William of Norwich

The first case in England of "blood libel" (although more precisely it was only child sacrifice) was the case of William of Norwich, who died about 22 March 1144. The Peterborough Chronicle, an attempt to continue the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, had this to report:

In his time the Jews of Norwich bought a Christian child before Easter, and tortured him with all the same tortures with which our Lord was tortured, and on Long-Friday hanged him on a cross for love of our Lord, and afterwards buried him—imagined that it would be concealed, but our Lord showed that he was a holy martyr, and the monks took him, and buried him reverently in the minster, and through our Lord he performs wonderful and manifold miracles; and he is called St. William.

Here is what really happened. William was an apprentice to a tanner, whose body was found on Holy Saturday 1144 in Thorpe Wood, north of Norwich. An accusation was made by William's family against Jews currently living in the city, so Bishop William de Turbeville decided to investigate. He summoned members of the Jewish community to his court to endure trial by ordeal.

Before the bishop could subject his "guests" to trials, however, Sheriff John de Chesney showed up and stopped any proceedings, since the bishop had no legal authority to do so. Jews were considered to be under the king's protection (at that time, Stephen of Blois): the Angevin kings respected the money-lending (and money-taking) opportunities their presence afforded the crown.

Bishop de Turbeville moved the body to the monastery cemetery and tried to declare William a martyr and create a cult around him for the sake of attention and donations to the church, but it was slow going. There was no evidence that Jews were involved, so no great public execution or punishment of any kind that would cause a sensation.

The bishop was not ready to give up, however. He encouraged a Benedictine monk, Thomas of Monmouth, to write a book about the event. Thomas's The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich contained two chapters on his life and five chapters on miracles performed in his name afterward. Thomas created a story of a converted Jew who became a monk, Theobald of Cambridge, who explains to Thomas that the "ancient writings of his fathers" required an annual killing of a Christian. "Theobald" explains that this killing was ordered by a Jew in Narbonne, France, who claimed to be the Messiah.

Since the Jews at this time in Norwich had been there just under a decade, and came from Normandy, they were French-speaking, so the connection to Narbonne made sense to some. No one, however, seemed to notice that there was no evidence of an annual killing caused by Jews stretching back to the time of "ancient fathers." William's family was Anglo-Saxon, and there were many conflicts between indigenous Anglo-Saxons and the recently arrived Norman folk.

The cult of William of Norwich did not make Norwich rich, but it persisted. The bishop moved the body a few times, each time putting it in a more prominent place, ending up in a chapel built on the spot where the boy's body was found.

But now for a topic a little less grisly: when the bishop wanted to subject the Jews to trial by ordeal, what might that have entailed? There were many possible trial ideas, and I'll share them tomorrow.

Robert of Bury

In the second half of the 12th century there was a monk in the town of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk named Jocelyn de Brakelond. He became chaplain under Abbot Samson of Tottington. Jocelyn says he was with Samson "night and day" for six years. Jocelyn left behind some writing about his times, in which he refers to other things he has written that are no longer extant. One is the story of Robert of Bury and his miracles.

Robert was an English boy who died in 1181. The legend says he was kidnapped on Good Friday and killed by crucifixion to parallel Jesus' death. The details—and they are few—have to be cobbled together, but they are another example of blood libel.

In the following century, the chronicler John de Taxter mentions the murder taking place in 1181 (our only source for the date). Jocelyn's only surviving reference to the event tells us "the saintly boy Robert was murdered and buried in our church; many signs and wonders were performed among the people as I have recorded elsewhere." Whatever this other record was, it has not survived.

The story spread, however. Later mentions of it say he was martyred at Easter, or that he was "crucified by the Jews." The monk John Lydgate wrote a poem called Prayer for St. Robert that implies the death paralleled that of William of Norwich, another child saint, and suggests there was a Christian accomplice. An illustration made to accompany the poem in the 15th century has images that might make sense to those who had heard the story, but that we cannot interpret properly.

