberts (Ree. com.) IL, 240. See Appendix. Other names Aaron fil Peytevin and Hacce (sic}, are given in the Athencsum review of Hume's monograph on Hugh of Lincoln, 1849, p. 1,271 ; I know not on what authority. 3 M. D. Davis, Shetaroth, No. 160, p. 304. 4 Matt. Paris, I. c, v. 441. 5 Ibid., v, 487. This was the striking passage quoted twice in Papers of Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, pp. 50, 266. 6 Matt. Paris, I. c, v. 488. Patent Roll, 39 Hen. III., m. 13.</page><page sequence="13">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 101 One begins to see how vitally important it would be for the king to make out of the disappearance of the boy Hugh a concerted plan of all the Jews, and especially of all the richest Jews of England to commit a vile and sacrilegious felony. If it had been merely a case of murder by a single Jew the king's interests would be confined to the estate of a single individual. But if by any means it could be shown that it was a conspiracy of all the Jews, the king would once more get a terrible hold of them and their purses. His plan was per? fectly successful ; not alone did he obtain the estates of the eighteen Jews who were hanged, but there can be little doubt that he received ample compensation for the pardon of the rest. I deduce this from the fact that while the Franciscans and Dominicans who could only appeal to his conscience or his mercy were unsuccessful in obtaining "pardon " for the Jews, this was granted them at the request of Earl Richard, who had the control of the purse of the whole Jewry. Thus a close scrutiny of the historical records, if it does not altogether clear up the mystery of little Hugh's death or disappearance, at least enables us to penetrate to the motives which raised it into a martyrdom and implicated all the Jews of England in the alleged sacrilegious crime. It is worth while inquiring at this point what foundation there was for the statement that most of the Jews of England had collected together at Lincoln at this time under the pretext of celebrating a marriage. It was this fact combined with Jopin's confession which lent colour to the supposition that the death of little Hugh partook of the character of a ritual murder. I think I can suggest an appropriate occasion for such a gathering at such time. Sixteen years later, in 1271, we find a deed?perhaps the most interesting one in Mr. Davis' book1?in which Belleassez, daughter of the Rav Berachyah ben Rav Moshe, betroths her daugher, Judith, to a young man in Lincoln, the marriage to take place in four years' time, showing that little Judith was not yet of marriageable age, and that her mother, Belleassez, was still a comparatively young woman. I suggest that it was to attend Belleassez's marriage that the chief Jews of England were in Lincoln at the end of August, 1255. 1 Shetaroth, No. 156, p. 298.</page><page sequence="14">102 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. For her father, Rav Berachyah, was by far the greatest Jewish scholar living in England at the time of the tragedy. He is frequently mentioned in the Tosaphists and Halachic works1 with great respect as Berachyah of Nicoll or Lincoln. He was in some way connected with the trial, for there is in Rymer's Fcedera a document dated 7th January, 1256, releasing Magister Benedict fil Mosse de Londres from the Tower and declaring his innocence of the alleged crucifixion.2 If he could account for the festivities in his house as the accompaniment of his daughter's marriage, the suspicion which might attach to the rest who had travelled to attend the marriage did not apply to him, and he was accordingly released two months before the rest. I think, too, I can suggest where the marriage of Belleassez took place. The Jews' House in Lincoln, at the bottom of the steep hill, is associated with the name of Bellaset of Wallingford, and it has already been suggested by Canon Yenables of Lincoln3 that she is identical with Belleassez, daughter of Rav Berachyah. It was probably Berachyah's house at the time, and became part of Belleassez's dower, or was left to her at her father's death. It would accordingly be at this house?the finest private residence of its period still extant in England4?that the chief Jews of England assembled to do honour to their greatest scholar, and their rejoicings were turned to tragic dismay by the discovery of little Hugh's remains. So much for what history has to say or conjecture as to the fate of Hugh of Lincoln, and the still worse fate of the Jews accused of his death. Let us, if we can, obtain any further light from that hand? maid to history, Archseology, which deals with the physical remains of man's activity upon the earth. Can we, for example, find any signs of the existence of Hugh ? For it by no means follows that in a mediseval case of this kind, when a Jew was accused of murder, there should necessarily exist anybody who had been murdered. The late 1 Zunz, Zur Geschichte. (Minchat Jehnda f, 89&amp;., Mordecai Berachot, 124, Shilte, Aboda Sara, c. 2). Neubauer-Renan, Hut. litt, de la France, p. 441. 2 Rymer, Ecedera, ed. 1816, i. 346. Pat. Roll, 40. Hen. III., m. 19 at top. 3 E. Venables, Walks through the Streets of Lincoln, p. 25. 4 It has been figured several times, e.g., Turner, Domestic Architecture,!. 40. Gardiner, School History of England. Details in Pugin, Specimens of Gothic Architecture, plate 2.</page><page sequence="15">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 103 M. Isidore Loeb, whose loss for Jewish history is almost irreparable, studied carefully a Spanish case very analogous to that of Hugh of Lincoln.1 When I was at Toledo I was struck with a fresco on the cathedral walls, which I was informed dealt with the fate of El Nino de la Guardia. The picture represented a little lad transfixed on a cross, and around him a crowd of scoffing Jews. Well, M. Loeb went carefully into this case, of which the records are very voluminous and detailed, giving an account of the torment and punishment of several open and secret Jews who were implicated in the so-called crime. He came to the conclusion, for which he gives well-founded reasons, that the little lad of la Guardia never existed at all, and that the Jews were accused and punished for the murder of a non-existent corpse.2 Can this possibly have been the case with Hugh of Lincoln ? And can English justice in the thirteenth century have been so hasty and unjust as to punish for crimes without any evidence of a corpus delicti ? Here Arcbasology comes to our aid, and enables us after a lapse of six hundred and fifty years to state that little Hugh of Lincoln was a lad of about four feet two inches high, and therefore well grown for his age of eight; that his face was round rather than long, and that if any violence was done to him, at least none of his bones were broken. You may perhaps wonder by what magic Archaeology can use a time telescope of this description. The answer is very simple. In 1791 some repairs were being made at Lincoln Cathedral, and beneath a shrine which had always been traditionally connected with the boy Hugh was found a stone coffin containing a skeleton which was obviously that of a lad, and which, there was no reason for doubting, was actually that of St. Hugh.3 When these bones were thus exhumed there happened to be visiting in Lincoln an artist named Grimm, who took very thorough and accurate drawings of the stone coffin and its contents for Bishop Kaye, who then held the See of Lincoln. Kaye's topographical collections ultimately came into possession of the British Museum, which attracts such things to itself like the magnetic mountain of Sindbad.4 1 I. Loeb, " Le Saint Enfant de la G-uardia," in Revue des Etudes juives. Tome XV. 2 Loeb, 1. c., p. 32, of tirage a part, 3 S. Pegge, Life of Robert Grosseteste, 1793, p. 2. 4 The Brit. Mus. reference is Kaye, II., 363.</page><page sequence="16">104 LITTLE ST. HUGH OP LINCOLN. During my researches in connection with the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition of 1887 I came across these drawings, and thus found that we are practically able to see with our own eyes the actual bones of the little martyr. But dead men tell no tales, and dry bones cannot speak. Though this find of mine is of interest, even if the interest be perhaps a somewhat gruesome one, it still fails to solve the question of the guilt or otherwise of the Jews. It was indeed stated at the time of their discovery that no dust was found in the coffin, therefore the story of the evisceration of the little lad was thereby confirmed. But this is a somewhat imaginative</page><page sequence="17">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 105 inference from the facts of the case. The bones, at any rate, were intact. No very extreme violence could have been used to the boy, but whether he died by accident or by malice, by cruelty or by chance, Archaeology telleth not. There is one part of Archaeology which is nowadays being more and more utilised for the purposes of historic elucidation. The study THE JEWISH QUARTER, LINCOLN. 1. Aaron of Lincoln's House. 40. Bishop's Hostel. 2. Jopin's House. 36. St. Michael's. 3. Bellaset's House. 37. Bishop's Palace. of Topography is more and more resorted to in order to throw light on problems like that presented by the disappearance of little St. Hugh.