William of Norwich facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Saint William (cult suppressed)
Painting at the church of St Peter and St Paul, Eye, Suffolk, c. 1500
Holy Martyr
Born	2 February 1132 Norwich, England
Died	c. 22 March 1144(1144-03-22) (aged 12) Norwich, England
Venerated in	Folk Catholicism
Canonized	Never officially canonised.
Feast	26 March (removed from the Universal Calendar)
Attributes	Depicted holding nails, with nail wounds or undergoing crucifixion
Catholic cult suppressed	After the Congregation

William of Norwich (2 February 1132 – c. 22 March 1144) was an English boy whose disappearance and killing was, at the time, attributed to the Jewish community of Norwich. It is the first known medieval accusation against Jews of ritual murder. These accusations occurred at a time that religious centres had begun to compete for visitors and their donations by setting up local shrines, after martyrdoms and other mysterious events. In addition, the monks of Norwich which promoted the supposed martyrdom lacked a patron saint and associated cult; it has been suggested that they exploited the accusations for their own institutional benefit.

William was an apprentice tanner who regularly came into contact with Jews and visited their homes as part of his trade. His murder remains unsolved; the local community of Norwich attributed the boy's death to the Jews, though the local authorities would not convict them for lack of proof. William was acclaimed as a saint in Norwich, with miracles attributed to him.

William's story was told in The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, a multi-volume Latin work by Thomas of Monmouth, a monk in the Norwich Benedictine monastery. Monmouth started The Life in 1149/50, after interest in the events had died down, most likely because the monks needed to give the cult new impetus. He completed volume seven by 1173. Augustus Jessopp (1823–1914), one of the editors of the first printed edition of Monmouth's work, describes Monmouth as belonging to the class of those who are "deceivers and being deceived."

Accounts of his life and death

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains an account of the murder which places it c. 1137, several years earlier than Thomas of Monmouth. The entire account in the Chronicle is:

In his reign the Jews of Norwich bought a Christian child before Easter, and tortured him after the same manner as our Lord was tortured; and on Long-Friday hanged him on a rood, in mockery of our Lord, and afterwards buried him. They supposed that it would be concealed, but our Lord showed that he was a holy martyr. And the monks took him, and buried him with high honour in the minster. And through our Lord he worketh wonderful and manifold miracles, and is called St. William.

Since most information about William's life comes from Thomas of Monmouth, it is difficult to distinguish the facts of the case from the story of martyrdom created around it by Monmouth. Thomas of Monmouth arrived in Norwich around 1150. At the urging of the Bishop, he decided to investigate the killing by interviewing surviving witnesses. He also spoke to people whom he identified as "converted Jews" who provided him with inside information about events within the Jewish community. He wrote an Ecclesiastical Latin account of the crime in his book The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich.

According to Monmouth, William was born on 2 February 1132 to a local couple and was apprenticed to a skinner and tanner of hides, often dealing with local Jews. Monmouth attributes the working relationship between William and the Jewish community alternately to William's skill and to Jewish "avarice."

Monmouth writes that shortly before his murder, William's mother was approached by a man who claimed to be a cook working for the Archdeacon of Norwich. He offered William a job in the Archdeacon's kitchens. William's mother was paid three shillings to let her son go. William later visited his aunt in the company of this man. His aunt was apparently suspicious, and asked her daughter to follow them after they left. They were then seen entering the house of a local Jew. This was the last time William was seen alive; it was Holy Tuesday.

Monmouth describes in detail the ritual torture and murder of William, as a reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus. In his account of the murder, Monmouth writes that "having shaved his head, they stabbed it with countless thornpoints, and made the blood come horribly from the wounds they made...some of those present ad judged him to be fixed to a cross in mockery of the Lord's Passion...” William's body was later said to have been found in Thorpe Wood with a crown of thorns atop his head.

Monmouth writes that William was crucified, "in mockery of the Lord's passion." Monmouth also claims "they inflicted a frightful wound in his left side," similar to that which was described in the biblical account of the death of Jesus.

