ON THE BLESSED BOY HUGH, MARTYR, CRUELLY BUTCHERED BY THE JEWS, AT LINCOLN IN ENGLAND.
IN THE YEAR 1255.
PrefaceHugh, boy martyr, butchered by the Jews, at Lincoln in England (Saint).
J. B. S.
The execrable perfidy of the Jews, and their monstrous rage, exercised in hatred of Christ the Savior against Christian boys, we have already so often detested in this work, Together with so many other victims of Jewish ferocity that it wearies us to depict here again their dire barbarity in its own proper colors. You have in the Acts of the 24th and 25th of March, the 17th and 19th of April, the enormous monuments of this incredible Jewish butchery, and also, of this present month, an equally horrible example on the 12th; not to mention that in the Bavaria Sancta of our own Rader alone there are exhibited nine equally furious specimens: to which here is added another infanticide, not perpetrated with impunity by the rabid torturers, in the boy of Lincoln, Hugh by name, whose history has been so evidently demonstrated by English writers, according to all its circumstances, that no doubt is left concerning the exact truth of the whole narration. John Capgrave related it accurately enough among the histories of the Saints of England in his Legend, printed at London in the year 1516, folio 182 verso and folio 183, which same Matthew Paris copied almost word for word in his Greater History at the year 1255, so that it would be idle to review here in order the other historians who mention the same tragedy.
[2] Concerning this blessed boy Hugh our ecclesiastical Fasti and the somewhat older Martyrologies are indeed silent, this boy is reported from Capgrave's Legend nor is his memory ancient in the English martyrologies, which John Wilson, author of the Martyrology of his nation published in the year 1608, seems first to have recorded, whom Ferrari followed in his General Catalog of the Saints who are not in the Roman. In that edition, I say, Wilson placed this martyrdom on this day, which in the other edition of the year 1640 he drew back to the 29th of June, perhaps because in the Acts the blessed Boy is said to have been carried off by the Jews about the feast of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul: but he did not sufficiently advert, I think, to what our Elders observed, that before the Jews summoned from everywhere could be present, much time had elapsed; and therefore they themselves preferred, with the earlier edition and with Ferrari, unless perhaps some more certain day should occur in the more ancient Fasti, to defer the whole matter to this 27th of July, and from Wilson's English Martyrology. so that concerning the holy cult shown to the Martyr at Lincoln they may not seem to have doubted in any way; nor does anything occur to me which could prohibit me from reporting here so signal a martyrdom.
[3] Thus therefore Wilson wrote in English, which is here rendered in Latin: On the same day at Lincoln the passion of St. Hugh the martyr, who, when he was a boy of ten years, was affixed to a cross by the Jews of that city in contempt of Christ and of the Christian religion, and thus deserved to be crowned by the same kind of death which our Savior suffered for the redemption of the human race. The perfidious Jews buried the body of the dead boy in an obscure place, which the earth miraculously cast out. Then they threw it into a well, which, when there too by a miracle it had been found by his own mother, the canons of that city, with great veneration and solemn supplication, carried the holy one to the cathedral church, and there deposited his sacred relics, in the year of Christ 1255, Henry III, king of England, reigning. In the age Wilson differs a little from the Legend; but for the rest, since our Elders judged that such precious victims are by no means to be deprived of their due cult, we have thought that the Acts of St. Hugh are here safely to be set forth, whose series is so clear that they have no need of further explanation.
ACTS OF THE MARTYRDOM
From Capgrave.
Hugh, boy martyr, butchered by the Jews, at Lincoln in England (Saint).
BHL Number: 4031
from Capgrave.
Now in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred and fifty-five, The Jews, invited to Lincoln for the monstrous crime about the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, the Jews of Lincoln stole one boy, by name Hugh, having the age of eight years. And when they were nourishing him in a certain most secret chamber with milk and other childish foods, they sent to nearly all the cities of England in which Jews dwelt, and summoned from each city some of the Jews, that, to the reproach and opprobrium of Jesus Christ, they might be present at their sacrifice at Lincoln. For they had, as they said, a certain boy hidden away to be crucified. And many being gathered at Lincoln, they appointed one Jew as judge, as though for Pilate, by whose judgment and with the favor of all the boy was afflicted with divers torments.