</page><page sequence="18">106 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. In his case, as we shall see, a study of the Lincoln Jewry is absolutely necessary for solution of the problem presented by his death. The foregoing plan of the neighbourhood of the Steep Hill of Lincoln, near which the Jews most did congregate in early days, will place the reader in a position to realise the locality of Hugh's death. The ancient Jewry of Lincoln ranged from Aaron of Lincoln's House at the top of the Steep Hill to the end of the Straight, just where it enters High Street ; in earlier days there was a gate here known as St. Dunstan's Lock, but previously as Dernestall's Lock : it was through this Lock, tradition states, that little Hugh went on to his doom. As you may see from the plan, he had not far to go. Midway up the Straight, on the left hand side, are the three houses which local tradition associates with the early Jews of Lincoln. The open space at the junction of the Straight and the Steep Hill was, there can be little doubt, the scene of the tragedy. Nearly opposite Bull Ring Terrace, so named from the Bull-baiting that used to take place in the open space at the end of it, is the Jews' House associated with the name of Bellaset of Wallingford. This is on the left-hand side of the Steep Hill going up, next door to this higher up is a house which, Mr. Haes informs me, is said by popular tradition to have been the old Jewish Synagogue. By this is a lane still called Jews' Court, and the next house is still pointed to as the place where little Hugh met his fate : in this house there still exists a pit or well which was pointed out to Mr. Haes as the very spot where the boy's remains were cast. Here Archaeology passes over into Tradition. III. Where History, the written record, and Archaeology, the physical remains of man's activity, fail to give a clue, Legend, the oral tradition of men's memories from age to age and generation to generation, may possibly come to our aid. I have already pointed out that the legend of William of Norwich, and the superstition as to the use of human entrails for the purposes of augury by Jews, have exercised a shaping influence on the story of St. Hugh from the day his remains were discovered. Besides this, in the case of our little martyr, we are somewhat amply provided with remains of popular tradition of the</page><page sequence="19">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 107 so-called " martyrdom." There is one French, and there are several English and Scotch ballads devoted to the subject. Let us see what contribution they can make to the elucidation of the problem. The French ballad was published in 1834 by M. Francisque Michel1 from a manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale. From its diction and metre it was clearly written within a very few years of the martyrdom. It tells how in Nicole, that rich city, the boy Huchon was inveigled away by Peitevin, the Jew, on the eve of the gules of August. His mother sought in vain for him throughout the whole Jewry, and then betook herself to Henry the King, to call for justice on the wicked Jews. This he promises her, but threatens vengeance if her accusation prove untrue. Meanwhile, the richest Jews bf England collected together, and the boy was brought before them, bound by a cord, by Jopin, the Jew, who offers him for 30 deniers. Agim, the Jew, buys him for that price from the new Judas, and the boy is then crucified. And when he expires, after being pierced by the knife of Agim, "the dear soul of this infant was borne at once by angels in Heaven, chanting together before God all powerful." The body is buried, but next morning is found again by the Jews upon the surface of the earth, and wherever they attempt to conceal it, it persists in rising to the surface?a fine imaginative touch of the folk artist who wrote the ballad. They then determine to take it outside Lincoln and place it near a fountain in the neighbourhood. A woman finds it next day and raises the alarm. The body is borne back to Dernestal, the quarter where his mother lived. Then a convert comes along, and seeing the body all besmudged with mire and ordure, suggests that it should be washed with warm water : " I trow that thus we'll find how the child came to his death." Then became evident the treason of the Jews. The body is borne to the Cathedral, and the Jews captured, who say, " We have been betrayed by Falsim." Then comes Jopin, the Jew, who tells again in ballad 1 F. Michel, Hugues de Lincoln, Pecueil de "ballades Anglo-Norm an des et Ecossoises relatives au meurtre de cet enfant conimis par les Juifs en MCCLV., Paris, 1834, pp. ix. 64. It was reprinted in 1849, with a pseudo-archaic English version by A. Hume. Sir Hugh of Lincoln, or an Examination of a curious Tra? dition respecting the Jews, ivith a Notice of the Popular Poetry connected with it. 8vo., 54 pp.</page><page sequence="20">108 LITTLE ST. HUGH OP LINCOLN. fashion the same story, with the addition that all the Jews of England knew of the crucifixion, and had decided upon it in common council. For all reward for his confession, Jopin is condemned to be torn to pieces by horses. And they hung him at Canewick, a mile south of Lincoln town. In this ballad we get in very vivid form the popular account of the martyrdom which has much in common with that represented by Matthew Paris, though Copin here becomes Jopin. We get two other names of Jews concerned in the misdeed, Peitevin and Agim, which is obviously the English form of Chayim. You may remember that I have shown some years ago that Huggin Lane, in the City of London, derives its name from a London Jew of the same prenomen.1 I think I can identify from Hebrew records both these new personages. In an undated deed, published by Mr. Davis in his volume of Shetaroth, No. 167, page 309, the Jewish creditor of the Abbey of Bardeney signs himself Peitevin ben Beneit; and as the deed is also signed by Benedict fil Mosse, who, as we have seen above, was implicated in the martyrdom, and declared innocent by the king, the deed must be about the date of the martyrdom, and the signatory can therefore be identified with the Peitevin mentioned in the French ballad. So, too, in another deed, published by Mr. Davis, No. 155, the signature occurs of Chayim de Nicole, who is equally obviously the original of the Agim of the French ballad.2 Who Falsim, the convert who betrayed the Jews, was, cannot be at present ascertained. It is, at any rate, a curious incident that among the Jews imprisoned in the Tower for this crime there was a convert named John who was pardoned for his share in it, as we learn from Pymer's Fcedera? Here, again, we find the sinister presence of a renegade from the faith, always a sign of ill omen in cases of this kind. Besides this contemporary French ballad there are, as readers are doubtless aware, a number of English and Scotch ballads dealing with the Legend of St. Hugh. Here the scene is altogether changed and the historic background fades into the far distance as we can well 1 Papers Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, p. 49. 2 The French form Agim is nearer to the Hebrew Chayim than the Hagin of the English records. 3 Ed. 1816, I., 333.</page><page sequence="21">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 109 understand from the late date in which the ballads were collected, none of them being earlier than the last century. Professor Child, in his magnificent work on the English and Scotch ballads,1 has collected together no less than eighteen versions of it, but decides for the priority of that collected by Jamieson. In this there is no question of conspiracy of the Jews of England; the tragic interest is deepened by making the crime the work of a female hand.2 The Jew's daughter entices little Hugh from his game of football with the allurement of an apple, and leads him through nine dark doors, lays him on a dressing table, and sticks him like a swine.3 She then rolls him in lead and casts him into our Lady's draw-well fifty fathoms deep. We then follow the fortunes of the poor little lad's mother. When the bells were rung, and mass was sung, And a' the bairns came hame, When every lady gat hame her son, The Lady Maisry gat nane. She searches for him at the Jews' castell, at the Jews' Garden, and at last at the deep draw-well ; and at each place she cries : " 'Gin ye be there, my sweet Sir Hugh, I pray you to me speak." " G-ae hame, gae hame, my mither dear, Prepare my winding sheet ; And, at the back o' merry Lincoln, The morn I will you meet." Now Lady Maisry is gane hame? Made him a winding sheet; And at the back o' merry Lincoln, The dead corpse did her meet. And a' the bells o' merry Lincoln, Without men's hands were rung ; And a' the books o' merry Lincoln, Were read without man's tongue; And ne'er was such a burial Sin Adam's days begun. 1 Cambridge Mass., 1882, seq., Pt. V. Professor Child has an elaborate and instructive introduction to the Ballads, which brings together in a convenient form all that has been hitherto known of the subject from History and Tradition. 2 May we not see here, as Mr. York Powell has suggested to me, some reminiscence of Belleassez 1 3 Qy. reference to the mysterious evisceration mentioned by Matt. Paris ?</page><page sequence="22">110 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. That fine touch of the supernatural ringing of the church bells is only found in Jarnieson's version. But fine as it is, the ballad has little instruction to give us on the death of little Hugh, and might celebrate any murder of any child by any wicked woman. Indeed, Mr. Newell, an American folk-lorist, found in the streets of New York a version crooned by a little negress in which the tale is told of Harry Hughes and the Duke's daughter.1 Thus the prejudices of the Middle Ages have begun to die away even in the memory of the folk. In Lincoln itself, however, the myth is still alive, and inhabitants of that city pointed out to Mr. Haes, after the lapse of 650 years, the very well adjoining Jews' Court into which poor little Hugh was thrown. Other traditions, however, identify it with G-rantham's well outside the old walls of Lincoln. IY. We have now before us all the materials which History, Archaeology and Tradition can afford us wuh regard to the death of the poor little Lincoln lad of the thirteenth century. Do they enable us to arrive at the exact truth of the matter ? I fancy the}' do, and would put forth the following hypothetical account?imaginative, I grant, but I trust not altogether imaginary?of what happened at Lincoln during the month of August, 1255. On the eve of the first day of that month,2 a Saturday afternoon, a little boy, Hugh, son of a widow named Beatrice,3 aged eight years,4 while running after a ball at play,5 fell by accident into a gong or cesspool6 attached to the house of a Jew named 1 Games and Songs of American Cliildren, Boston, 1883. I drew attention to Mr. Newell's interesting version in the Jewish Chronicle. 2 G-ules of August (French Ballad), a popular name for the 1st of August, also called Lammas. This used to be a popular holiday. " G-ules " occurs tran? scribed in Hebrew characters in Mr. Davis' Shetaroth, No. 103, p. 232. The Acta Sanctorum gives the date of Hugh's martyrdom as July 27 (xxxiii. 