Chapter XVII: Appendix: Robin Hood and the Sheriff (4)

97
His corpes the priores of the place,
The next day that he dy’d,
Caused to be buried, in mean case,
Close by the high-way side.

98
And over him she caused a stone
To be fixed on the ground;
An epitaph was set thereon,
Wherein his name was found.

99
The date o th’ yeare, and day also,
Shee made to be set there,
That all who by the way did goe
Might see it plaine appeare

100
That such a man as Robbin Hood
Was buried in that place;
And how he lived in the greene wood,
And robd there for a space.

101
It seemes that though the clergie he
Had put to mickle woe,
He should not quite forgotten be,
Although he was their foe.

102
This woman, though she did him hate,
Yet loved his memory;
And thought it wondrous pitty that
His fame should with him dye.

103
This epitaph, as records tell,
Within this hundred yeares
By many was discerned well,
But time all things outweares.

104
His followers, when he was dead,
Were some received to grace;
The rest to forraigne countries fled,
And left their native place.

105
Although his funerall was but meane,
This woman had in minde
Least his fame should be buried cleane
From those that came behind.

106
For certainely, before nor since,
No man ere understood,
Vnder the reigne of any prince,
Of one like Robbin Hood.

107
Full thirteene yeares, and something more,
These outlawes lived thus,
Feared of the rich, loved of the poore,
A thing most marvelous.

108
A thing impossible to us
This story seemes to be;
None dares be now so venturous;
But times are chang’d, we see.

109
We that live in these latter dayes
Of civill government,
If neede be, have a hundred wayes
Such outlawes to prevent.

110
In those dayes men more barbarous were,
And lived lesse in awe;
Now, God be thanked! people feare
More to offend the law.

111
No roaring guns were then in use,
They dreampt of no such thing;
Our English men in fight did chuse
The gallant gray-goose wing.

112
In which activity these men,
Through practise, were so good,
That in those dayes non equald them,
Specially Robbin Hood.

113
So that, it seemes, keeping in caves,
In woods and forrests thicke,
Thei’d beate a multitude with staves,
Their arrowes did so pricke.

114
And none durst neare unto them come,
Unlesse in courtesie;
All such he bravely would send home,
With mirth and iollity.

115
Which courtesie won him such love,
As I before have told;
’Twas the cheefe cause that he did prove
More prosperous than he could.

116
Let us be thankefull for these times
Of plenty, truth and peace,
And leave our great and horrid crimes,
Least they cause this to cease.

117
I know there’s many fained tales
Of Robbin Hood and’s crew;
But chronicles, which seldome fayles,
Reports this to be true.

118
Let none then thinke this a lye,
For, if ’twere put to th’ worst,
They may the truth of all discry
I th’ raigne of Richard the first.

119
If any reader please to try,
As I direction show,
The truth of this brave history,
Hee’l finde it true I know.

120
And I shall thinke my labour well
Bestowed, to purpose good,
When’t shall be sayd that I did tell
True tales of Robbin Hood.

* * * * *

_At the end of the Tale_:

The Epitaph which the Prioresse of the Monastery of Kirkes Lay in
Yorke-shire set over Robbin Hood, which, as is before mentioned,
was to bee reade within these hundreth yeares, though in old
broken English, much to the same sence and meaning.

Decembris quarto die, 1198: anno regni Richardii Primi 9.

Robert Earle of Huntington
Lies under this little stone.
No archer was like him so good:
His wildnesse named him Robbin Hood.
Full thirteene yeares, and something more,
These northerne parts he vexed sore.
Such out-lawes as he and his men
May England never know agen.

Some other superstitious words were in it, which I thought fit to
leave out.[121]

Bodl. L. 78.

2^2. That _for_ which.

20^4. wisht.

59^3. kicke _for_ kickle.

70^2. In _for_ For.

94^2. Who _for_ That.

108^1. impossible _for_ unpossible.

116^3. our _for_ out.

155

SIR HUGH, OR, THE JEW’S DAUGHTER

#A.# ‘Hugh of Lincoln,’ Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, I, 151.

#B.# ‘The Jew’s Daughter,’ Percy’s Reliques, 1765, I, 32.

#C.# ‘The Jewis 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.

#G.# From the recitation of an American lady.

#H.# ‘The Jew’s Daughter,’ from the recitation of an American lady.

#I.# Sir Egerton Brydges, Restituta, I, 381.

#J.# ‘Sir Hugh.’ #a.# Notes and Queries, First Series, XII, 496. #b.#
The same, VIII, 614.

#K.# Notes and Queries, First Series, IX, 320; Salopian Shreds and
Patches, in Miss C. S. Burne’s Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 539.

#L. a.# Communicated by the 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
Songs of American Children, p. 75.

#O.# G. A. Sala, Illustrated London News, LXXXI, 415, October 21,
1882, and Living London, 1883, p. 465.

#P.# Halliwell, Ballads and Poems respecting Hugh of Lincoln, p. 37,
Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales, p. 192: two stanzas.

#Q.# ‘The Jew’s Daughter,’ Motherwell’s Note-Book, p. 54: two stanzas.

#R.# ‘Sir Hew, or, The Jew’s Daughter,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy,
Appendix, p. xvii, VII: one stanza.

