A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



be heard next day, and if they were convicted, punishment would of course 

 follow. But the Jews found a friend in the sheriff of Norfolk, who was re- 

 sponsible for the safety of all citizens, Jew or Gentile, and who knew well 

 enough that not even under King Stephen and in those anarchic days, could 

 he hand over the whole Jewish community to the tender mercies of a mob 

 infuriated by appeals to the worst passions of bigotry, personal hatred, and 

 the hope of a general pillage of their victims. 



The quarter in which the Jews had their residences was situated in close 

 proximity to the great castle, sufficiently garrisoned by a force of disciplined 

 men-at-arms under the command of the sheriff. Seeing the danger that 

 threatened, and apprehending that nothing less was intended than a whole- 

 sale massacre of the Jews, John dc Caineto, the sheriff, acted with promptness 

 and decision. He ordered the whole Jewish community to move in a body 

 into the precincts of the castle, where they would be under sufficient pro- 

 tection till the imminent danger should have passed off, and there they con- 

 tinued for a time to reside until it was safe for them to go back to the Jewry. 

 In the meantime the body of the dead boy was acknowledged to be that of 

 Godwin's nephew, William. Very soon the popular voice proclaimed him 

 a saint and a martyr, and this belief was strengthened when Aimar the prior 

 of St. Pancras, at Lewes, who happened to be present at the Norwich Synod, 

 made a proposal that the body should be delivered to him, with a view of 

 making it an object of ' conspicuous veneration and worship,' possibly in the 

 Cluniac priory at Castleacre, where it appears that the monastic church had 

 but recently been completed. By Bishop Everard's order, however, the body 

 of the martyred saint was buried in the monks' cemetery, but when a crop 

 of miracles sprung up around his grave and a number of wonderful stories 

 were circulated and believed by the people of all classes, the body was moved 

 from one place to another till finally it was deposited in a shrine in the 

 cathedral, and the cult of St. William of Norwich became a profitable source 

 of income to the monastery. 



The story of this reputed murder and subsequent glorification of the 

 boy into a saint and martyr produced a very wide effect upon the beliefs and 

 sentiments of Jew-haters all over Europe, which has not yet, by any means, 

 worn itself out ; though few of those who are still the victims of this horrible 

 superstition are at all aware that the mythical calumny attributing a ritual 

 murder at the Paschal Festival to Jewish fanaticism originated in the first 

 instance in the story of the Norwich boy-saint so skilfully dealt with by the 

 clergy assembled at the diocesan synod in 1 144, and subsequently by the 

 monks of the priory.^ 



Though the contemporary writer of the life of St. William does not say 

 so, there are nevertheless indications in his book that Bishop Everard was but 

 a cold supporter of the alleged martyrdom of St. William. He appears by 

 this time to have felt that he had little sympathy with the old monasticism 

 of which, as has been said, the Norwich priory was the latest representative. 

 A craving for a stricter rule and a more ascetic discipline in the religious 

 houses was in the air, and Everard, peradventure worried and saddened by 

 the attitude of both seculars and regulars in their attempt to make capital of 



' Life and Miracles of St. WiUiam of 'Norwich, by Thomas of Monmouth. With Introduction, Translation, 

 and Notes by Aug. Jessopp, D.D. and Montague R. James, Litt. D. 



222 