494); and Matt. Paris favours that date. The King's Itinerary, as given in Rymer and the Pat. Rolls, rather favours the date of the ballad. 3 Shirley, Royal Letters, II., 110. 4 Matt. Paris. 5 English Ballads. Owing to their late date little confidence can be placed on this point, but it seems antecedently probable. ? The French Ballad declares that the body was covered with ordure.</page><page sequence="23">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. Ill Jopin,1 or Joscefin,2 two floors off the Jews' House at Lincoln.3 His body remained in this gong for some twenty-six days4 subject to the disintegrating forces of its nauseous contents. Meanwhile there had assembled at Lincoln a number of the most important Jews of England5 in order to attend the wedding6 of Belleassez, daughter of the Rav, or Chief Rabbi of the town,7 known to his Christian fellow citizens as Magister Benedict fil Mosse de Londres,8 and to his Jewish flock as Rav Berachyah ben Moses,9 known also in Jewish literature as Berachyah de Nicole, an important Tosaphist.10 He was the greatest Jewish scholar of his time in England,11 and to do honour to him most of the chief Jews of England attended the wedding. In the midst of their festivities their joy was turned to horror and dismay by the discovery on Thursday, the 26th of August,12 probably the day after the wedding,13 of the disfigured body of little Hugh, distended by the gases of corruption, which had risen to the surface of the gong.14 We can imagine the horror of the party when Joscefin, the father-in law of the bride,15 broke in upon the company assembled two doors 1 French Ballad ; Matthew Paris calls him Copin : either name might be derived from Jacopin, diminutive of Jacob. 2 There was a Josephin living at Lincoln at the time, whose son, Chayim, married Bellaset. Davis, Nos. 154, 156. 3 Local Tradition reported by Mr. Haes. 4 Annals of Burton. Matt. Paris says ten days, but this is quite discordant with his own date of the martyrdom. 5 Matt. Paris, Annals of Burton, French Ballad. 6 Annals of Burton. 7 Conjecture derived from date of Shetar. Davis, No. 156. 8 Rymer, Foedera. 9 Davis, I.e. 10 Zunz, Neubauer, II. cc. 11 Meir of Norwich, Poet, is the other chief name known from this period. 12 Annals of Burton. French Ballad allows for a considerable period to have elapsed between the disappearance of Hugh and the " summoning " of the Jews to Lincoln. 13 Wednesday has always been a favourite day for weddings among Jews, and but little time can have elapsed or the assembly would have dispersed to their homes elsewhere. 14 Conjecture to account for the appearance of the body just after the wedding. 15 Conjecture (see Note 9).</page><page sequence="24">112 LITTLE ST. HUGH OP LINCOLN. off1 with the news of the ghastly discovery. The corruption of the body burst the walls of the stomach as soon as an attempt was made to remove it,2 and the entrails were dissevered from the body.3 Instead of announcing the discovery to the proper officials, the Jews, on the advice of Peitevin,4 the Dayan5 and Hagin,6 committed the fatal error7 of attempting to conceal the body, or at any rate, of removing it from the neighbourhood of the Jewry.8 They cast it into G-rantham's Well,9 where it was discovered after three days, on Sunday, 29th August,10 by a woman passing by.11 Among the crowd attracted by the discovery was one John of Lexington,12 who was familiar, from tradition and his reading,13 with the myth about the ritual murder of boys by Jews. As one of the canons of the Minster14 he saw the desirability of claiming the body as a further attraction for the Cathedral,15 and his plan was assisted by the seeming miracle by which a woman in the crowd removed some obstruction to her eye? sight16 by wiping them with some of the moisture exuding from Hugh's body.17 The parish priest attempted to compete with him for the 1 Local Tradition. 2 Conjecture to account for the disembowelling of the body, Matt. Paris. 3 Or, as Mr. York Powell suggests, the entrails were removed by some Jewish physician, when it was decided to remove the body. 4 French Ballad. His flight as recorded by Tovey seems to argue the con? sciousness of complicity. 5 Deduced from reference in Tovey to his school. 6 French Ballad. 7 Copin's confession cannot be explained without assuming some connection with the Jews with the matter. 8 Tradition reports two places in which the body was found, in Jopin's house and in G-rantham's well. The suggestion here made reconciles the two statements, and at the same time allows for a certain amount of complicity, or at least injudicious concealment on the part of the Jews. 9 Oulton, Traveller's Guide, 1805, ii., p. 54. 10 Annals of Burton. 11 Annals of Burton. According to Matthew Paris it was the boy's mother who discovered the corpse ; this disagrees with the Burton Annals and with the French Ballad. 12 Matthew Paris. 13 Idem. 14 Annals of Burton. 15 Conjecture from his remark on discovering the body. 16 Annals of Waverley, French Ballad. 17 Annals of Burton.</page><page sequence="25">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 113 possession of the precious charge, but the superior authority of Lexington overcame his protests.1 In a grand procession, grander than Lincoln ever yet had seen,2 the remains of little Hugh were transferred to a stone coffin in the South Aisle Choir,3 in which they remain undisturbed for over 500 years.4 Meanwhile Lexington had, by combined threats and promises,5 induced Jopin to make such a confession6 of the complicity of the Jews as could be twisted into evidence for making the boy a martyr of the faith.7 Here he was content to rest,8 having obtained for his cathedral an equal attraction to those of Norwich and Gloucester and the Abbey of Edmondsbury.9 But Beatrice, the mother of the poor little lad, was not content with this,10 and hearing that the king was approaching Lincoln on his way from Scotland,11 went out to meet him and laid the case before him. Henry III. hated the Jews, while making use of them as sponges to replete his Treasury. He had but six months before12 lost his power over them by selling them to his brother Richard. Here he saw his chance of both gratifying his hatred and replenishing his Treasury. He hurried to Lincoln, seized all the Jews he could find there,13 silenced the only witness who could declare the truth by hanging Jopin, after having caused him to be dragged round the city 1 Annals of Burton. 2 French Ballad, Scotch Ballad (Jamieson). Here is a point which remained in the folk memory for over five hundred years. 3 E. Venables, A Walk through Lincoln Minster, p. 41. 4 Pegge, I.e., Michel, p. 63. 5 Matt. Paris. Annals of Burton. 6 Paris, Annals of Burton, French Ballad. 7 Without a confession implicating all the Jews little Hugh could not be raised to the position of a martyr. As a matter of fact his name was never formally received into the Roman Martyrology. (See Michel, p. 51, note 23.) 8 Deduced from the fact that Jopin was not even tried till the king arrived at Lincoln. 9 See Jacobs, I. c, pp. 45, 75, 256. 10 French Ballad. 11 This would be in October, 1255 (see Itinerary of Hen. III.; as given in Fcedera, the king was at Alnwick 23rd September, at Westminster 18th October). 12 24th Feb., 1255, Pat. Roll, 39 Hen. III., m. 13. 13 Matt. Paris. VOL. I. I</page><page sequence="26">114 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. tied to the tail of a wild horse,1 he brought the rest of the Jews up to London,2 hanged those who refused to trust themselves to the tender mercies of a Christian jury3 holding its sitting in Lincoln now all aflame with infuriated passions,4 and only released the remainder after they had been imprisoned six months,5 when the term of his agreement with Earl Richard was over and he had them again at his mercy.6 The Franciscans, who constituted the noblest element in English life at the time, were on the side of the Jews?significant testimony to their innocence?but pleaded for them in vain.7 The pro? tracted nature of the inquiry, the very severe punishment of the victims, the wide publicity given to the accusation, caused the martyrdom of Hugh and the cruelty of the Jews to become a fixed element of belief in the popular mind of England, which has retained the memory of the boy martyr down to the present day. It was a tale above all others likely to touch the tender human soul of Chaucer and caused him to give utterance to the prayer with which I commenced this paper in which I have endeavoured to put together, for the first time, into a consistent narrative all the scattered evidence which history, archaeology, and tradition give as to the fate of little St. Hugh of Lincoln, Boy and Martyr. 1 Matt. Paris, Annals of Waverley, Annals of Burton. 2 Close Roll, 39 Hen. III. 3 Liber de Antiquis Legibus (Cam. Soc), p. 23. 4 Annals of Burton. 5 Matt. Paris, V., 552, 12th March, 1256. 6 See note 2. 7 Matt. Paris, V., 546; Annals of Burton attribute the intervention to the ^minicans.