The copy in Pinkerton’s Tragic Ballads, 1781, p. 50, is made up of eight stanzas of #D# and six of #B#, slightly retouched by the editor; that in Gilchrist’s collection, 1815, I, 210, is eight stanzas of #D# and nine of #A#; that in Stenhouse’s edition of Johnson’s Museum, IV, 500, “communicated by an intelligent antiquarian correspondent,” is compounded from #A#, #B#, #D#, #E# and Pinkerton, with a little chaff of its own; that printed by W. C. Atkinson, of Brigg, Lincolnshire, in the London Athenæum, 1867, p. 96, is Pinkerton’s, with two trifling changes. Allen, History of the County of Lincoln, 1834, p. 171 (repeating Wilde, Lincoln Cathedral, 1819, p. 27, as appears from Notes and Queries, 4th Series, II, 60), says that a complete manuscript of the ballad was once in the library of the cathedral, and cites the first stanza, which differs from Pinkerton’s only in having “Mary Lincoln” for “merry Lincoln.”

The several versions agree in the outline of the story, and in many of the details. According to #A#, boys who are playing football are joined by Sir Hugh, who kicks the ball through the Jew’s window. Sir Hugh sees the Jew’s daughter looking out of the window, and asks her to throw down the ball. She tells him to come and get it; this he is afraid to do, for fear she may do to him “as she did to his father.” The Jew’s daughter entices him in with an apple, leads him through nine dark doors, lays him on a table, and sticks him like a swine; then rolls him in a cake of lead, and throws him into a draw-well fifty fathoms deep, Our Lady’s draw-well. The boy not returning at eve, his mother sets forth to seek him; goes to the Jew’s castle, the Jew’s garden, and to the draw-well, entreating in each case Sir Hugh to speak. He answers from the well, bidding his mother go make his winding-sheet, and he will meet her at the back of merry Lincoln the next morning. His mother makes his winding-sheet, and the dead corpse meets her at the back of merry Lincoln: all the bells of Lincoln are rung without men’s hands, and all the books of Lincoln are read without man’s tongue.

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 Mirryland town,[122] 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, etc., #G#, #I#, #K#.[123] The boy is rolled in a cake [case] of lead, #A-E# (L, #b#?); in a quire of tin, #N#. The draw-well is Our Lady’s only in #A# (L, #b#?); 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, #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 (how came these in the Jew’s house?) before she sticks him; in #I#, #K#, the Bible and Testament after; in #I#, the Catechism in his heart’s blood. In #H#, the boy, at the moment of his 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 this request from the draw-well (“and pen and ink at every side,” #E#), and in #N# with the variation that his Bible is to be put at his head, his “busker” at his feet, and his Prayer-Book at his right side. In #O# there is a jumble:

‘Oh lay a Bible at my head,
And a Prayer-Book at my feet,
In the well that they did throw me in,’ etc.

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 the bells without men’s hands, and the reading of the books without man’s tongue, occurs only in #A#. When Florence of Rome approached a church, “the bellys range thorow Godys grace, withowtyn helpe of hande:” Le Bone Florence of Rome, Ritson, Met. Rom., III, 80, v. 1894 f. Bells which ring without men’s hands are very common in popular tradition. See Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, I, 140; Wunderhorn, II, 272, ed. 1808; Luzel, C. P. de la Basse-Bretagne, I, 446 f., 496 f., II, 44 f., 66 f., 308 f., 542 f.; Maurer, Isländische Volkssagen, p. 215; Weckenstedt, Wendische Sagen, p. 379, No 5; Temme, Volkssagen der Altmark, p. 29, No 31; Münsterische Geschichten, u. s. w., p. 186; Bartsch, Sagen aus Meklenburg, I, 390, No 539; Mone’s Anzeiger, VIII, 303 f., No 41 and note, and VII, 32; Birlinger, Aus Schwaben, Neue Sammlung, I, 72; Birlinger u. Buck, I, 144, No 223, 145, No 225, a, b, c; Schöppner, Sagenbuch der bayerischen Lande, I, 294, No 301, etc.[124]

The story of Hugh of Lincoln is told in the Annals of Waverley, under the year 1255, by a contemporary writer, to this effect.[125] A boy in Lincoln, named Hugh, was crucified by the Jews in contempt of Christ, with various preliminary tortures. To conceal the act from Christians, the body, when taken from the cross, was thrown into a running stream; but the water would not endure the wrong done its maker, and immediately ejected it upon dry land. The body was then buried in the earth, but was found above ground the next day. The guilty parties were now very much frightened and quite at their wit’s end; as a last resort they threw the corpse into a drinking-well. Thereupon the whole place was filled with so brilliant a light and so sweet an odor that it was clear to everybody that there must be something holy and prodigious in the well. The body was seen floating on the water, and, upon its being drawn up, the hands and feet were found to be pierced, the head had, as it were, a crown of bloody points, and there were various other wounds: from all which it was plain that this was the work of the abominable Jews. A blind woman, touching the bier on which the blessed martyr’s corpse was carrying to the church, received her sight, and many other miracles followed. Eighteen Jews, convicted of the crime, and confessing it with their own mouth, were hanged.