According to Monmouth, the twelve-year-old William's body was found on Holy Saturday in Mousehold Heath, part of Thorpe Wood, outside Norwich. A local nun saw the body, but did not initially contact anyone. A forester named Henry de Sprowston then came across it. He noted injuries which suggested a violent death and the fact that the boy appeared to have been gagged with a wooden teasel. William was wearing a jacket and shoes.

After consultation with the parish priest, it was decided to bury the body on Easter Monday. In the meanwhile, local people came to look at it, and William was recognised. The body was then buried at the murder site, and the following day, members of William's family, one of whom was the priest, Godwin Stuart, arrived to confirm the identity of the body. They exhumed it and then reburied it with proper ceremony.

William's family and their fellow English quickly blamed the local Jewish community for the crime and demanded justice from the ecclesiastical court of Bishop William de Turbeville. Members of the Jewish community were asked by the Bishop to attend the court and submit to a trial by ordeal, but the local Norman sheriff, John de Chesney, advised them that the ecclesiastical court had no jurisdiction over them, as they were not Christians.

He then took the Jews into protection in Norwich Castle. After the situation had calmed down, they returned to their homes. The issue was revived two years later, when a member of the Jewish community was murdered in an unrelated incident. King Stephen agreed to look into the matter, but later decided not to pursue it.

In the meanwhile, William's body had been moved to the monks' cemetery. Bishop de Turbeville and other members of the local clergy attempted to create a cultus around him as a Christian martyr, but this plan did not succeed. There was no evidence in the initial accusations against the Jews that the murder was related to religious activity of any kind, but as the cult developed, so did a story of how and why William was killed.

Thomas of Monmouth's account is attributed to the testimony of a monk and former Jew named Theobald of Cambridge. Theobald alleged that the murder was a human sacrifice and that the "ancient writings of his fathers" required the yearly killing of a Christian. This was allegedly for two reasons: to one day return to the Holy Land during the Messianic Age and to punish Jesus Christ for the persecution that the Jewish people continued to experience at the hands of his followers. There is, however, no such commandment for human sacrifice anywhere in Jewish theology or religious literature. Theobald also alleged, however, that the murderers were not practitioners of Orthodox Judaism. The murder was instead ordered at Narbonne, by a cult leader who had declared himself to be the Jewish Messiah and who had cast lots to select where in Europe his followers were to commit the murder.

Monmouth supports this claim by saying that a converted former member of the Messianic cult told him that there was an argument over how to dispose of the body. Monmouth also says that a Christian servant woman glimpsed the child through a chink in a door. Another man is said to have confessed on his deathbed, years after the events, that he saw a group of Jews transporting a body on a horse in the woods.

Context

The Jews in Norwich

The Jewish community is thought to have been established in Norwich by 1135, only nine years before the murder (though one Jew called 'Isaac' is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086). Most lived in a Jewish quarter or "Jewry", located in what is now the Haymarket and White Lion Street. The Jews were a French-speaking community, like the recently established Anglo-Normans, and were closely associated with them. The "Jewry" was very close to the Castle, a pattern seen in other English towns where Jews were under the protection of the Normans.

William and his family, on the other hand, were of Anglo-Saxon descent and several of his relatives were married priests following local tradition. Conflicts between local Anglo-Saxons and Normans may well have lent themselves to conspiracy theories regarding capital crimes by French-speaking Jews being covered up by French-speaking Normans. Tensions were particularly high during the reign of King Stephen when the murder occurred. Thomas of Monmouth alleges that the sheriff was bribed by the Norwich Jewish community to protect them.

There may also have been background conflicts between the cathedral, the sheriff and local people about rights in the city and suburbs. Monmouth repeatedly invokes God as the sole source of justice for Anglo-Saxons against corrupt Norman sheriffs. He also claims that John de Chesney, the sheriff who protected the city's Jews, was later punished with internal bleeding.