</page><page sequence="27">HUGH OF LINCOLN APPENDIX. -+ I.?THE HISTORIANS. A.?MATTHEW PARIS. I. Anno quoque sub eodem, circa festum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, Judaai Lincolnige furati sunt unum puerum, Hugonem nomine, habentem aatate octo annos. Et quum ipsum in quodam conclavi secretissimo, lacte et aliis puerilibus alimentis nutrirent, miserunt ad omnes fere Angliaa civitates in quibus Judasi degebant, et convocarunt de unaquaque civitate aliquos Judaaorum, ut in con tumeliam et opprobrium Jesu Christi, Interessent sacrificio suo Lincolniaa. Habebant enim, ut dicebant, quendam puerum absconditum ad erueifigendum, Et con vener unt multi Lincolniaa, et convenientes constituerunt unum Judaaum Lincolniensem pro Judice, tamquam pro Pilato. Cujus judicio, et omnium favore, affectus est puer diversis tormentis. Verberatus est usque ad cruorem et livorem, spinis coronatus, sputis et cachinnis lacessitus. Et insuper a singulis punctus cultellis, qui dicuntur anlatii, potatus feile, derisus probris et blasphe miis, et crebr? ab eisdem, frendentibus dentibus, Jesus Pseudopropheta vocatus. Et postquam diversi modo illuserant ei, crucifixerunt et lancea ad cor pupuge runt. Et cum expirasset puer, deposuerunt corpus de cruce, et nescitur qua ratione eviscerarunt corpusculum ; dicitur autem ad magicas artes exercendas. Mater autem pueri filium suum absentem per aliquot dies quaasivit, dictum que ei ? vicinis, quod ultimo viderunt puerum quaesivit ludentum cum pueris Judaaorum coaataneis, et domum Judaei cujnsdam intrantem. Intravit igitur mulier subito domum ilium, et vidit corpus pueri in quendam puteum precipi tatum. Et caute convocatis Civitatis Ballivis, inventum est corpus, et exstrac tum, et factum est mirabile spectaculum in populo. Mulier autem mater pueri, querula et clamosa, omnes cives uno convenientes, ad lachrymas et suspiria provocavit. Erat autem ibidem dominus Johannes de Lexinton?, vir quidem circumspectus et discretus, insuper eleganter litteratus, qui ait: " Audivimus quandoque quod talia Judaai in opprobrium Jesu Christi Domini nostri crucifixi non sunt veriti attemptare." Et capto uno Judaao, in cujus domum, scilicet intravit puer ludens, et ideo aliis suspectior, ita ille: "Miser, nescis quod te f estinus manet interitus ? Totum aurum Angliaa non sufficeret ad ereptionem tuam et redemptionem. Veruntamen dicam tibi, licet indigno, qualis potes vi tarn tuam reserv?re, et membra ne mutileris. Utrumque tibi salvabo, si quaacunque in hoc casu aguntur sine falsi stamme mihi pandere non formides." i 2</page><page sequence="28">116 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. Judaeus igitur ille, nomine Copinus, sic credens viam invenisse evasionis, respon dit dicens : "Dominus, Joannes, si dictis facta compensas, pandam tibi mirabilia." Et animavit ad hoc domini Joannis industria ; et ait Judaeus : " Yera sunt quae dicunt Christiani ! Judaei fere quolibet anno unum puerum in injuriam et opprobrium Jesu erucifigunt; sed non quolibet anno comperitur ; occulte enim hoc faciunt, et locis absconditis et secretissimis. Hunc autem puerum quern Hugonem vocant, immisericorditer nostri Judaei crucifixerunt; et cum obiisset, et mortuum vellent abscondere, non potuit obrui in terra, nec abscondi. Inutile enim reputabatur corpus insontis augurio ; ad hoc enim eviscerabatur. Et cum mane putatur absconditum, edidit illud terra et eyomuit, et apparuit corpus aliquoties inhumatum supra terram, unde abhorruerunt Judaei. Tandem in puteum precipitatum est; nec adhuc tarnen potuit oscultari. Mater enim improba omnia perscrutando tandem corpus inventum Ballivis intimavit." Dominus autem Joannes tenuit Judaeum vinculis mancipatum ; et cum haec canonicis Ecclesiae Lincolniensis Cathedralis innotuissent, petiverunt corpus culum sibi dari; et concessum est illi. Et cum ab infinitis satis consideratur, honorifice in Ecclesia Lincolniensi, tanquam preciosi martyris, humabatur. Sciendum, quod Judaei tenuerunt puerum vivum per decem dies, ut tot diebus passus lacte tormenta vivus multif ormis tolerat. Cum Rex redisset de partibus boreabbus Angliae, et certificaretur de prae missis, increpavit dominum Joannem, quod tarn flagitioso vi tarn et membra polliceretur, quod dari nequiverat, dignus enim est blasphemus ille et homicida mortis poena multiformi. Et cum judicium reo immineret irremediabile, ait, " Imminet mihi mors mea, nec potest dominus Joannes perituro sufragari. Nunc dico vobis omnibus veritatem: Hujus pueri de quo calumniantur Judaei morti consentiebant fere omnes Judaei Angliae. Et cujuslibet fere omnes civitatis Angliae in qua Judaei habitant, quidam lecti convocabantur ad illius pueri immolationem, quasi ad Pascale sacrificium." Et cum haec dixisset, simul cum aliis deliramentis, ligatus ad caudam equinam, et tractus ad patibulum, aereis cacodemonibus in corpore et anim? praesentaretur ; et alii Judaei, hujus faci nores participes, quater viginti et undecim, in bigis Londinum ducti, carcerale custodiae mancipantur qui si forte ab aliquibus Christianis plangerentur, ab aemulis eorum caursinis siccis lacrymis deplorabantur." II. De quodam scandalo orto Londoniis contra frat res Minores sed insontes. Per idem tempus, cum quidam Judaei, infames de morte mirabili pueri Lincolniae crucifixi, per juramenta xxv. militum [carceri et morti] adjudicandi in carceri Londoniarum videlicet lx. et xi. reservarentur ad suspendium, secretos nuntios, prout oemuli eorum affirmant, ad fratres Minores [miserunt], ut inter cederent pro eisdem, ut a morte et carcere liberarentur qui tarnen morte digni erant turpissimae. Ipsi vero, ut perhibet mundus, si mundo in tali casu credendum est, mediante pecunia, ipsos suis precibus et intercessione et a</page><page sequence="29">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 117 3arcere et a morte, quam meruerant Judaaos liberarunt; ut pie credendum, arbitror, spiritu dueti pietatis, quia quamdui quis in via est en hoe mundo, quia liberam habet arbitrium, salvari potest, et sperandum est de eo. Pro diabolo autem aut manifeste dampnatis non est sperandum nec orandum quia non est spes de ipsis. Mors enim et diffinitiva sententia ipsos semel irrevocabiliter illaqueavit. Nec potuit eos haac ratio excusare, quin, licet inculpabiles, scandalum eos denigravit. Populus autem plebeius in ipsis, ut prius, in elemosinis suis benefacerent, manum retraxerunt. III. Dimissi sunt quieti Judcei qui in turri Londoniarum tenebantur, Eodem anno, idus Maii, dimissi sunt quieti Judaai quater viginti et xi. a turri Londoniarum, qui infames ibidem tenebantur compediti pro crucifixione sceruti, Hugonis pueri Lincolniensis. Qui, inquam, Judaai in jurata fuerunt culpabiles, juxta assertionem Judaai primo Lincolniaa suspensi. B.-THE ANNALS OF BURTON. De puero apud Lincolniam crucifixo a Judceis. Eodem tempore convocatis apud Lincolniam Judaais ex totius regni majoribus. sanctum Hugonem puerum parvulum ix. annorum eujusdam pauperculaa mulieris filium unicum, scholarem, in vigilia Sancti Petri quaa dicitur ad vincula, quidam ejusdem civitatis Judaaus nomine Jopinus, jam sole vergente ad occasum, a suorum contribulium et coaataneorum jocis ac choreis tetensis insidiis furtive sustulit, sublatum in conclavi secretiori domus propriaa per viginti sex dies occultavit, et in tantum famis ac sitis affecit inedia, ut vix vocem in verba formare posset. Deinde omnibus tarn indigenis quam extraneis qui in eadem civitate erant Judaais in unum congregatis, collegerunt consilium pontifices et sacerdotum principes, ut morti traderent innocentum. Adducto ergo illo et in eorum medio constituto, tanquam agno in luporum medio, excaacati et insensati in ignominiam passionis Jesu Christi, qui patitur in sanctos misericordia pietatis, patris sui desiderium adimplere cupientes, de quibus scriptum est, vos ex pat re diabolo estis, innocentem puerulum circumdederunt, nudaverunt, flagellis ceciderunt, et in faciem conspuerunt, nasique cartilaginem cum superiori labio reciderunt, principales dentium confringentes superiores. Deinde ipsum in crucem elevantes, eidem insultabant vocibus, et frendebant dentibus in eundem. O quam ine ompreliensib ilia sunt judicia tua, Domine! Sed omnia in sapientia feeisti. Arridebat parvulus toto malignitatis spiritu in eum debacchantibus, nec murmur resonat, nec querimonia ab ejus ore. Quippe Spiritus Sancti repletus gratia, alacri vultu quasi nil patiens permanebat. Et quod dictu mirabile est, in aatate tarn tenera constitutus, nec vocem nec gemitum emittebat. Tandum ministri diaboli ut Regem gloriaa irritarent, nostrum Redemptorem quem patres eorum ante faciem Pilati negaverunt, dicendo Non liabemus regem nisi Cwsarem.</page><page sequence="30">118 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. et ejus membra, id est Christianos, detestanda et horrenda crudelitate eon funderent, dicti pueruli corpus tenerrimum a planta pedis usque ad verticem minutis aculeis et acutis in tantum pupugerunt, ut toto corpore cruentato vulneribus, vulnera infiicta ipsius corpus pelli hericii similarent. Denique ejus latere lancea perforato, inclinato capite in manus Domini spiritum exbalavit. Mulier quidem, hujus sancti mater, ubi eum more solito domum minime redire conspex. t, expavit continuo, et festinanter eundem per notos vicinos et amicos requirebat. Quo non reperto, assertione infantium cum quibus ludere consuevit, ostensis bora diei et loco ubi eum ultimo viderunt et reliquerunt, orta est suspicio vehemens inter Christianos, ipsum a Judgeis sublatum et interemptum. Ex hoc enim argumentum sumebat eorum opinio, quod ex cunctis provinciis et civitatibus regni Angliae diversi in eadem civitate Judaei tune convenerant, et plus solito sibi invicem applaudebant. Requisiti etiam callide a quibusdam Christianis eorundem familiaribus cur sic eonvenerint, et tamdiu inibi moram fecerint, responderunt, nuptiarum solemnia celebrandi gratia e diversis pro? vinciis nationis suas principes et potentiores se evocasse, evocatos ideo moram fecisse diutius, quod nexus sponsalium inter prasdivites et nobilitate generis praeminentes caeteris esset contrahendus, palliare cupientes quod nequiter commiserunt. Sed facti veritate jam per dies paulatim clarescente, praedicta mulier, mater prasfati pueri, cum fletu et gemitu in labore et vultus sui 3udore, in Scotiaai ad dominum regem ubi tune agebat profecta est, et ad pedes ejus provoluta, clamans et ejulans suam super hoc deposuit querimoniam. Interim scientes Judaai super hac re inquisitionem faciendam, et cum rei veritas innotesceret acriori poena digne pro meritis se damnandos, congelati et consternati, conscientia sese interius remordente intern pestas noctis silentio corpus exanime tulerunt secretius, et in quendam puteum projecerunt, clamque discesserunt. Ubi postea cum ex mandato regio super hac re facta foret inquisitio, repertus est, prodente Illo cujus vestigia secutus fuerat in passione, qui etiam quod in ignominiam nominis Sui et fidei Christianas irrisionem, contemptum, et improperium a nefandis Judasis commissum fuerat, ad Sui Ipsius gloriam, et fidei Christianas exaltationem dignatus est immutare. Nam ipso sic reperto, et cum suis indumentis e puteo jam extracto, concursus populorum factus est undique voce magna clamantium et dicentium, " Gratias tibi, Domine Jesu Christe, que etiam modernis temporibus tenellos pueros per palmam martyrii dignatus es ad regna caelestia evocare." Cumque piis fletibus omnes qui aderant pectora irrigarent, et utriusque sexus tarn majores quam minores ad hoc spectaculum properarent, ecce mulier per annos quindeeim utrorumque oculorum orbata lumine, quae prius infantem plurimum dilexerat, ibidem addueta accessit propius, et corpus cum fide tetigit sie exclamans, "Heu, heu, Hugeline puer mi dulcissime, quod sie contigit! " et retrahens manum quam supra corpus posuerat, ex humore corporis cruentati caecos linivit oculos, et confestim visum integerrime recuperavit; sed novitate miraculi stupefacta, cunctis astantibus, grandisonis inclamabat voeibus, " Congratulamini mihi omnes qui diligrcis Deum, et videte miracula quaa in vestra praesentia operatus</page><page sequence="31">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN". 