Matthew Paris, also writing contemporaneously, supplies additional circumstances, one of which, the mother’s finding of the child, is prominent in the ballad.[126] The Jews of Lincoln stole the boy Hugh, who was some eight years old, near Peter and Paul’s day, June 29, and fed him properly for ten days, while they were sending to all parts of England to convoke their co-believers to a crucifixion of him in contempt of Jesus. When they were assembled, one of the Lincoln Jews was appointed judge, a Pilate, as it were, and the boy was sentenced to various torments; he was scourged till the blood ran, crowned with thorns, spit upon, pricked with knives, made to drink gall, mocked and scoffed at, hailed as false prophet; finally he was crucified, and a lance thrust into his heart. He was then taken down and disembowelled; for what reason is not known, but, as it was said, for magical purposes. The mother (whose name, not given by this chronicler, is known to have been Beatrice) made diligent search for her lost child for several days, and was told by her neighbors that they had seen the boy playing with Jewish children, and going into a Jew’s house. This house the mother entered, and saw the boy’s body, which had been thrown into a well. The town officers were sent for, and drew up the corpse. The mother’s shrieks drew a great concourse to the place, among whom was Sir John of Lexington, a long-headed and scholarly man (a priest of the cathedral), who declared that he had heard of the Jews doing such things before. Laying hands on the Jew into whose house the boy had been known to go, John of Lexington told him that all the gold in England would not buy him off; nevertheless, life and limb should be safe if he would tell everything. The Jew, Copin by name, encouraged and urged by Sir John, made a full confession: all that the Christians had said was true; the Jews crucified a boy every year, if they could get hold of one, and had crucified this Hugh; they had wished to bury the body, after they had come to the conclusion that an innocent’s bowels were of no use for divination, but the earth would not hold it; so they had thrown it into a well, but with no better success, for the mother had found it, and reported the fact to the officers. The canons of Lincoln Cathedral begged the child’s body, and buried it in their church with the honors due to so precious a martyr. The king, who had been absent in the North, being made acquainted with these circumstances, blamed Sir John for the promise which he had so improperly made the wretch Copin. But Copin was still in custody, and, seeing he had no chance for life, he volunteered to complete his testimony! almost all the Jews in England had been accessory to the child’s death, and almost every city of England where Jews lived had sent delegates to the ceremony of his immolation, as to a Paschal sacrifice. Copin was then tied to a horse, and dragged to the gallows, and ninety-one other Jews carried to London and imprisoned. The inquisition made by the king’s justices showed that the crime had been virtually the common act of the Jews of England, and the mother’s appeal to the king, which was pressed unremittingly, had such effect that on St Clement’s day eighteen of the richer and more considerable Jews of Lincoln were hanged on gallows specially constructed for the purpose, more than sixty being reserved for a like sentence in the tower of London.[127]

The Annals of Burton give a long report of this case, which is perhaps contemporary, though the MS. is mostly of the next century. On the last day of July, at a time when all the principal Jews of England were collected at Lincoln, Hugh, a school-boy (_scholaris_) of nine, the only son of a poor woman, was kidnapped towards sunset, while playing with his comrades, by Jopin, a Jew of that place. He was concealed in Jopin’s house six and twenty days, getting so little to eat and drink that he had hardly the strength to speak. Then, at a council of all the Jews, resident and other, it was determined that he should be put to death. They stripped him, flogged him, spat in his face, cut off the cartilage of the nose and the upper lip, and broke the main upper teeth; then crucified him. The boy, fortified by divine grace, maintained himself with cheerfulness, and uttered neither complaint nor groan. They ran sharp points into him from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, till the body was covered with the blood from these wounds, then pierced his side with a lance, and he gave up the ghost. The boy not coming home as usual, his mother made search for him. As he was not found, the information given by his playmates as to when and where they had last seen him roused a strong suspicion among the Christians that he had been carried off and killed by the Jews; all the more because there were so many of them present in the town at that time, and from all parts of the kingdom, though the Jews pretended that the occasion for this unusual congregation was a grand wedding. The truth becoming every day clearer, the mother set off for Scotland, where the king then chanced to be, and laid the complaint at his feet. The Jews, meanwhile, knowing that the business would be looked into, were in great consternation; they took away the body in the night, and threw it into a well. In the well it was found in the course of an inquisition ordered by the king, and, when it was drawn out, a woman, blind for fifteen years, who had been very fond of the boy, laid her hand on the body in faith, exclaiming, Alas, sweet little Hugh, that it so happened! and then rubbed her eyes with the moisture of the body, and at once recovered her sight. The miracle drew crowds of people to the spot, and every sick or infirm person that could get near the body went home well and happy: hearing whereof, the dean and canons of the cathedral went out in procession to the body of the holy martyr, and carried it to the minster with all possible ceremony, where they buried it very honorably (disregarding the passionate protests of a brother canon, of the parish to which the boy belonged, who would fain have retained so precious, and also valuable, an object within his own bounds). The king stopped at Lincoln, on his way down from Scotland, looked into the matter, found the charges against the Jews to be substantiated, and ordered an arrest of the whole pack. They shut themselves up in their houses, but their houses were stormed. In the course of the examination which followed, John of Lessington promised Jopin, the head of the Jews, and their priest (who was believed to be at the bottom of the whole transaction), that he would do all he could to save his life, if Jopin would give up the facts. Jopin, delighted at this assurance, and expecting to be able to save the other Jews by the use of money, confessed everything. But considering what a disgrace it would be to the king’s majesty if the deviser and perpetrator of such a felony escaped scot-free, Jopin was, by sentence of court, tied to the tail of a horse, dragged a long way through the streets, over sticks and stones, and hanged. Such other Jews as had been taken into custody were sent to London, and a good many more, who were implicated but had escaped, were arrested in the provinces. Eighteen suffered the same fate as Jopin. The Dominicans exerted themselves to save the lives of the others,—bribed so to do, as some thought; but they lost favor by it, and their efforts availed nothing. It was ordered by the government that all the Jews in the land who had consented to the murder, and especially those who had been present, namely, seventy-one who were in prison in London, should die the death of Jopin. But Richard of Cornwall, the king’s brother, to whom the king had pledged all the Jews in England as security for a loan, stimulated also by a huge bribe, withstood this violation of vested rights, and further execution was stayed.[128]

