Thomas of Monmouth:
The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich
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HOW WILLIAM WAS WONT TO RESORT TO THE JEWS, AND HAVING BEEN CHID BY HIS OWN
PEOPLE FOR SO DOING, HOW HE WITHDREW
HIMSELF FROM THEM
When therefore he was flourishing in this blessed boyhood of his, and had
attained to his eighth year [about 1140], he was entrusted to the skinners
[furriers] to be taught their craft. Gifted with a teachable disposition and
bringing industry to bear upon it, in a short time he far surpassed lads of his
own age in the craft aforesaid, and he equaled some who had been his teachers.
So leaving the country, drawn by a divine urge he betook himself to the city
and lodged with a very famous master of that craft, and some time passed away.
He was seldom in the country, but was occupied in the city and sedulously gave
himself to the practice of his craft, and thus reached his twelfth year [1144].
Now, while he was
staying in Norwich, the Jews who were settled there and required their cloaks
or their robes or other garments (whether pledged to them, or their own
property) to be repaired, preferred him before all other skinners. For they
esteemed him to be especially fit for their work, either because they had learnt
that he was guileless and skillful, or, because attracted to him by their
avarice, they thought they could bargain with him for a lower price, Or, as I
rather believe, because by the ordering of divine providence he had been
predestined to martyrdom from the beginning of time, and gradually step by step
was drawn on, and chosen to be made a mock of and to be put to death by the
Jews, in scorn of the Lord's Passion, as one of little foresight, and so the
more fit for them. [William is to be put to death to mock the crucifixion.]
For I have learnt
from certain Jews, who were afterwards converted to the Christian faith, how
that at that time they had planned to do this very thing with some Christian,
and in order to carry out their malignant purpose, at the beginning of Lent
they had made; choice of the boy William, being twelve years of age and a boy
of unusual innocence.
So it came to pass
that when the holy boy, ignorant of the treachery that had been planned, had
frequent dealings with the Jews, he was taken to task by Godwin the priest, who
had the boy's aunt as his wife, and by a certain Wulward with whom he lodged
and he was prohibited from going in and out among them any more But the Jews,
annoyed at the thwarting of their designs, tried with all their might to patch
up a new scheme of wickedness, and all the more vehemently as the day for
carrying out the crime they has determined upon drew near; and the victim,
which they had though they had already secured, had slipped out of their wicked
hands.
Accordingly,
collecting all the cunning of their crafty plots, they found-I am not sure
whether he was a Christian or a Jew-a man who was a most treacherous fellow and
just the fitting person for carrying out their execrable crime, and with all
haste-for their
Passover was
coming on in three days-they sent him to find out and bring back with him the
victim which, as I said before, had slipped out of their hands.
HOW HE WAS SEDUCED BY THE JEWS' MESSENGER
At the dawn of
day, on the Monday [March 20, 1144] after Palm Sunday, that detestable
messenger of the Jews set out to execute the business that was committed to
him, and at last the boy William, after being searched for with very great
care, was found. When he was found, he got round him with cunning wordy tricks,
and so deceived him with his lying promises....
HOW ON HIS GOING TO THE JEWS HE WAS TAKEN, MOCKED, AND SLAIN....
Then the boy, like
an innocent lamb, was led to the slaughter. He was treated kindly by the Jews
at first, and, ignorant of what was being prepared for him, he was kept till
the morrow. But on the next day [Tuesday, March 21], which in that year was the
Passover for them, after the singing of the hymns appointed for the day in the
synagogue, the chiefs of the Jews.... suddenly seized hold of the boy William
as he was having his dinner and in no fear of any treachery, and ill-treated
him in various horrible ways. For while some of them held him behind, others
opened his mouth and introduced an instrument of torture which is called a teazle
[a wooden gag] and, fixing it by straps through both jaws to the back of his
neck, they fastened it with a knot as tightly as it could be drawn.
After that, taking
a short piece of rope of about the thickness of one's little finger and tying
three knots in it at certain distances marked out, they bound round that
innocent head with it from the forehead to the back, forcing the middle knot
into his forehead and the two others into his temples, the two ends of the rope
being most tightly stretched at the back of his head and fastened in a very
tight knot. The ends of the rope were then passed round his neck and carried
round his throat under his chin, and there they finished off this dreadful
engine of torture in a fifth knot.