119 est." Cumque in earn fixissent intuitnm, et pro certo deprehendissent ipsam esse foeminam qna3 tamdiu caaea extitit, attoniti et stupefacti nniversi et singuli, ingentem ad sidera tulere clamorem, " A Domino factum est illud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris ; benedictns Deus qni non derelinqnit sperantes in se. et plebem suam, antiqua miracula renovando, ad sui nominis timorem et amorem excitat, et in fide corroborat et confirmat." Eepleta est ergo civitas immenso gandio, et in ore omnium ejus dulcissima passio resonabat. Catervatim quidem ruunt populi, cernere cupientes quaa per eum miracula Deus omnipotens operatur. Quicumque enim tune temporis infirmus vel debilis ad ejus corpus sanctissimum accessisset, quacumque molestia laboraret, sanitate recepta gaudens et hilaris ad propria remeabat. Auditis igitur tantis miraculis, et clamore populi vel fama circumquaque divulgatis, ecclesiaa cathedralis decanus et canonici ejusdem civitatis una cum vicariis suis, associato sibi clero et populo, ordinata processione solemniter ad sancti martyr is corpus perrexerunt. Illud etiam elevantes, praacedentibus cereis, crucibus, et thuribulis, revestitis etiam quibusque, loco debito dispositis et ordinatis, ad majus monasterium beataa Virginis psallentes et flentes, et in cordis organo voce dulcisona Deum collaudantes, portaverunt; concanonico quodam ejusdem collegii, in cujus paroehia idem puerulus ab utero matris usque ad martyrium tenere exstitit educatus, ne corpus extra suam parochiam cujuscumque praasumptione temeraria in suaa praabendaa praajudicium portaretur, audacter appellante, et totis viribus reclamante. Praenominati vero decanus et canonici hujusmodi appellationi non deferentes, triumphantis martyris solemniter celebrantes exequias, omnibus rite peractis, sancti corporis glebam juxta tumulum sanctissimi patris Roberti ejusdem loci episcopi sepulturaa decentissimas tradiderunt. Advenit itaque sub eodem tempore Ricardus comes Cornubiae, frater regis Henrici, ad eandem civitatem, peregrinationis causa ad sanctum Robertum ; in cujus praasentia dignata est divina dementia diversa miracula operari. Posthaac autem expletis negotiis pro quibus in Scotiam dominus rex profectus fuerat, ad eandem civitatem, et una cum eo domina regina aliisque quamplurimis episcopis regni et proceribus, circa festum Sancti Michaelis rever?us est. Examinato igitur negotio, et rei veritate diligenter inquisita super passione hujus pueruli, luce clarius cunctis innotuit praascripto modo et ordine rem gestam processisse. Nam cum ex decreto regio ballivis et aliis exeuntibus ut Judaaos caperent, scelus sceleri accumulantes, (non a Juda Jacob filio, nec Juda Macabaao Matathiaa filio, sed a Juda proditore perfido perditionis filio, affectu et opere trahentes nomina,) claudentes ostia seris objectis et pessulis se ipsos defendere conati sunt, existimantes se posse resistere potestati regiaa et decreto. Sed eorum obstinantia exacerbati ballivi et alii domini regis ministri ibidem de praacepto domini regis destinati, et in iracundiam provocati, dirum pentes januas, avulsis seris, confractis pessulis, per posticos, fenestras, et ostia ingressi sunt, irruentes ineos, quotquot reperire poteranfc, arctis vinculis vincientes. ignominiose et turpitur secum ad curiam deduxerunt. Cumque examinarentur diversimode super processu hujus fa?ti, de praacepto domini regis, Johannes de</page><page sequence="32">120 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. Lessintona, ejusdem senescallus, et a secretis, vir providus et discretus, et in utroqne jure, canonico scilicet et civili, peritus, Joppinum Judaaum, principem eorundem et pontificem, de cujus concilio, ut asseritur, sacrum scelus a sceleratis et perfidis perpetratum elt, accersivit, et spopondit se ei consilium conferre et juvamen ne morti traderetur, si sibi rei veritatem enarraret. G-avisus ergo tanti viri sponsione, et existimans se pecuniaria largitione caaterosque Judaaos posse redimi, universa penitus est confessus. Scripta est igitur bujus confessio, et in praasentia domini regis et ma jorum regni, qui ibidem inter fuerunt, recitata, ipso Judaao referente. Et quia in coronas regiaa et majestatis videretur infamiam redundare, si hujusmodi homicida poena debita non plecteretur, tanti sceleris perpetrator et auctor judiciali sententia per pedes proprios caudae vivus equi alligatur, super quern confestim ascendens quidam juvenis subductis calcaribus eundem im cursum velocius excitavit, et nefandum miserabiliter sed digne pro meritis per vicos et plateas ejusdem civitatis spectante populo detrahebat. Fit laus et exultatio Christianorum, horror Judaeis et confusio. Cumque diutius per platearum diverticula, calculos et saxos, ligna et lapides distractus, minutatim corpore jam dilacerato, in patibulo suspenderetur, miserandam animam ab execrando corpore violenter ejectam transmisit ad inferos poena perpetua puniendam. Caateri autem qui capti fuerant ex mandato regio ad civitatem Londoniarum perducuntur. Qui etiam tune evaserant festinanter, quaa secum portare poterant amplectentes, die noctuque latenter aufugerunt. Deinde mittuntur nuncii cum brevi regio per diversas provincias regni Angliae ad capiendum singulos qui huic facto assensum vel consilium praastitisse vel praasentes fuisse alicujus assertione aut relatu vel indicio perpendebantur ; unde factum est ut quamplures apud Londonias usque ad parliamentum post Pascha proximo sequens incarcerarentur ; e quibus octodecim antea post Natale Domini ad caudas equorum per totam civitatem Londoniarum turpiter et ignominiose tracti, ac deinde in patibulo suspensi, a praasentis vitaa curriculo descenderunt ad inferos, cum auctore sui sceleris pcena perpetua cruciandi. Interim, quod dictu horribile est, f ratres Praadicatores, qui propter amorem Crucifixi paupertatem elig'entes arctioris vitae regulam professi sunt, ut exemplo bonorum operum et verbo vitaa perituras salvarent animas, et ab ipsis inferni faucibus liberarent, caateros qui in carceris claudebantur ergastulo meritorum suorum exigentia damnandi imperpetuum cum diabolo, utpote qui ad fidem Christi nullatenus converti voluerant vel proponebant, totis viribus conati sunt a morte corporis liberare ; scriptum quippe est, Qui credidit, etc.; qui vero non credidit, etc. Et propterea mirum quod incredulos, nisi ad fidem Christi et gratia baptismatis converti voluerint, quoquo modo a morte corporis liberare niterentur. Sed quid? Contingit saapius quod ab illis fermentum egreditur, qui se deberent azymos exhibere; nam protestabatur infamia, quod ingenti corrupti pecunia se eos a mortis spopondissent periculo liberaturos. Quod si verum est, quod Deus avertat, qualiter Symoniacum possent declinare vitium ignoramus. Sed hoc fateri de illis erubescimus; nam ipso habitu et cotidianum victum quaaritando per ostia, cunctis religionibus se mundum sprevi&amp;se plerius</page><page sequence="33">LITTLE ST. HUGH OP LINCOLN. 121 manifestant. Sed quocumque spiritu eos, ut jam dictum est, liberare attemp tassent, propter illud factum et quoddam aliud quod paulo ante accederat, quod vobis in sequentibus exponemus, non solum Londoniensium, sed fere omnium totius regni Angliaa ad quos illius facti notitia potuit pervenire, indignationem non modicam incurrerunt. In tantum enim habebantur contemptui, quod in toto civitate Londoniensi per dies plurimos cum famis et sitis inedia laborarent, licet more solito per ostia mendicarent, neminem in venire poterant qui eis misericordiaa manum porrigeret, vel eorum inopiaa subveniret. Quod etiam instigante totius boni et justitiaa inimico, eisdem prius acciderat, tale erat. Cum inter universitatem Parisius et fratres Praadicatores suborta fuisset dissensio, eo quod iidem fratres institutis aut caaremoniis universitatis parere contempserint, quinetiam quae cancellarii ac totius universitatis consilio geri consueverant, jurisdictionem sibi incautius super universitatem et contra ejusdem universitatis libertatem vindicantes, suo potius gerenda arbitrio proponebant, videlicit, ut pro voluntate sua ipsi inciperent de theologia, absque licentia cancellarii vel universitatis, et quod nullus magistrorum lecturus theologiam examinaretur ab aliis quam ab ipsis, vel incipiendi licentiam obtineret. Super his igitur et aliis utrisque ad sedem Apostolicam appellantibus, tandem post multas altercationes hinc inde factas, auditis utrorumque allega tionibus, dicti fratres in praajudicium, opprobrium, et scandal um totius universtatis obtinuerunt, et soluti ab omni lege universitatis, cum privilegio super hoc sibi a sede Apostolica indulto Parisius redierunt. Indignantes igitur magistri Parisiacenses quod eorum libertas, quam ab antiquo per privilegia summorum pontificum habere consueverant, sic tanquam pro nihilo deperiret, confestim cessaverunt legere, et commune sigillum universitatis disponentes confringere, civitate Parisiacensi relicta, quidam ad suam patriam, q?idam ad diversas provincias discesserunt. Prasfati autem fratres apud Londonias, etsi magnam diligentiam ad liberandum corpora perfidorum a debito mortis periculo, ut jam dictum est, adhibuissent, nihil tarnen profecerunt. Tandem vero adveniente domino rege cum regni majoribus apud Radinges, provisum fuit Judaaos universos totius regni qui huic facto assensum praastitissent, et praacipue eos qui affuerunt, videlicet lx. et undecim qui apud Londonias in vinculis tenebantur, quemad modum Joppinus interiit, interire, ne si forte quoquo modo possent evadere qui hoc scelus commiserant, ad scelus simile vel majus committendum fierent proniores. Impunitas enim delinquentium praastat audaciam delinquendi. Quo audito, Ricardus comes Cornubiaa, frater regis, eo quod pro maxima summa pecuniaa a fratre suo rege cunctos Judaaos Angliaa ad terminum pro vadio suscepisset, et pro immensa summa pecuniaa quam a Judaais receperat ut eos salvaret, objecta auctoritate sua et potentia morti addictos a mortis periculo liberavit. Nec erat qui resisteret vel eidem in hoc facto contradiceret. Sic, sic justificati sunt propter pecuniam, qui fecerunt injuriam, et rei absque satisfac? tione absolvuntur. Sublatus est itaque a Judaais furtive praafatus sanctus puerulus, ut jam</page><page sequence="34">122 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. praadiximus, ii. kal. Augusti, videlicet in vigilia Sancti Petri quae dicitur ad vincula, et vi. kal. Septembris, die Veneris scilicet, crucifixus, et quarto kal. ejusdem, scilicet die Dominica, inventus et ex puteo extractus, regnante Domino nostro Jesu Christo qui vivit et regnat, etc. mcclvi. Isto anno post Pascha apud Radinges Judaei qui apud Lincolniam martyrio pueri interfuerunt, pecunia non modica interveniente, per Ricardum comitem Cornubiaa a morte quam meruerunt sunt redempti ; licet antea, anno proximo praacedenti, post Natale Domini, apud Londonias octodecim eorundem socii qui una cum eis tarn [im]pio sceleri ibidem aderant, pro causa eadem tarn crudeli judicialiter damnati fuerint et suspensi. II.?THE RECORDS. 