An Anglo-French ballad of ninety-two stanzas, which also appears to be contemporary with the event, agrees in many particulars with the account given in the Annals of Burton, adding several which are found in none of the foregoing narratives.[129] Hugh of Lincoln was kidnapped one evening towards the beginning of August, by Peitevin, the Jew.[130] His mother at once missed him, and searched for him, crying, I have lost my child! till curfew. She slept little and prayed much, and immediately after her prayer the suspicion arose in her mind that her child had been abducted by the Jews. So, with the break of day, the woman went weeping through the Jewry, calling at the Jews’ doors, Where is my child? Impelled by the suspicion which, as it pleased God, she had of the Jews, she kept on till she came to the court. When she came before King Henry (whom God preserve!), she fell at his feet and begged his grace: “Sire, my son was carried off by the Lincoln Jews one evening; see to it, for charity!” The king swore by God’s pity, If it be so as thou hast told, the Jews shall die; if thou hast lied on the Jews, by St Edward, doubt not thou shalt have the same judgment. Soon after the child was carried off, the Jews of Lincoln made a great gathering of all the richest of their sect in England. The child was brought before them, tied with a cord, by the Jew Jopin. They stripped him, as erst they did Jesus. Then said Jopin, thinking he spoke to much profit, The child must be sold for thirty pence, as Jesus was. Agim, the Jew, answered, Give me the child for thirty pence; but I wish that he should be sentenced to death, since I have bought him. The Jews said, Let Agim have him, but let him be put to death forthwith: worse than this, they all cried with one voice, Let him be put on the cross! The child was unbound and hanged on the cross, vilely, as Jesus was. His arms were stretched to the cross, and his feet and hands pierced with sharp nails, and he was crucified alive. Agim took his knife and pierced the innocent’s side, and split his heart in two. As the ghost left the body, the child called to his mother, Pray Jesus Christ for me! The Jews buried the body, so that no one might know of their privity, but some of them, passing the place the next morning, found it lying above ground. When they heard of this marvel, they determined in council that the corpse should be thrown into a jakes; but the morning after it was again above ground. While they were in agonies of terror, one of their number came and told them that a woman, who had been his nurse, had agreed for money to take the body out of the city; but he recommended that all the wounds should first be filled with boiling wax. The body was taken off by this nurse and thrown into a well behind the castle.[131] A woman coming for water the next day discovered it lying on the ground, so filthy that she scarce durst touch it. This woman bethought herself of the child which had been stolen. She went back to Lincoln, and gave information to Hugh’s stepfather, who found her tale probable by reason of the suspicion which he already had of the Jews. The woman went through the city proclaiming that she had found the child, and everybody flocked to the well. The coroners were sent for, and came with good will to make their inspection. The body was taken back to Lincoln. A woman came up, who had long before lost her sight, and calling out, Alas, pretty Hugh, why are you lying here! applied her hands to the corpse and then to her eyes, and regained her sight. All who were present were witnesses of the miracle, and gave thanks to God. A converted[132] Jew presented himself, and suggested that if they wished to know how the child came by its death they should wash the body in warm water; and this being done, the examination which he made enabled him to show that this treason had been done by the Jews, for the very wounds of Jesus were found upon the child. They of the cathedral, hearing of the miracle, came out and carried the body to the church, and buried it among other saints with great joy: mult ben firent, cum m’ est avis. Soon after, the mother arrived from the court, very unhappy because she had not been able to find her child. The Lincoln Jews were apprehended and thrown into prison; they said, We have been betrayed by Falsim. The next day King Henry came to Lincoln, and ordered the Jews before him for an inquest. A wise man who was there took it upon him to say that the Jew who would tell the truth to the king should fare the better for it. Jopin, in whose house the treason had been done, told the whole story as already related. King Henry, when all had been told, cried, Right ill did he that killed him! The justices[133] went to council, and condemned Jopin to death: his body was to be drawn through the city “de chivals forts et ben ferré[s]” till life was extinct, and then to be hanged. And this was done. I know well where, says the singer: by Canewic, on the high hill.[134] Of the other Jews it is only said that they had much shame.

The English ballads, the oldest of which were recovered about the middle of the last century, must, in the course of five hundred years of tradition, have departed considerably from the early form; in all of them the boy comes to his death for breaking a Jew’s window, and at the hands of the Jew’s daughter. The occurrence of Our Lady’s draw-well, in #A#, is due to a mixing, to this extent, of the story of Hugh with that of the young devotee of the Virgin who is celebrated in Chaucer’s Prioresses Tale. In Chaucer’s legend, which somewhat strangely removes the scene to a city in Asia, a little “clergeon” (cf. the scholaris of the Annals of Burton) excites, not very unnaturally, the wrath of the Jews by singing the hymn “Alma redemptoris mater” twice a day, as he passes, schoolward and homeward, through the Jewry. For this they cut his throat and throw him into a privy. The Virgin comes to him, and bids him sing the anthem still, till a grain which she lays upon his tongue shall be removed. The mother, in the course of her search for her boy, goes to the pit, under divine direction, and hears him singing.

Another version of this legend occurs in a collection of the Miracles of Our Lady in the Vernon MS., c. 1375, leaf cxxiii, back; printed by Dr. Horstmann in Herrig’s Archiv, 1876, LVI, 224, and again in the Chaucer Society’s Originals and Analogues, p. 281. The boy, in this, contributes to the support of his family by singing and begging in the streets of Paris. His song is again Alma redemptoris mater, and he sings it one Saturday as he goes through the Jewry. He is killed, disposed of, and discovered as in Chaucer’s tale, and the bishop, who “was come to see that wonder,” finds in the child’s throat a lily, inscribed all over with Alma redemptoris mater, which being taken out the song ceases. But when the child’s body is carried to the minster, and a requiem mass is begun, the corpse rises up, and sings Salve, sancta parens.