[2] He was scourged even to blood and bruising, crowned with thorns, assailed with spittings and jeers, in a piteous manner they torment the boy: and pricked by each with little knives, given gall to drink, mocked with reproaches and blasphemies; and frequently by those same men, gnashing with their teeth, Christ was called a false prophet. And after they had mocked him in divers ways, they crucified him, and pierced his heart with a lance. And when the boy had expired, they took the body down from the cross, and, it is not known for what reason, disemboweled the little body. But it is said, for the practicing of magic arts. But the mother of the boy diligently sought her absent son for some days, and it was told her by the neighbors that they last saw the boy whom she sought playing with the boys of the Jews, his coevals, and entering the house of a certain Jew. The woman therefore suddenly entered that house, and saw the body of the boy cast into a certain well. And, the bailiffs of the city being cautiously summoned, it was found and drawn out. But the mother of the boy, with a plaintive and clamorous voice, provoked all the citizens, nay all who assembled, to tears and sighs.
[3] Now there was there a nobleman, by name John; a certain circumspect man and elegantly lettered, whose body being uncovered by the mother who said: We have heard that at times the Jews, to the opprobrium of Jesus Christ our crucified Lord, have not been afraid to attempt such things; and, one Jew being seized, into whose house the boy Hugh himself had entered while playing, and who was on that account more suspected than the others: he says to him, Wretch, do you not know that a hasty destruction awaits you? All the gold of England would not suffice for your rescue or redemption. Nevertheless I will there declare, though to an unworthy one, how you may be able to save your life and not be mutilated in your limbs. Both will I save for you, if whatever was perpetrated in this case you disclose to me without falsity or fraud. That Jew therefore, by name Copin, thus believing that he had found a way of escaping, answered, saying: Lord John, if you match deeds with words, I will disclose to you marvels. And the diligence of the same John encouraged and incited him to this.
[4] And the Jew said: The things which the Christians say are true; the Jews almost every year crucify one boy, to the injury and contumely of Jesus: the Jew being seized and having confessed the crime, is driven to the gallows but it is not discovered every year; for they do this secretly, and in hidden and secret places. But this boy, whom they call Hugh, our Jews crucified without mercy: and when he had died, and they wished to hide the dead one in the earth, he could not be buried, nor hidden. For the body of an innocent was reckoned very useful for augury, for to this end it was disemboweled. And when in the morning it was thought hidden, the earth gave it forth and vomited it up: and it appeared above the earth unburied. Which being seen, the Jews, greatly abhorring it, when they had thrown it into a well, (God willing) neither then could it be concealed. For the resolute mother of the boy, searching all things, made known the found body to the bailiffs. And so, the Jew being consigned to chains by the command of the aforesaid John, the canons of the church of Lincoln asked that the little body be handed over to them, and, as the venerable and holy body of a precious Martyr, honorably delivered it to the earth: but the Jews had kept the boy shut up within their dwellings for ten days, that, fed for so many days with milk, he might more bravely endure the atrocious torments of the perfidious ones.
[5] as also several others led to London But the king rebuked the aforesaid John, in that he had promised life to so flagitious a man, which he could not give. And when the Jew saw that he could in no way escape death, he said: My death is imminent to me, nor can lord John assist me who am about to perish. Now I will disclose the truth to you all. To the death of this boy, of which the Jews are calumniated, nearly all the Jews of all England consented, and certain chosen ones of almost every city were summoned to the immolation of that boy, as though to a Paschal sacrifice. And when he had openly related this and other delusions, being bound to the tail of a horse, he is dragged to the gibbet, and presented in body and soul to the airy fiends. But the other Jews, participants in this crime, four times twenty and eleven, being led to London, were handed over to prison custody. At length, diligent inquiry being made by the king's justiciars, eighteen of the more noble Jews of the city of Lincoln, consenting to the martyrdom of the boy, were dragged by horses to the gibbet and afterward hanged, the rest being kept in close custody.