14 Oct., 1255.?Jews sent to London. (Close Roll, 39 Henry III., part i. m. 2.) De Iudeis ducendis ad Meg ein :?Mandatum est Constabulario Castri Regis Line, quod omnes Iudeos captos et detentos in prisona Regis Line, pro infante nuper crucifixo apud Line, sine dilacione liberari faciat vicecomiti Regis Line, ducendos ad Regem usque Westmonasterium sub salua et sufficienti custodia ad custum eorundem Iudeorum. Teste ut supra (i.e., "Teste Regis apud Westmonasterium xiiij. die Octobris). Et mandatum est eidem vicecomiti Lincoln, quod predictos Iudeos ad custum eorundem sine dilacione adducat ad Regem usque Westmonasterium ad Regem ita quod de corporibus eorum Regi respondeat in propria persona sua. Teste ut supra. Et mandatum est vicecomite Huntendon quod eum predictus vicecomes Line, unacum predictis Judeis transitum fecerint (sie') per Comitatum Huntendon eidem ad saluo conducendum eos per Ballinam suam consilium et auxilium efficax impendat. Teste ut supra. Idem mandatum est vicecomiti Hertford. Nov. 22,1255. Teial at Westminstek. Liber de Antiquis Legibus, (page 23.) Eodem anno [MCCLY.] in festo Cecilie, tune temporis die L?ne, ducti sunt ad Westmonasterium iiiixx. et xij. Judei de Lincolnia, qui imprisonati fuerunt apud Turrim Londoniarum pro morte cujusdam pueri masculi, quern debuerant necasse apud Lincolniam in despect? fidei Christiane ; de quibus xviij., qui noluerunt ponere se super veredictum Christianorum sine Judeis, quando Rex fuit apud Lincolniam, de morte ilia, et tune de ilia indictati fuerunt coram Rege, eodem die fuerunt detracti, et etiam, post prandium, et deficiente die, de nocte suspensi. Alii vero lxxiiij.or reducti sunt apud Turrim.</page><page sequence="35">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 123 Jan. 7, 1255. Summons foe Tkial by Jury at Lincoln. Shirley Royal Letters, ii. 110. Henricus, Dei gratia rex Angliae, etc., vicecomiti Lincolniae salutem. Precipimus tibi quod venire faciatis coram justiciariis nostris apud Westmo nasterium in crastino purificationis B. Marias viginti quatuor de legalioribus et discretioribus milifcibus de comitatu tuo et vicinoribus Lineolnias et similiter viginti quatuor de legalioribus et discretioribus burgensibus civitatis vestrse Lincolnise, ad certificandum praafatos justiciarios nostros de morte Hugonis Fili. Beatricis, quern Judaei crucifixerunt et morti tradiderunt, ut dicitur ; quia Judaei quos in prisona nostra apud Turrim Londoniae detinemus pro felonia praadieta, unde rectati sunt, posuerunt si inde super veredictum predictorum militum et burgensium. Et habeas ibi nomina militum et hoc breve. Teste me ipso apud Westmonasterium, septimo die Januarii (anno) regni nostri quadragesimo. Jan. 7, 1256. Paedon of Benedict fil Mosse. Patent 40, 17 top. Pro Benedicto Fil Mosse Judeo London. Rex omnibus saltm. Quum per inquisitionem quam de morte Hugonis pueri scilicet nuper apud Lincolniam crucifixi per di. et fi. nostrum Johannem de Lessenton. diligenter fieri, fecimus Benedictus fil Mossei London. Judeus de petitione predicti sceleris non fuit judicatus set idem judeus de consensu ommodo ejusdem mortis ptdmodum extititid receatd quod in curia nostri coram justiciariis nostris apud Westmonasterium se super pat'em posuit de retta predicto et mater predicti pueri de piano faten. dorn. Judeum inde non esse culpabilem ut die. Nos ad instantiam dileo. not. sarc. martino perdonandum eidem judeo festam pacis nostrae quae ad nos pertinet de morte predicta et volumus qd. firmam pacem nostram inde habeat. Ita une quod stet recte in curia nostra si quis erga erim inde loqui voluerit. In ein. etc. et R. ap. Windes. Et mandamus Petro de Blund constabulario Turris Londoniae quod praadictum Benedictum captum et detentum in prisona Regali Turris Londoniaa occasione predicta sareve martini a pieta prisona sine dilatione deberet. T. n. s. Et mandatum est Justiciarus ad custodiam Judaeorum assignatis quod omnia catalla predicti judei una cum Domibus suis ea occasione arta in man. Regis in deliberari faciant. Jan. 7, 1256. Paedon for John the Conveet. Rymer Fcedera, i. 355 :? Perdonatio concessa Johanni converso de morte pueri crucifixi apud Lincoln. Rex omnibus, etc., Salutem. Sciatis quod, ad instantiam dilecti nobis in Christo G-ratus Johannis de Derlington, perdonavimus Johanni converso sectam pacis nostre qua ad nos pertinet, pro morte pueri crucifixi apud Lincoln' dum predictus Johannes fuit Judeus ejusdem civitatis, unde rectatus est; et firmam</page><page sequence="36">124 little st. hugh of lincoln. pacem nostram et inde concedimus : ita tarnen quod stet recto in envia nostra si quisque inde loqui voluerit. In cujus, etc., T.R. apud Westm', die Januarii. Et mandatum est Petro le Blund constabularis turris London' quod predictum Johannem captum, et in prisona dicti turris pro morte predicta detentum, ? prison? ill? sine dilacione deliberet. Teste, etc. Feb. 12,1256.?Ordee for Cyrographers' Ark of Lincoln to be sent to Westminster. Close Roll, 40 Henry III., m. 15 d. Be archa Jtideorum Lino.:?Mandatum est vicecomiti Line, quod statim visis litteris istis mittat usque London, archam Cirograif arum Line, sub salua custodia liberandam Philippo Lunel Thesaurario Regis et Justicar(iis) ad custodiam Judeorum assignatis et quod venire faciat ibidem cum eadem Arcba omnes Cirograffarios eiusdem ville tarn Christianos quam Judeos. Et hoc non omittat Teste. (Rege apud Wodest. xij. die Februarii.) Mar. 27, 1256. Inquisition on School of Peytevin. Anglia Judaica. (pages 137-8.) REX, etc. Rogero de Turkleby, et Nicholao de Turri Salutem. Quia hor? rible factum nuper perpetratum in Civitate nostra Lincoln de Puero Chris tieno ibidem Crucifixo in de decus et vituperium Jesu Christi, toto Cordis defiderio vindicari peroptamus, ad ipsius Jesu Christi nominis Honorem, Fidei Christianas exaltationem, nec non et Pacis nostrae conservationem, Consti tuimus Vos Justiciarios nostros ad faciendam pleniorem inquisitionem qai fuerunt de Schola Peytivini Magni, qui fugit pro morte dicti Pueri, et de quibusdam articulis dictum factum contingentibus. Et ideo Vobis Mandamus quod die Mart. prox. ant. Dominic. Palmar, conveniatis apud Line, ad dictam Inquisitionem faciendam, prout Yobis nuper viva Yoce injunximus. Mandavi mus enim Yic. nostro Line, quod 12 tarn milites quam alios Liberos et Legales Homines de propinquioribus Yisnet. Civitat. Line, et 12 Legales et discretos Cives ejusdem Civitat. una cum Majore, Ballivis, et Corona tor. diet. Civitat. per quos rei Yeritas in praemissis melius et plenius investigari valeat et inquiri, et omnes Judasos et Judaeas qui aliquibus Judasis in eadem Civitat. infra biennium proximo praeteritum sunt obsecuti, dictis die et loco coram Yobis venire faciat, ad dictam Inquisit. plenius faciend. Et quod ipse Yic. assumptis secum Corona toribus nostris Com. sui, Yobis ad praemissa faciend. dictis die et loco assistat diligenter. In cujus, etc. T. R. apud Norwic. 27. Martii. Pat. 40. H. 3. m. 17 dors. Aug. 20, 1256. Sale of House. Be Bomibus quorundam Judceorum Vendendis :?R. ommibus, etc., salutem Sciatis qd. conferman' di. et fi. nros. Simeon Josselewe et Willm. de Lergton vie. nom. Line ad vendendum p. visum et testimon. legalium hominum domos qui fu'nt iudeorum Line, suspensorum p. pu'o crucifixo ibidem pnt ommoda nro.</page><page sequence="37">little st. hugh of lincoln. 125 indigd. viderent expedire. Et ad inquirendum qua denendunt catalla eorundem Judm. et qui ea hant. et quantum valeant et inde nob. mandamus qd. eisdem Simon, et vie. ac viris iatendentes et aux. omn. il requisita. In cind. ye et Fk ap wedest xx die Aug. 1286. Eines for Jews' Houses. Fine Rolls, ed Roberts, ii. 210. Thomas de Bellofogo et Johannes Lengres .... pro habenda domo que fuit Elye fil Jacobi Judsei suspensi pro puero ut dicebatur crucifixo apud Line, quam idem Elyas tenuit in parochia Sete Cutberti in Line. Joce de Ballio et Will, de Ballio . . . pro habenda domo que fuit Isaac fil Juda de Ballio suspensi pro puero ut dicebatur crucifixo in Lincolnia cum ij sol. et ij den. redditus quas Deulacres de Bedeford suspensus recipere consuevit de domibus Rice, de Sechwyle in Ballio. Willo Brond . . . domos que fuerunt Samuel generi Leonis et Sampson Levy Judeorum suspensorum pro puero, ut dicebatur, crucifixo apud Line. III.?THE BALLADS. THE FRENCH BALLAD. Ore oez un bei chancon Des Jues de Niehole, qui par treison Firent la cruel occision De un enfant que Huchon out non. En Nichole la riche cite, Dreit en Dernestal, l'enf ant fui nee ; De Peitevin le Ju f u emble A la gule de aust, en un vespre. J? plus tost emble ne f u Qe la mere ne fu aparceu Qe l'enfant fu perdu : Ele ala querant en meint liu. Tute la vespre ele ala criant Desqu'al ure de corfeu sonant " Perdi ai mon eher enfant " Que jo tuz jurz ai ame tant." Mult poi dormist la mere la noit, En son lit mult poi de ure jut, Mult prea Deu si lui plust Parsa merci que afere lui fust. Quant ele out f et la ureison Tant tost out-ele suspeccion Qui de son fiz le emblison Par Jus fet et par treison.