Another variety of the legend is furnished by the Spanish Franciscan Espina, Fortalicium Fidei, 1459, in the edition of Lyons, 1500, fol. ccviii, reprinted by the Chaucer Society, Originals and Analogues, p. 108.[135] The boy is here called Alfonsus of Lincoln. The Jews, having got him into their possession, deliberate what shall be done to him, and decide that the tongue with which he had sung Alma redemptoris shall be torn out, likewise the heart in which he had meditated the song, and the body be thrown into a jakes. The Virgin comes to him, and puts a precious stone in his mouth, to supply the place of his tongue, and the boy at once begins to sing the anthem, and keeps on incessantly for four days; at the end of which time the discovery is made by the mother, as before. The body is taken to the cathedral, where the bishop delivers a sermon, concluding with an injunction upon all present to pour out their supplications to heaven that this mystery may be cleared up. The boy rises to his feet, takes the jewel from his mouth, explains everything that has passed, hands the jewel to the bishop, to be preserved with other reliques, and expires.

A miracle versified from an earlier source by Gautier de Coincy, some thirty or forty years before the affair of Hugh of Lincoln, is obviously of the same ultimate origin as the Prioresses Tale. A poor woman in England had an only son with a beautiful voice, who did a good deal for the support of his mother by his singing. The Virgin took a particular interest in this clerçoncel, among whose songs was Gaude Maria, which he used to give in a style that moved many to tears. One day, when he was playing in the streets with his comrades, they came to the Jews’ street, where some entertainment was going on which had collected a great many people, who recognized the boy, and asked him to give them a song about Our Lady. He sang with his usual pathos and applause. Jews were listening with the rest, and one of them was so exasperated by a passage in the hymn that he would have knocked the singer on the head then and there, had he dared. When the crowd was dispersed, this Jew enticed the child into his house by flattery and promises, struck him dead with an axe, and buried him. His mother went in search of him, and learned the second day that the boy had been singing in the Jewry the day before, and it was intimated that the Jews might have laid hands on him and killed him. The woman gave the Virgin to understand that if she lost her child she should never more have confidence in her power; nevertheless, more than twenty days passed before any light was thrown on his disappearance. At the end of that time, being one day in the Jews’ street, and her wild exclamations having collected a couple of thousand people, she gave vent to her conviction that the Jews had killed her son. Then the Virgin made the child, dead and buried as he was, sing out Gaude Maria in a loud and clear voice. An assault was made on the Jews and the Jews’ houses, including that of the murderer; and here, after much searching, guided by the singing, they found the boy buried under the door, perfectly well, and his face as red as a fresh cherry. The boy related how he had been decoyed into the house and struck with an axe; the Virgin had come to him in what seemed a sleep, and told him that he was remiss in not singing her response as he had been wont, upon which he began to sing. Bells were rung, the Virgin was glorified, some Jews were converted, the rest massacred. (G. de Coincy, ed. Poquet, col. 557 ff; Chaucer Society, Originals and Analogues, p. 253 ff.) The same miracle, with considerable variations, occurs in Mariu Saga, ed. Unger, p. 203, No 62, ‘Af klerk ok gyðingum;’ also in Collin de Plancy, Légendes des Saintes Images, p. 218, ‘L’Enfant de Chœur de Notre-Dame du Puy,’ under the date 1325.

Murders like that of Hugh of Lincoln have been imputed to the Jews for at least seven hundred and fifty years,[136] and the charge, which there is reason to suppose may still from time to time be renewed, has brought upon the accused every calamity that the hand of man can inflict, pillage, confiscation, banishment, torture, and death, and this in huge proportions. The process of these murders has often been described as a parody of the crucifixion of Jesus. The motive most commonly alleged, in addition to the expression of contempt for Christianity, has been the obtaining of blood for use in the Paschal rites,—a most unhappily devised slander, in stark contradiction with Jewish precept and practice. That no Christian child was ever killed by a Jew, that there never even was so much truth as that (setting aside the object) in a single case of these particular criminations, is what no Christian or Jew would undertake to assert; but of these charges in the mass it may safely be said, as it has been said, that they are as credible as the miracles which, in a great number of cases, are asserted to have been worked by the reliques of the young saints, and as well substantiated as the absurd sacrilege of stabbing, baking, or boiling the Host,[137] or the enormity of poisoning springs, with which the Jews have equally been taxed.[138] And these pretended child-murders, with their horrible consequences, are only a part of a persecution which, with all moderation, may be rubricated as the most disgraceful chapter in the history of the human race.[139]

Cases in England, besides that of Hugh of Lincoln, are William of Norwich, 1137, the Saxon Chronicle, Earle, p. 263, Acta Sanctorum, March (25), III, 588; a boy at Gloucester, 1160, Brompton, in Twysden, col. 1050, Knyghton, col. 2394; Robert of St Edmondsbury, 1181, Gervasius Dorobornensis, Twysden, col. 1458; a boy at Norwich, stolen, circumcised, and kept for crucifixion, 1235, Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, Luard, III, 305 (see also III, 543, 1239, IV, 30, 1240); a boy at London, 1244, Matthew Paris, IV, 377 (doubtful, but solemnly buried in St. Paul’s); a boy at Northampton, 1279, crucified, but not quite killed, the continuator of Florence of Worcester, Thorpe, II, 222.