In the illustration (shown above), a woman is holding a child over a well. The inscription reads "the old woman wished, but was not able, to hide the light of God." Was she the Christian accomplice? Did she later turn the boy over to Jews to get rid of him? Or is this an act post-death, in which she tries to hide the body. Was the 15th century Lydgate conflating the story of Robert of Bury with the 13th century story of Little St. Hugh of Lincoln, found in a well? The illustration also shows an archer firing an arrow into the air while the body of Robert lies behind a tree; the symbolism of this escapes us. (I wonder if there was a story in which someone prays and fires an arrow which leads them to the body.) In another part, a kneeling monk prays.

Some historians believe the story of Harold of Gloucester showed the value of having a child martyr's shrine that would lead to visitors and donations. There are no details about Robert of Bury, his family, or arrests; there is only the public blame put on Jews and a shrine created at Bury St. Edmunds.

Another theory suggests that the cult of Robert the child martyr was enhanced and expanded years later to retroactively justify an action that took place in 1190, referred to as Bury St. Edmunds' Darkest Day. I'll explain tomorrow.

Harold of Gloucester

Our next example of the accusation of blood libel is Harold of Gloucester. As with similar cases of "child martyrs," the body was found and the search was on for the perpetrator. Harold's was the second significant case in the timeline of English Jewry.

Harold's body was found floating in the river after having disappeared on 21 February in 1168. Benedictines claimed that he had been spirited away by Jews and kept until 16 March, when they tortured and killed him. They claimed that marks on the child's body showed that he had been subjected to a crown of thorns and a crucifixion.

As it happens, there were a number of Jews who were not residents of Gloucester who had gathered there to celebrate a brit milah, a bris, the ritual of circumcision for a newborn. The temporary increase in the Jewish population leant credence to the idea that Harold was kidnapped for a special ritual. Accounts of the incident made by Christian writers place it during Easter, but the dates don't line up with Easter in 1144.

This incident, although it endured (see the illustration for evidence that modern merchandising has not "let it go"), did not cause as big a stir as that of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln. There is no record of any Jews being arrested, much less tried, convicted, or executed. Also, there was no royal involvement, as there was with Hugh when Henry III was consulted on the case. Just as Hugh's death may have been played up in order to create a shrine for Lincoln Cathedral and draw worshippers and donations, the incident of Harold's death might have had an additional, "practical" facet. Accusations against the Jews may be why the Jews of Gloucester made loans to Richard "Strongbow" de Clare for the conquest of Ireland.

After Harold but before Hugh there was Robert of Bury, whose death spawned a full-fledged cult of worship. I'll tell you that story next time.

"Blood Libel"

The death of Hugh of Lincoln led to the arrests of so many Jews because of the belief in "blood libel": that the Jews stole/kidnapped/murdered Christians to use their blood in Jewish rituals.

Where this idea started—and why it was readily believed—is hard to pin down. A 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia called the Souda has an entry that "every seven years the Jews captured a stranger, brought him to the temple in Jerusalem, and sacrificed him, cutting his flesh into bits." A 5th century story by Socrates Scholasticus 

Some thought that the Jews were recreating the Crucifixion, but stories of Jews sacrificing non-Jews are older than Christianity. The 1st century Greco-Egyptian writer Apion told the story of Mithridates entering a temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BCE and finding a Greek held captive who explained that he was being fattened for sacrifice.

Blood libel accusations in medieval Europe increased at the time of the Crusades, when pro-Christian/anti-Jewish sentiment was spiking. The Crusades also included attempts to force conversion on Jews which were countered by Jews killing their own children to prevent them from suffering conversion. If Jews could kill their own children, the thinking went, then they would have no trouble killing others' children. (In fact, collective homicide/suicide goes back to Masada and was seen more recently—"recent" compared to the Hugh of Lincoln incident, that is—in the Clifford's Tower incident.

There was, of course, a known precedent for Jews to cause children to bleed, and that was the bris, the circumcision ceremony. One such ceremony was tied to another accusation of blood libel. As grisly as the concept is, I want to give some more examples of "little saints" like William of Norwich and Robert of Bury. First, however, let's discuss the case of Harold of Gloucester, where the accusation led to no real action except to...finance a war? I'll try to make sense of that tomorrow.