Cult

The site of the chapel consecrated to William on Mousehold Heath (2010). The chapel was demolished during the English Reformation; its remains are listed as a scheduled monument.

The wish of the local clergy – in particular, of Bishop William de Turbeville, to establish a cultus may at least in part have been partly financially motivated. The Bishop encouraged Thomas of Monmouth to question local people and to write his book.

After being buried in the monk's cemetery, the body of William was moved to progressively more prestigious places in the church, being placed in the chapter house in 1150 and close to the High Altar in 1151. Monmouth devotes most of his book not to the murder, but to the evidence for William's sanctity, including mysterious lights seen around the body itself and miraculous cures effected on local devotees. Monmouth admits that some of the clergy, notably the Prior, Elias, were opposed to the cult on the grounds that there was little evidence of William's piety or martyrdom. Monmouth promoted the claims by providing evidence of visions of William and miracles.

Historian Paul Dalton states that the cult of William was predominantly "protective and pacificatory" in character, having similarities to that of another child saint, Faith of Conques. Despite its origins, the cult itself was not associated with the promotion of anti-Jewish activity. The cult was a minor one even at its height. There is little evidence of a flourishing cult of William in Norwich – surviving financial records listing offerings made at his shrine at Norwich Cathedral suggest that, although its fortunes waxed and waned, for much of its history there were few pilgrims, although offerings continued to be made until at least 1521. A temporary boost to the shrine's popularity occurred after 1376, when William was adopted by the Norwich Peltier's Guild, whose annual service at the Cathedral included a child who played the part of William. There was also a scholars' guild dedicated to St William in the Norfolk town of Bishop's Lynn.

The rood screen of St John's Church, Garboldisham, Norfolk

Images of William as a martyr were created for some churches, generally in the vicinity of Norwich. A panel of painted oak, depicting William and Agatha of Sicily, is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; William is shown holding a hammer and with three nails in his head. The panel was formerly part of a rood screen at the Norwich Church of St John Maddermarket. The screen was commissioned by Ralph Segrym (died 1472), a merchant who became a Member of Parliament and Mayor of Norwich.

William is depicted on the rood screens of a number of other Norfolk churches: St Mary's Church, Worstead and St John's Church, Garboldisham depict William holding nails; the screen in Holy Trinity Church, Loddon depicts William being crucified.

Aftermath

As a result of the feelings generated by the William ritual murder story and subsequent intervention by the authorities on behalf of the accused, the growing suspicion of collusion between corrupt sheriffs and nobles and Jews fuelled the general anti-Jewish and anti-Norman mood of the population. After Thomas of Monmouth's version of William's death circulated a number of other unsolved child murders were attributed to Jewish conspiracies, including Harold of Gloucester (d. 1168) and Robert of Bury (d. 1181). The best-known of these was Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255). This became known as the blood libel.

By the reign of Richard the Lionheart attitudes towards English Jews had become less tolerant. This, in conjunction with the increase in national opinion in favour of a Crusade, and the conflation of all non-Christians in the Medieval Christian imagination, led to the Jewish deputation attending the coronation of Richard in 1189 being attacked by the crowd. A widespread attack began on the Jewish population, leading to massacres of Jews at London and York.

The attacks were followed by others throughout England. When the Norman nobility of Norwich attempted to suppress these activities, the yeomanry and peasants revolted against the lords and attacked their supporters, especially Norwich's Jewish community. On 6 February 1190, the Jews who were found in their own houses at Norwich were killed; others had taken refuge in Norwich Castle.

During the development of Chapelfield, Norwich, in 2004 a well with the remains of the remains of at least 6 adults and 11 children was discovered. Analysis showed strong affinities to living Ashkenazi Jewish groups.

Hostility against Jews continued until, in 1290, Jews were expelled from England by King Edward I. Jews were not officially allowed to resettle in England until after 1655, when Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell commissioned the Whitehall Conference to debate the proposals made by Menasseh ben Israel. While the Conference reached no verdict, it is seen as the beginning of resettlement of the Jews in England.

See also