It would be tedious and useless to attempt to make a collection of the great number of similar instances which have been mentioned by chroniclers and ecclesiastical writers; enough come readily to hand without much research.

A boy was crucified and thrown into the Loire by the Jews of Blois in 1171: Sigiberti Gemblacensis Chronica, auctarium Roberti de Monte, in Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist. Script., VI, 520, Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, VI, 217–19. Philip Augustus had heard in his early years from playmates that the Jews sacrificed a Christian annually (and, according to some, partook of his heart), and this is represented as having been his reason for expelling the Jews from France. Richard of Pontoise was one of these victims, in 1179: Rigordus, Gesta Philippi Augusti, p. 14 f., § 6, and Guillelmus Armoricus, p. 179, § 17, in the edition of 1882; Acta Sanctorum, March (25), III, 591. France had such a martyr as late as 1670: see the case of Raphaël Lévy in Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, 2^r Theil, 224; Drumont, La France Juive, II, 402–09.

Alfonso the Wise has recorded in the Siete Partidas, 1255, that he had heard that the Jews were wont to crucify on Good Friday children that they had stolen (or waxen images, when children were not to be had), Partida VII, Tit. XXIV, Ley ii^a, III, 670, ed. 1807, and this was one of the most effective grounds offered in justification of the expulsion of the Jews under Ferdinand and Isabella: Amador de los Rios, Historia de los Judíos de España, I, 483 f. San Dominguito de Val, a choir-boy of seven, Chaucer’s clergeon over again, was said to have been stolen and crucified at Saragossa in 1250: Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, 1726, vol. ix, 2d part, pp. 484–86; Acta SS., Aug. (31), VI, 777. Several children were crucified at Valladolid in 1452, and like outrages occurred near Zamora in 1454, and at Sepulveda in 1468: Grätz, VIII, 238. Juan Passamonte, “el niño de Guardia,” was kidnapped in 1489, and crucified in 1490: Llorente (Pellier), Histoire de l’Inquisition, ed. 1818, I, 258 f.

Switzerland affords several stories of the sort: a boy at Frisingen in 1287, Ulrich, Sammlung jüdischer Geschichten, p. 149; Rudolf of Bern, 1288 or 1294, Ulrich, pp. 143–49, Acta Sanctorum, April (17), II, 504, Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 283; a boy at Zürich, 1349, another at Diessenhofen, 1401, Ulrich, pp. 82, 248 f.

Examples are particularly numerous in Germany. 1181, Vienna, Zunz, p. 25; 1198, Nuremberg, Stobbe, p. 281; about 1200, Erfurt, Zunz, p. 26; 1220, St Henry, Weissenburg, Acta SS., April, II, 505 (but 1260, Schœpflin, Alsatia Illustrata, II, 394 f.); 1235–6, Fulda, Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, VII, 109, 460; 1261, Magdeburg, Stobbe, p. 282; 1283, Mayence, Grätz, VII, 199; 1285, Munich, Grätz, VII, 200, Aretin, Geschichte der Juden in Baiern, p. 18; 1286, Oberwesel, near Bacharach, Werner (boy or man), Grätz, VII, 201, 479, Stobbe, p. 282, Acta Sanctorum, April (19), II, 697; 1292, Colmar, Stobbe, p. 283; 1293, Krems, _ib._; 1302, Remken, _ib._; 1303, Conrad, at Weissensee, _ib._; 1345, Henry, at Munich, Acta SS., May (27), VI, 657; 1422, Augsburg, or 1429, Ravensburg, Ulrich, p. 88 ff; 1454, Breslau, Grätz, VIII, 205; 1462, Andrew, in Tyrol, Acta SS., July (12), III, 462; 1474 and 1476, Ratisbon, Zeitschrift für die historische Theologie (Train, Geschichte der Juden in Regensburg), 1837, Heft 3, p. 98 ff., 104 ff., and (Saalschütz), 1841, Heft 4, p. 140 ff., Grätz, VIII, 279 ff.; 1475, Simon of Trent, Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., XX, 945–49 (Annals of Placentia), Liliencron, Historische V. l. der Deutschen, II, 13, No 128, Grätz, VIII, 269 ff., Acta SS., March (24), III, 494, La Civiltà Cattolica, 1881 and 1882;[140] a little before 1478, Baden, Train, as above, p. 117; 1540, Zappenfeld, near Neuburg (nothing “proved”), Aretin, p. 44 f.; 1562, Andrew, Tyrol, Acta SS., July (12), III, 462, with a picture,[141] p. 464; 1650, Caden (and others in Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola), Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, 1711, 2^r Theil, p. 223; near Sigeberg, in the diocese of Cologne, Joanettus, Acta SS., March, III, 502, with no year.

Italy appears to be somewhat behind the rest of Europe. The Fortalicium Fidei reports a case at Pavia some time before 1456, and another at Savona of about 1452: Basel ed. (c. 1475), fol. 116 f. 1480, Venice, Beato Sebastiano da Porto Buffolè del Bergamasco, Civiltà Cattolica, X, 737. Israel, one of the culprits of Trent, revealed his knowledge of similar transactions at Padova, Mestre, Serravalle and Bormio, in the course of his own life, besides several in Germany: Civ. Catt., X, 737.

Further, 1305, Prague, Eisenmenger, p. 221; 1407, Cracow, “Dlugosz, Hist. Polonicæ, l. x, p. 187;” 1494, Tyrnau, Ungerische Chronica, 1581, p. 375; 1505, Budweis, Stobbe, p. 292; 1509, Bösing, Hungary, Eisenmenger, p. 222; 1569, Constantinople, Fickler, Theologia Juridica, 1575, p. 505 (cited by Michel); 1598, Albertus, in Polonia, Acta SS., April (circa 20), II, 835.