But not even yet
could the cruelty of the torturers be satisfied without adding even more severe
pains. Having shaved his head, they stabbed it with countless thornpoints, and
made the blood come horribly from the wounds they made. [Jesus had worn a crown
of thorns before his death.] And so cruel were they and so eager to Inflict
pain that it was difficult to say whether they were more cruel or more
ingenious in their tortures. For their skill in torturing kept up the strength
of their cruelty and ministered arms thereto
And thus, while
these enemies of the Christian name were rioting in the spirit of malignity
around the boy, some of those present ad judged him to be fixed to a cross in
mockery of the Lord's Passion, as though they would say: "liven as we
condemned the Christ to a shameful death, so let us also condemn the Christian,
so that, uniting the lord and his servant in a like punishment, we may retort
upon themselves the pain of that reproach which they impute to us."
Conspiring,
therefore, to accomplish the crime of this great and detestable malice, they
next laid their bloodstained hands upon the innocent victim, and having lifted
him from the ground and fastened him upon the cross, they vied with one another
in their efforts to make an end of him.
And we, after
enquiring into the matter very diligently, did both find the house, and
discovered some most certain marks in it of what had been done there. [This was
supposed to be the house of a rich Jew, Eleazar, who was later murdered by
order of his debtor, Sir Simon de Novers]. For report goes that there was there
instead of a cross a post set up between two other posts, and a beam stretched
across the midmost post and attached to the other on either side. And as we
afterwards discovered, from the marks of the wounds and of the bands, the right
hand and foot had been tightly bound and fastened with cords, but the left hand
and foot were pierced with two nails. Now the deed was done in this way, lest
it should be discovered, from the presence of nailmarks in both hands and both
feet, that the murderers were Jews and not Christians, if eventually the body
were found. [Both hands and feet were not nailed lest it look like a
crucifixion.]
But while in doing
these things they were adding pang to pang and wound to wound, and yet were not
able to satisfy their heartless cruelty and their inborn hatred of the
Christian name, lo! after all these many and great tortures, they inflicted a
frightful wound in his left side, reaching even to his inmost heart, and, as
though to make an end of all, they extinguished his mortal life so far as it
was in their power. [Jesus was similarly pierced by a lance while nailed to the
cross. The chronicler here imitates the Apostle John's narrative.] And since
many streams of blood were running down from all parts of his body, then, to
stop the blood and to wash and close the wounds, they poured boiling water over
him.
Thus then the
glorious boy and martyr of Christ, William, dying the death of time in reproach
of the Lord's death, but crowned with the blood of a glorious martyrdom,
entered into the kingdom of glory on high to live for ever. Whose soul
rejoiceth blissfully in heaven among the bright hosts of the saints, and whose
body by the Omnipotence of the divine mercy worketh miracles upon earth....
[St.. William after his death worked many miracles that brought streams of
people to his shrine.]
As a proof of the
truth and credibility of the matter we now adduce something which we have heard
from the lips of Theobald, who was once a Jew, and afterwards a monk. He verily
told us that in the ancient writings of his fathers it was written that the
Jews, without the shedding of human blood, could neither obtain their freedom,
nor could they ever return to their fatherland. [There is no such statement in
Jewish law or literature.] Hence it was laid down by them in ancient times that
every year they must sacrifice a Christian in some part of the world to the
Most High God in scorn and contempt of Christ, that so they might avenge their
sufferings on Him; inasmuch as it was because of Christ's death that they had
been shut out from their own country, and were in exile as slaves in a foreign
land. [The Jews rejected Jesus and were as a result punished by exile from
Palestine. Angry, they took revenge by secretly crucifying Christian
children-thus Theobald. This libel is reminiscent of Apion, an Alexandrian
writer of the first century.]
Wherefore the
chief men and Rabbis of the Jews who dwell in Spain assemble together at
Narbonne, where the Royal seed [resides], and where they are held in the
highest estimation, and they cast lots for all the countries which the Jews
inhabit; and whatever country the lot falls upon, its metropolis has to carry
out the same method with the other towns and cities, and the place whose lot is
drawn has to fulfill the duty imposed by authority. [Lots are cast in Narbonne,
France, where Jews had a "king" to decide which city was to seize the
Christian victim. ]
Now in that year
in which we know that William, God's glorious martyr, was slain, it happened
that the lot fell upon the Norwich Jews, and all the synagogues in England
signified, by letter or by message, their consent that the wickedness should be
carried out at Norwich. "I was," said he, "at that time at
Cambridge, a Jew among Jews, and the commission of the crime was no secret to
me. But in process of time, as I became acquainted with the glorious display of
miracles which the divine power carried out through the merits of the blessed
martyr William, I became much afraid, and following the dictates of my
conscience, I forsook Judaism, and turned to the Christian faith."
These
words-observe, the words of a converted Jew-we reckon to be all the truer, in that
we received them as uttered by one who was a converted enemy, and also had been
privy to the secrets of our enemies.