ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



than of ecclesiastical authorities.^ They were especially befriended by 

 St. Hugh/ and later on by Bishop Grossetete.' In the episcopate, however, 

 of Grossetete's successor, Henry Lexington, the cruel accusation of ritual 

 murder, which in Europe was first brought against the Jews of Norwich in 

 1 1 44,* was repeated at Lincoln in the case of 'little St. Hugh' in 1255, 

 and led to the execution of some nineteen Jews, including one who is said 

 to have been a chief priest or rabbi {pontifex) and the imprisonment of a 

 much larger number.^ 



The Jews of Northampton did not escape a similar charge in the next 

 reign. An old crucifix, built into the wall of a house at the south-west 

 corner of St. Sepulchre's churchyard, is even now occasionally pointed out 

 as a memorial of the crucifixion of a christian boy on Good Friday, i 277 ! ' 

 Ritual murder, as ascribed to the Jews, is, of course, a wicked myth, but it 

 is undoubtedly true that, early in the reign of Edward I, the Jews of 

 Northampton had this terrible charge brought against them, and that many 

 suffered death in consequence. It is commonly asserted that, on this 

 probably quite baseless accusation, fifty Jews were drawn at the horse-tail 

 outside the walls of the town and there hanged. 



A seventeenth-century statement places the alleged crime in the seventh 

 year of the reign, and states that the Jews did not ' throughly kill ' the boy ; 

 adding that in connexion with the affair many Jews, after Easter, were drawn 

 at horse-tail and hanged in London.'' 



In 1290 the Jews were banished the kingdom, and their property in 

 Northampton and elsewhere was confiscated to the crown.' 



Northampton was specially identified with the different phases of the 

 crusading movement. The great Simon de St. Liz, earl of Northampton, 

 joined the first crusade, which ended in the capture of Jerusalem by assault 

 on 15 July, 1099. It is almost certain that he was the founder of the round 

 church at Northampton, built after the model of the church of the Holy 

 Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and that he built it on his return (which took place 

 in the same year) as a thank-offering for the success of the expedition.' At 

 the beginning of 1 188, (Jerusalem having fallen into the hands of the Saracens 



' Many of the higher clergy were deeply in their debt. In 1 175 William of Waterville, abbot of 

 Peterborough, was deposed by Archbishop Richard for having entered the monastery church with an armed 

 force and extracted the arm of St. Oswald and other relics against the will of his monks, in order to pledge 

 them to the Jews (Jacobs, op. cit. 57). 



' The biographer of the saint vividly describes their lamentations at his funeral. Magna Fita S. Hugpnis 

 (Rolls Ser.), p. 373. 



'' Letter! of Bishop Grosseteite (Rolls Ser.), p. 33. * Jacobs, Jews oj Angevin Engl. 19-21. 



' Ann.Mon. (Rolls Ser.), i, 340 ; ii, 346. Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), v, 516-19, 546, 552. 

 According to the first of these accounts the Dominicans, according to Matthew Paris the Franciscans, inter- 

 vened on behalf of the condemned jews in London. For the discussion of the whole of this celebrated case 

 see Jacobs, Jetfisk Ideals, 192-224. 



° Cox and Serjeantson, Hist, of St. Sepulchre's, Nortkampt. pp. 1 19-122. 



' John Weever, Anet. Funeral Monuments (ed. 163 l), p. 377. The Jewish Encyclopaedia (ix, 335) gives 

 the following account : 'In 1279, a boy having been found murdered at Northampton, some Jews of that 

 town were t.iken to London, dragged at the tails of horses, and hanged.' 



* Cal. of Pat. 18 Edw. I, m. 14, 13 ; 19 Edw. I, m. 25, zi, 20. At this time there seem to have been 

 only five Jews or Jewesses holding landed property in Northampton, the general community holding, besides 

 their synagogue and cemeter)', five houses and five cottages (with curtilages belonging to them). The buildings 

 were subject to certain payments to the prior}' of St. Andrew and the abbey of St. James. The ' archa ' or 

 chest of the Northampton Jews was duly delivered at Westminster, but the particulars of their bonds have 

 been lost {Trans. Jewish Hist. Soc. of Engl, ii, 98). Not till 1890 do we again find any considerable settle- 

 ment of Jews at Northampton, but in that year some Russian Jews arrived and established a syn.agogue (Jewish 

 Encyclopaedia, ix, 335). 'Cox and Serjeantson, Hist, of St. Sepulchre's, Norlhampt. 23-6. 



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