Train, as above, p. 98, note, adds, with authorities, Pforzheim, Ueberlingen, Swäbisch-Hall, Friuli, Halle, Eichstädt, Berlin. See also Acta SS., April, III, 838 (De pluribus innocentibus per Judæos excruciatis), March, III, 589, and April, II, 505; and Drumont, La France Juive, II, 392 f.

The charge against the Jews of murdering children for their blood is by no means as yet a thing of the past. The accusation has been not infrequently made in Russia during the present century. Although the entertaining of such an inculpation was forbidden by an imperial ukase in 1817, a criminal process on this ground, involving forty-three persons, was instituted in 1823, and was brought to a close only in 1835, when the defendants were acquitted on account of the entire failure of proof: Stobbe, p. 186. The murder of a child of six in Neuhoven, in the district of Düsseldorf, in 1834, occasioned the demolition of two Jewish houses and a synagogue: Illgen, in Zeitschrift für die historische Theologie, 1837, Heft 3, 40, note. In February, 1840, a Greek boy of ten disappeared in Rhodes. The Jews were believed to have killed him for his blood. Torture was freely used to extort confessions. The case was removed to Constantinople, and in July, upon the report of the supreme court, the Divan pronounced the innocence of the defendants: Illgen, Z. f. d. Hist. Theol., 1841, Heft 4, p. 172, note, Hume, Sir Hugh of Lincoln, p. 30.[142] In 1881, the Jews were in suspicion on account of a boy at Alexandria, and of a girl at Calarasi, Wallachia: Civiltà Cattolica, VIII, 225, 737. The Moniteur de Rome, June 15, 1883, affords several more of these too familiar tales. A Greek child was stolen at Smyrna, a few years before the date last mentioned, towards the time of the Passover, and its body found four days after, punctured with pins in a thousand places. The mother, like Beatrice in 1255, denounced the Jews as the culprits; the Christian population rose in a mass, rushed to the Jews’ quarter, and massacred more than six hundred. An affair of the same nature took place at Balata, the Ghetto of Constantinople, in 1842, of which the consequences to the Jews are not mentioned; and again at Galata, “where the Jews escaped by bribing the Turkish police to suppress testimony” (Drumont, II, 412). A young girl disappeared at Tisza-Eszlár, in Hungary, in April, 1882, and the Jews were suspected of having made away with her. The preliminary judicial inquiry was marked by the intimidation and torture of several persons examined for evidence. Fifteen who were held for trial were absolutely acquitted in August, 1883, after more than a year of imprisonment. The shops of Jews in Budapest were plundered by Christians disappointed in the verdict! (Der Blut-Prozess von Tisza-Eszlár, New York, 1883.)

#B# is translated by Herder, I, 120; by Bodmer, I, 59; in Seckendorf’s Musenalmanach für das Jahr 1808, p. 5; by Doering, p. 163; by Von Marées, p. 48. Allingham’s ballad by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 118.

A

Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, I, 151, as taken down by the editor from
Mrs Brown’s recitation.

1
Four and twenty bonny boys
Were playing at the ba,
And by it came him sweet Sir Hugh,
And he playd oer them a’.

2
He kickd the ba with his right foot,
And catchd it wi his knee,
And throuch-and-thro the Jew’s window
He gard the bonny ba flee.

3
He’s doen him to the Jew’s castell,
And walkd it round about;
And there he saw the Jew’s daughter,
At the window looking out.

4
‘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.’

5
‘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 ye’ll do to me.’

6
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.

7
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.

8
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.

9
She’s rowd 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.

10
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.

11
She’s taen her mantle her about,
Her coffer by the hand,
And she’s gane out to seek her son,
And wanderd oer the land.

12
She’s doen her to the Jew’s castell,
Where a’were fast asleep:
‘Gin ye be there, my sweet Sir Hugh,
I pray you to me speak.’

13
She’s doen her to the Jew’s garden,
Thought he had been gathering fruit:
‘Gin ye be there, my sweet Sir Hugh,
I pray you to me speak.’

14
She neard Our Lady’s deep draw-well,
Was fifty fathom deep:
‘Whareer ye be, my sweet Sir Hugh,
I pray you to me speak.’

15
‘Gae hame, gae hame, my mither dear,
Prepare my winding sheet,
And at the back o merry Lincoln
The morn I will you meet.’

16
Now Lady Maisry is gane hame,
Made him a winding sheet,
And at the back o merry Lincoln
The dead corpse did her meet.

17
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 neer was such a burial
Sin Adam’s days begun.

B

Percy’s Reliques, I, 32, 1765; from a manuscript copy sent from
Scotland.

1
The rain rins doun through Mirry-land toune,
Sae dois it doune the Pa;
Sae dois the lads of Mirry-land toune,
Whan they play at the ba.

2
Than out and cam the Jewis dochter,
Said, Will ye cum in and dine?
‘I winnae cum in, I cannae cum in,
Without my play-feres nine.’

3
Scho powd an apple reid and white,
To intice the yong thing in:
Scho powd an apple white and reid,
And that the sweit bairne did win.

4
And scho has taine out a little pen-knife,
And low down by her gair;
Scho has twin’d the yong thing and his life,
A word he nevir spak mair.

5
And out and cam the thick, thick bluid,
And out and cam the thin,
And out and cam the bonny herts bluid;
Thair was nae life left in.

6
Scho laid him on a dressing-borde,
And drest him like a swine,
And laughing said, Gae nou and pley
With your sweit play-feres nine.