</page><page sequence="38">126 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. J? plus tost ne vint Tajornant Qe la femme me"ala plorant Par la Juerie demandant As us de Jus : " U est mon enfant ?" La port u l'enfant fu entre Ne dute pas que ne f u ben f erme, Qe nul crestien de mere nee Poust saver le lur privee. La fame fu tost par tute la cite Qe l'enfant fu emble ; Mes nul hom saveit la verite Fors Jhesu-Crist et les escomenge. Pur la suspeccion que ele out Des Jus de Nichol, cum Deu plout Ele ne cessa ? pain tut la noit Desques ele vint ? la curt. Quant la femme fu ale Hors de Nichol la cite, Mult furent al ure lee Qui l'enfant fu emble. Ist quidoint ben qu'ele f u f ui Hors de Nichole par dote de vi, Qe ele feseit si grant cri. Altre chose orrez, ne dotez mi. Quant ele vint devant le rei Henrie (Qui Deu gard et tenge sa vie !) A ces piez mult tost cheie Et pitosement le cria mercie : " Sire, si vus plest oir: mon fiz fu emble " Des Jus de Nichole en un vespre; " En pernez garde, si vous plest par charite." Verai son serment, fist issi: " Par la pite Deu! c'il est issi " Cum conte as ore ici, " Les Jus murrunt sanz merci; " Et si tu mentu as " Sur les Juz de tel trespaz, " Par seint Edward, ne dotez pas " Qe meme le jugement tu averas." La f emme respondist mult dulcement: ' Jhesu Crist omnipotent " AI jur de juge le vous rent, " Qe le veirz poissez saver ultrement!" Tost apres que l'enfant fut emble Les Jus de Nichol firent grant semble Des Jus plus riches d'Engleterre ne Cum avant fu purparle. L'enfant devant els mene fu De une corde lie par Jopin Ii Jeu L'enfant firent tantost neu Cum jadis firent le Jus Jhesu. Tuz les Jus qui l? f urent Mult grant joie trestuz firent Qe l'enfant tut nu virent; Mult poi de pite de Ii ourent. Tantost dist Jopin li Ju, Qui quidost dire mult grant pru: "L'enfant covent qu'il seit vendu " Pur trente deners, cum fu Jhesu." Agon li Ju respondist tant: " Bailez-mei icel enfant Pur trente deners ben pesant " Vei lies ici demeintenant; " Mes jo voil que seit juge " A la mort, et ? mei livre; " Et que jo face ma volente, " Pur tant que jo l'ai achate." Le responz des Jus fu mult fort, Et lur con seil disant tost: " Qe Agim 1'ait, n'e pas tort, " Mes que tost seit mis ? la mort."</page><page sequence="39">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 127 Et plus fort mot diseient puis De Nichole les malveis Jus, Tuz crient ? une voiz : " L'enfant seit mis sur la croiz." Les Jus de Nichole demaintenant Une croiz aporterent avant. Mult fu l'enfant al jur tremblant, L'enfant dist tant ne quant. L'enfant delie mult tost fu Et sur la croiz mult tost pendu Vilement, cum Jhesu fu, Qui murust pur nostre pru. Ore orez grant pru u dolur Deu merci ? cum out po?r Li juven enfant ? cel ure Quant la croiz i fu mis sure. Ses braz f urent estendu Sur la croiz si lie cum il fu, Et perce furent par mainz de Ju Ses pez, ces meinz, des clous agu. Issi furent attachez De eel enfant meinz et pez A la croiz, cum vus oez, Et tut vif sur la croiz crucifiez. Ore orez le grant dodel del enfant Quant Agim le Ju vint avant, Pur tant qu'il diseit tant: " L'enfant murra demein tenant." Agim le Ju son knivet prent Et perce la coste del innocent Et puis son quer en deus def ent Dunques gurristrent les malveis gent. Pur un cri que l'enfant fist Quant l'alme del cors en issist, Sa mere apela, et tant dist: " Pur mei priez ? Jhesu-Crist." La bon alme de eel enfant Porte fui demaintenant Des angles de cel tut chantant Devant Deu tut poissant. Quant fu mort sur la eroiz Icel enfant, i deseient puis De Nichole les malveis Jus : " Le cors seit porte horz al uiz. " Par fond sait fui dedenz la terre, " Ke hom crestien ne de mere " IT seit enterre, puis i ere " Nostre privete, ne savere." Quant le cors enterre fu, En eschar dit un Ju : " Ore face la mere de lui " Mult grant joie al jur de hui !" Lendemain en la matine Jus passerent ? f u enterre, Amont de la terre l'unt trove; Mult f urent al ure esponte. Les Jus de Nichole, quant oirent De grant merveil que les altres vi Mesme le jur asemblerent, A un consail consentirent Qe le cors de l'enfant G-ete fut demeintenant Et ? chambre prive tut puant: Mult furent fols et mescreant. Car les Jus de treson piain Le cors troverent lendemain Sur la sele de chambre f orain ; Quanque firent fu en vain. Mult firent plein de dolur Les Jus de Nichole et de po?r Quant il ne poaint ? nul jur Le cors muscer nuit ne jur.</page><page sequence="40">128 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. Vint un Ju, et dist tant: " Le cors seit porte del enfant " Hors de Nichole demeintenant, " Qe j? tost est puant ;i " Car une femme que jo ai prive ; " Me ad noris que ad este, " Et par dons l'a grante " Le cors emp?rter en privete. " Mes devant que seit porte " Hors de Nichole la cite, " Tuz les plaies seient emple " De jaun cire ben boille." Par la norriz malure Le cors nutante fu porte; En un f ontainne f u gete; Derere le chastel del cite. La femme fu tenu cristien, Pur ceo se dota nule ren; Eschaper quidout mult ben, Puis fust tenu plus vil de chen. Une altre femme vint lendemain Pur del ewe ? la fontain, Le cors trova ; mes ? pain L'osa tocher de sa main, Pur tant que fu tant soille Del ordure del chambre prive. Mul fut la femme esmerveille De tels cors qui l? fu trove. Ele se est mult tost purpense De la fame d'un enfant emble; Denz Nichole se est ale A Dernestal, ? l'enfant fu ne. Quant ele vint ? la meson Le parastre l'enfant Huchon, Tantost dit ele ? le prodom: " Entendez ore ? ma reson: " Le cors de un enfant ai trove " Hors de Nichole la cite, " Amont d'un f on tain en la matine ; " Jo lo de vus que seit visite." Mult tost granta le prodom Pur la grant suspeccion Qu'il out que emblison Par Jus f u fet et par treison. Par mi la cite la femme ala disant: " A une fontain ai trove un enfant " Derere le chastel tut nu gisant. " L'a? seit fet demaintenant." La cri de la femme que oirent A la fontain tuz alerent; Le cors del enfant l? troverent, Pur sa alme tuz prierent. Ja plus tost ne furent mande Les corneres de la cite Qe i ne vindrent de bon gre Pur fere la we en leaute. Quant fu fet del cors aii, De tote la gent f u conu; Et tuz disaint: " AI jur de hu " Le cors seit porte ? ne fu." Le cors mult tost fu porte Desqu'al Desternal, ? f u ne ; Pur 90 que le cors f u tant soille, Del prestre ne poeit estre visite. Une femme vint ? eel ur Qe aveit perdu avant meint jur La we del oil par aventure, Cum Deu voleit nostre Seignur. La femme mult tost diseit tant: " Alias ! Huet de juven enfant, " Qe si beals fustes avant, " Pur quei estes ici gisant ?"</page><page sequence="41">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 129 De ces mains le cors mania, Le oil que out perdu apres fcocha; Deu sa grace ? lui mustra, La we del oil ? lui dona. Quant la femme fu aparceu De la grace et de la vertu Que ? lui enveie fu, " Des merci? dist; j'o la veu." Tote la gent qui l? furent La vertu trestuz virent; Tuz ? Deu graces rendirent; Issi firent quanque oirent. A eel ur vint avant Un convers, et dist tant: " Volez saver demeintenant " Coment murut icel enfant ? " Le cors de lui que est soille " De chaut ewe seit lave : " Jo crei ben que ert trove " Coment l'enfant fu pene." Ja plus tost lave f u Que la convers ne s'en aparceu; De la treson lur mustre ? us Qe fu fet par conseil de Ju. Mesme les plaies dunt Deu fut pene Sur l'enfant furent trove; Par mi Nichole la cite La fame mult tost est passe. Icels de la mere-esglise oirent La vertu Deu, qui les altres virent; Al cors seint tuz alerent, Tut ? force l'emporterent. Par mi Nichole la mere-esglise, U les cors seinz furent jadis, Od grant joie en tumbe mis : Mult ben firent, cum m'est avis. VOL. I. En tote la citen'i aveit chanoin Qui i ne vint en procession Encontre le cors de Huehon. En tombe fu mis od grant devocion. Tost apres vint la mere De la curt, od doleruse chere Pur quei le cors ne poeit vere De son eher fiz que ele out chere. Pur la fame que fu grant Des occision de eel enfant, Et sur les Jus fut dist tant, Les Jus furent pris demaintenant. Les Jus de Nichole, quant f urent pria, En fort prison tost furent mis ; Dunt diseient les Jus lur avis : " Par Falsim eimes trais." En prison durent chescon pee Les Jus de Nichole la cite; Feimmes, enfanz, f urent eschape Par conseil et pur pite. Desque lendemain, que rei Henri (Qe Deu gard et tenge sa vi!) Vint ? Nichol od sa chivalerie, Cum Deu voleit, la sue merci! Les Jus furent demande Devant le rei trestuz lie, Pur enquere la verite Si l'enfant fu crueifie. Un sage hom qui f u l? Devant le rei tantost parla, Le Ju que ore mustra Le veir al rei, avera. Tantost vint Jopin le Ju, Que tut la treison avant eu: " En que meson tut fet fur " Vus le saverez al jur de hu.</page><page sequence="42">130 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. " De Parten in le Ju fu emble " A la gule de hast, en un vespre; " Dedenz ma porte quant fu entre " De forz lienz l'enfant fu lie. " Dedenz ma mesom fu enprisone ; " Desque les Jus de Engletere ne " Tut saveint cel privete, " Tuz diseient que fu crucifie. " En tut Englete n'aveit Ju " Qe i n'i fust u son conseil i fu. " Par commun eonseil fu pendu " Sur la croiz, cum fu Jhesu. Apres vint Agim Ii Ju " A qui l'enfant vu vendu " Pur trente deners, que jo receu " De mes meins, cum fu Jhesu, " De son knivet l'enfant occist " Sur la croiz quant pendist; ' Mult grant doel l'enfant fist " Quant del cors l'alme issist. " L'enfant ne poeit estre enterre " Dedenz maison ne dedenz en privete, " Pur quei nous fumes esmerveille " Et mult dulcement esponte. " L'enfant nutante porte feu " Par la noriz de un Ju " Qe pur cristien fu tenu &lt;( A une fontainne, jo sai ben ?, " Derere le chastel envers le west, " Mult ben sai que parfond est; " La f u plonge par la test. " Ore juge cum vus plest." Quant Jopin le Ju aveit dist, Devant le rei fu escrist; Le rei Henri mult tost dist: " Pur la pite Jhesu-Crist! " Mult mesfist que l'occist." Les Jus tost alerent A lur conseil et enparlerent: Jopin le Ju ? la mort jugerent, Tost ? serganz le commanderent. " Le cors de Jopin seit treine " Par mi Nichol la cite &lt;; De chivals forts et ben ferre " Desque la vie seit passe. " Et puis seit pendu malement " Cum traitre et larron vistement, " Qe puissent ver tute gent " Pur qui est pendu, en quel entent." Cum li justis commande fu, Le cors f u traine de Jopin le Ju Des f ors chivals, et puis pendu Dehors Nichol, jo sai ben ?. A coste de Canevic, sur halt mont U la gent pendu sunt Que larcin u treson f unt: Mult urent Jus ? lur hont HIG FINIT PASSIO P?ERI HUGONIS DE LlNCOLNIA.