7
Scho rowd him in a cake of lead,
Bade him lie stil and sleip;
Scho cast him in a deip draw-well,
Was fifty fadom deip.

8
Whan bells wer rung, and mass was sung,
And every lady went hame,
Than ilka lady had her yong sonne,
Bot Lady Helen had nane.

9
Scho rowd hir mantil hir about,
And sair, sair gan she weip,
And she ran into the Jewis castel,
Whan they wer all asleip.

10
‘My bonny Sir Hew, my pretty Sir Hew,
I pray thee to me speik:’
‘O lady, rinn to the deip draw-well,
Gin ye your sonne wad seik.’

11
Lady Helen ran to the deip draw-well,
And knelt upon her kne:
‘My bonny Sir Hew, an ye be here,
I pray thee speik to me.’

12
‘The lead is wondrous heavy, mither,
The well is wondrous deip;
A keen pen-knife sticks in my hert,
A word I dounae speik.

13
‘Gae hame, gae hame, my mither deir,
Fetch me my windling sheet,
And at the back o Mirry-land toun,
It’s thair we twa sall meet.’

C

Percy papers; communicated to Percy by Paton, in 1768 or 69, and
derived from a friend of Paton’s.

1
Four and twenty bonny boys
War playing at the ba;
Then up and started sweet Sir Hew,
The flower amang them a’.

2
He hit the ba a kick wi’s fit,
And kept it wi his knee,
That up into the Jew’s window
He gart the bonny ba flee.

3
‘Cast doun the ba to me, fair maid,
Cast doun the ba to me;’
‘O neer a bit o the ba ye get
Till ye cum up to me.

4
‘Cum up, sweet Hew, cum up, dear Hew,
Cum up and get the ba;’
‘I canna cum, I darna cum,
Without my play-feres twa.’

5
‘Cum up, sweet Hew, cum up, dear Hew,
Cum up and play wi me;’
‘I canna cum, I darna cum,
Without my play-feres three.’

6
She’s gane into the Jew’s garden,
Where the grass grew lang and green;
She powd an apple red and white,
To wyle the young thing in.

7
She wyl’d him into ae chamber,
She wyl’d him into twa,
She wyl’d him to her ain chamber,
The fairest o them a’.

8
She laid him on a dressing-board,
Where she did sometimes dine;
She put a penknife in his heart,
And dressed him like a swine.

9
Then out and cam the thick, thick blude,
Then out and cam the thin;
Then out and cam the bonny heart’s blude,
Where a’the life lay in.

10
She rowd him in a cake of lead,
Bad him lie still and sleep;
She cast him in the Jew’s draw-well,
Was fifty fadom deep.

11
She’s tane her mantle about her head,
Her pike-staff in her hand,
And prayed Heaven to be her guide
Unto some uncouth land.

12
His mither she cam to the Jew’s castle,
And there ran thryse about:
‘O sweet Sir Hew, gif ye be here,
I pray ye to me speak.’

13
She cam into the Jew’s garden,
And there ran thryse about:
‘O sweet Sir Hew, gif ye be here,
I pray ye to me speak.’

14
She cam unto the Jew’s draw-well,
And there ran thryse about:
‘O sweet Sir Hew, gif ye be here,
I pray ye to me speak.’

15
‘How can I speak, how dare I speak,
How can I speak to thee?
The Jew’s penknife sticks in my heart,
I canna speak to thee.

16
‘Gang hame, gang hame, O mither dear,
And shape my winding sheet,
And at the birks of Mirryland town
There you and I shall meet.’

17
Whan bells war rung, and mass was sung,
And a’men bound for bed,
Every mither had her son,
But sweet Sir Hew was dead.

D

Herd’s MS., I, 213; stanzas 7–10, II, 219.

1
A’the boys of merry Linkim
War playing at the ba,
An up it stands him sweet Sir Hugh,
The flower amang them a’.

2
He keppit the ba than wi his foot,
And catchd it wi his knee,
And even in at the Jew’s window
He gart the bonny ba flee.

3
‘Cast out the ba to me, fair maid,
Cast out the ba to me!’
‘Ah never a bit of it,’ she says,
‘Till ye come up to me.

4
‘Come up, sweet Hugh, come up, dear Hugh,
Come up and get the ba’!’
‘I winna come up, I mayna come [up],
Without my bonny boys a’.’

5
‘Come up, sweet Hugh, come up, dear Hugh,
Come up and speak to me!’
‘I mayna come up, I winna come up,
Without my bonny boys three.’

6
She’s taen her to the Jew’s garden,
Where the grass grew lang and green,
She’s pu’d an apple reid and white,
To wyle the bonny boy in.

7
She’s wyl’d him in thro ae chamber,
She’s wyl’d him in thro twa,
She’s wyl’d him till her ain chamber,
The flower out owr them a’.

8
She’s laid him on a dressin-board,
Whare she did often dine;
She stack a penknife to his heart,
And dressd him like a swine.

9
She rowd him in a cake of lead,
Bade him lie still and sleep;
She threw him i the Jew’s draw-well,
’Twas fifty fathom deep.

10
Whan bells was rung, and mass was sung,
An a’ man bound to bed,
Every lady got hame her son,
But sweet Sir Hugh was dead.

E

Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 51, as taken down from the recitation of
a lady.

1
Yesterday was brave Hallowday,
And, above all days of the year,
The schoolboys all got leave to play,
And little Sir Hugh was there.

2
He kicked the ball with his foot,
And kepped it with his knee,
And even in at the Jew’s window
He gart the bonnie ba flee.