</page><page sequence="43">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. THE ENGLISH BALLAD. 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, And catch'd it wi' his knee ; And throuch-and-thro' the Jews' window, He gar'd the bonny ba' flee. He's doen him to the Jew's castell, And walk'd it round about; And there he saw the Jew's daughter At the window looking out. "Throw down the ba', ye Jew's daughter, Throw down the ba' to me!" " Never a bit," says the Jew's daughter, " Till up to me come ye." " How will I come up ? How can I come up ? How can I come to thee ? For as ye did to my auld father, The same yell do to me." She's gane till her father's garden, And pu'd an apple, red and green; Twas a' to wyle him, sweet sir Hugh, And to entice him in. She's led him in through ae dark door, And sae has she thro' nine; She's laid him on a dressing table, And stickit him like a swine. And first came out the thick thick blood, And syne came out the thin, And syne came out the bonny heart's blood; There was nae mair within. She's row'd him in a cake o' lead, Bade him lie still and sleep; She's thrown him in Our Lady's draw well, Was fifty fathom deep. When bells were rung, and mass was sung, And a' the bairns came hame, When every lady gat hame her son, The Lady Maisry gat nane ( She's ta'en her mantle her about, Her coffer by the hand ; I And she's gane out to seek her son, And wandered o'er the land. She's doen her to the Jew's castell, Where a' were fast asleep ; " Grin ye be there, my sweet sir Hugh? I pray you to me speak." She's doen her to the Jew's garden, Thought he had been gatherin fruit; " Gin ye be there, my sweet sir Hugh, I pray you to me speak." She near'd Our Lady's deep draw well, Was fifty fathom deep : " Whare'er ye be, my sweet sir Hugh I pray you to me speak." K 2</page><page sequence="44">132 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. " Gae hame, gae hame, my mither dear; Prepare my winding sheet; And, at the back o' merry Lincoln, The morn I will yon meet." Now lady Maisry is gane hame ; Made him a winding sheet; And, at the back o' merry Lincoln, The dead corpse did her meet; And a' the bells o' merry Lincoln, Without men's hands were rung ; And a' the books o' merry Lincoln, Were read without man's tongue ; And ne'er was such a burial Sin Adam's days begun. The variations in the Ballads are thus detailed by Prof. Child. (See Bibliography sub voce.) The boy's name is Sir Hugh in A-F, etc; in K the name is corrupted to Saluter, and in the singular and interesting copy obtained in New York, N. to Harry Hughes ; the Jew's Daughter in this becoming the Duke's Daughter. The place is Merry Lincoln in A, D, L (Lincoln J, Lincolnshire Q,) ; corrupted in B, C, to Maryland town ; in E to Maitland town; changed to Merry Scotland I, J, O, which is corrupted to Merrycock Land K; in G, H, Old Scotland, fair Scotland. The ball is tossed [patted] into the Jew's garden, G. H, I, L, M, O, P, where the Jews are sitting a-row, I, O. The boy will not come in without his play-feres, B, C, D, F, G, I, J, K ; if he should go in, his mother would cause his heart's blood to fall, Gr, I, K. [In J4 he will be beaten for losing his ball. In the Irish F8 the mother takes a little rod in her hand meaning to bate him for staying so long]. The boy is rolled in a caKe [case] of lead, A-E (L, b ?) ; in a grise of tin, N. The draw-well is Our Lady's only in A (L, b P ) ; it is the Jew's in C, D ; it is a [the] deep draw-well simply, in B, E, F, G ; a little draw-well, N ; a well, O ; fifty fathoms deep, A-F, N ; G, eighteen fathoms deep ; O, five and fifty feet. In G, the Jew's daughter lays the Bible at the boy's head and the Prayer-book at his feet before she sticks him ; in I, K, the Bible and Testament after; in I, the Catechism in her heart's blood. In H, the boy, at the moment of death asks that the Bible may be put at his head and the Testament at his feet, and in M, wants " a seven-foot Bible" at his head and feet. In E, F, the boy makes his request from the draw-well, and in N, with the variations ; in ?, there is a jumble. The boy asks his mother to go and make ready his winding-sheet, in A, B, C, E, F, and appoints to meet her at the back of the town, A, B, E ; at the birks of Mirryland town, C. The fine trait of the ringing of bells without man's hand, &amp;c, occurs only in A.</page><page sequence="45">little st. hugh of lincoln. 133 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Besides the original sources mentioned in the course of the present Paper, the subject has been frequently dealt with by secondary sources which are often quoted as authoritative. It seemed, therefore, desirable to print a list of these as a supplement to the Paper. The various forms of the English and Scotch Ballads on the subject are collected together sub voce Child from Prof. Child's exhaustive collection. Many of the items are taken from Michel's Monograph. Acta Sanctoeum. Edit. Bollandus, etc. xxxiii. 494. Jul. xxvii. Hugo puer Lincolniae. Annales Monastici. Edit. Luard. (Roll series) 1869. Burton, vol. I. 340, 346, 348, 371 ; Waverley, vol. II. 346, 348 ; Worcester, vol. IV. 443. Aech^eologia. vol. I. 27, 28. Bale, John. " Scriptorum Majoris Brytanniaa Catalogus." Basle, 1559. App., p. 310. Baetolomeus Cotton. "Historia." Edit. Luard. (Roll series) p. 132. Capgrave, John. "Nova Legenda Angli&amp;e." 1516. fol. clxxxii. Caete, Thomas. " General History of England." 1701. II. vii. 105. Chaucee Society. Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales," vi. Alphonsus of Lincoln, from Alphonsus a Spina " Fortalitium Fidei," pp. 108, 110. xiv. The boy killed by a Jew, versified by Gautier de Coincy. Chaucer II. pp. 251-276. xv. The Paris beggar murdered by a Jew. pp. 277-288. Child, F. J. "English and Scotch Popular Ballads." Part V. Boston, 1888. Prints the following versions of " Sir Hugh, or the Jew's Daughter." No. 155, pp. 233-254. A "Hugh of Lincoln." Jamieson's Popular Ballads, i. 151. B " The Jew's Daughter." Percy's Reliques, 1765. i. 32. Translated into German by Herder, Bodmer, Doering and Von Marees. C " The Jewe's Daughter." Bishop Percy's Papers. D "Sir Hugh." Herd's MSS. i. 213. Stanzas 7-10, ii. 219. Herd's Scottish Songs, 1776, i. 96. E " Sir Hugh, or the Jew's Daughter." Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 51. F A. Hume. Sir Hugh of Lincoln, p. 35. Gr From the recitation of an American lady. H " The Jew's Daughter," from the recitation of an American lady. I Sir Egerton Brydge's Bestituta, I. 381. J Sir Hugh a 1. Notes and Queries, XII. 496 ; b. ibid., VIII. 614. "K Notes and Queries, IX. 320. Miss C. S. Burne's Shropshire Folk Lore, p. 539.</page><page sequence="46">134 LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. Jj a. Communicated by Rev. E. Venables. b. A Walk through Lincoln Cathedral, by the same, p. 41. M F. H. Groome, In Gipsy Tents. Edinburgh, 1880, p. 145. N ** Little Harry Hughes and the Duke's Daughter." Newell, Games and Song? of American Children, p. 75. ? G-. A. Sala, Illustrated London News, LXXL 415, October 21st, 1882, and Living London1 1883, p. 465. P Halliwell, Ballads and Poems respecting Hugh of Lincoln, p. 37. Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales, p. 192 ; two stanzas. Q, 44 The Jew's Daughter." Motherwellrs Notebook, p. 54. R " Sir Hew, or the Jew's Daughter." Motherwell's Minstrelsy. Appendix, p. xvii., VII. ; one stanza. S [pt. viii. 497-498.] From the recitation of Mrs. W. H. Gill. T Penkerton, Tragic Ballads, 1781, p. 50; made up of 8 stanzas of D and 6 of B. Cf. Athen?um, 1867, p. 96. TJ G-ilehrist, 1815, i. 210 = 8 of D and 9 of A. V Johnson, Museum, iv. 500, compounded of A, B, D, E, and T. Davis, M.D. "The Medieval Jews of Lincoln." (In Archaeological Journal, XXXVIL p.l78y??2.) Fabian, Robert. " The Chronicle." 1559. ii. 58. Ferrari, Filippo. "Catalogus G-eneralis Sanctorum qui in Martyrologio Romano non sunt." Venice, 1625. p. 305. Ivlii 27. Fleury, Claude. " Histoire Ecclesiastique," 1724. Tome XVIII. p. 409. (Livre 88ieme. No. XL.). Foxe, John. " Actes and Monuments." 1684. Tome I. p. 368. F?ncx, Johan. " Chronologia." Basle, 1554, p. 541. Anno 1258. GrERVASE of Canterbury. " Historia." Edit. Leland-Hearne. Oxford, 1715. Tome I., pt. i. p. 267. Gf-rafton, Richard. Chronicle, Edit. Johnson, 1809. Tome I. p. 256. Harpsfield, Nicolas. " Historia Anglicana Ecclesiastica." 1622, p. 495. Historical and Descriptive Account of Lincolnshire. London, 1825. Pt. II., p. 59. Holinshed, Ralph. Chronicles. 1587. Tome ii. p. 253. Home, A. " Sir Hugh of Lincoln, or An Examination of a curious Tradition concerning the Jews, with a notice of the Popular Poetry connected with it." 1849. Octavo, pp. 54. Knyghton, Henry. See Twisden's " Scriptores." x., 1652. Col. 2444. Magdeburg Centuries. Decimatertia centuria Ecclesiastice Historise." Basle, 1574. Col. 1282. Anno 1258. Mair, John. "Historia Majoris Britannias." Paris, 1521. Lib. IV. cap. xii. ol. lxvi. Mattpiew Paris. " Chronica Majora." Edit. Wats. Paris, 1644. p. 613 ; Edit. Luard (Roll series), vol. V. pp. 516, 546, 552, 579, vol. VI. 398. Michel, Francisque. " Hugues de Lincoln, Recueil de Ballades Anglo</page><page sequence="47">LITTLE ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN. 185 N?rmandes et Ecossoises relatives au Meurtre de cet enfant commis par lea Juifs en MCCLV." Paris, 1834. Octavo, pp. ix., 64. Nicolas Trivet. 44 Annales sex regum Anglige." Edit. Hall, 1719. Tome I. p. 206. Oulton, W. C. 11 Traveller's Guide." 1805. ii. 54. Pakingtois, William. See Leland's " Colleotanea," I. ii. 456, Picard, Jean. "Historia." Edit. Hearne, 1719. iii. 670. Prtnne, William. 44 A short demurrer to the Jews' long discontinued remitter into England." 1655. Pt. I. p. 26. Smith, Richard. "Florum Historic Ecclesiastics Gentis Anglorum Libri septem." Paris, 1654, p. 282. Stowe, John. Annales, 1631. p. 190. Tovey, D'Blossiers. "Anglia Judaica." Oxford, 1738. p. 130. Walsingham, Thomas de. 44 Ypodigma Neustrie." Edit. Camden. 1603. fol.467. (Roll series) 162. Weever, John. "Ancient Eunerall Monuments." 1631. p. 377. Wilson. 44 Martyrologium Anglicanum." Sub xxiv. Junii die.</page></plain_text>