The Life and Passion of William of Norwich (Penguin Classics)

by Thomas of Monmouth

  And yet the mother’s devotion was still not weakened, nor was her sense of foreboding of future evil easily allayed. It still continued: here with imploring and there with silver, so that if he did not soften the constancy of her resistant spirit by requests, the sheen of the brightness of money smiling at her might lure her to desire it. In these ways the mother’s spirit was severely shaken and her maternal devotion was already gradually wavering; she was finally lured by her desire for the shining silver coins and, thus convinced, she bowed to the very thing she did not want, willy-nilly. And what more? When she was finally persuaded, the lamb was handed over to the wolf, and the boy William was handed over to the traitor.25

  [V] HOW AFTER ENTERING THE JEWS’ HOUSE HE WAS CAPTURED, MOCKED AND KILLED

  And so in the morning that traitor and emulator in almost every way of Judas the traitor returned to Norwich with the boy. Passing by the house of the boy’s maternal aunt he entered it with the boy, said that his mother had handed him over and hastily departed. Then the boy’s aunt immediately said to her daughter, ‘Quick, follow them,’ carefully observing in which direction that man was leading the boy away. And so the girl went out in order to discover their route, and she followed them from a distance, as they turned, taking secret alleyways. Following in this way she watched them at last enter secretly into the house of a certain Jew, and noticed them immediately shut the door behind them. Having seen this, she returned to her mother and informed her of what she had seen.

  Then the Jews received the boy kindly, like an innocent lamb led to the slaughter,26 and he was ignorant of what business was being prepared for him, and he was kept until the morrow. And so, following daybreak, which was their pascha that year,27 after the appropriate chants of the day were finished in the synagogue, the leaders of the Jews met in the house of the aforementioned Jew, and while the boy William was eating, fearing no treachery, they suddenly seized him and humiliated him in various wretched ways. For some of them held him from behind, others inserted into his open mouth a torture instrument known in English as a teasel,28 and fixed it with straps either side of his jaws, to the back of his neck, where they made a very tight knot. Next they took a short rope, about as thick as a little finger, and made three knots in places marked on it, and encircled that innocent head from forehead to back; in the centre of the forehead they pressed a knot, as they did at each temple. Both sides of the head were tied to the back, extremely tightly, and there a firm knot was made. The ends of the rope were tied round the neck and around under the chin, and there this unheard of type of torture was completed in a fifth knot. But the cruelty of the torturers could not be satisfied even by these torments and they added even worse pains. Indeed, having shaven his head, they wounded it with an infinite number of thorn pricks and made him bleed miserably from the inflicted wounds. They were so cruel and so very eager to inflict pains that you could hardly say which they were: more cruel or more eager in torture. Accordingly, their experience of torturing him fostered and furnished them with strength and with weapons. And so, while the enemies of the Christian name ran riot around the boy in such a spirit of evil, there were others among them who, in mockery of the Passion of the Cross, sentenced him to be crucified. Once they did so they said: ‘Just as we have condemned Christ to a most shameful death, so we condemn a Christian, so that we punish both the Lord and his servant in the punishment of reproach; that which they ascribe to us we will inflict on them.’29 And so, conspiring to execute such execrable malice, they next seized the innocent victim with bloody hands and raised him from the ground. He was put upon the cross and they competed among themselves in rivalry to kill him.

  And when we were enquiring carefully into the affair,30 we found the house and in it most definite and clear signs of the affair. Moreover, there was, as rumour has it, stretched out as a cross, a post between two others and a wooden beam in the middle, attached on either side to the two other posts. And, similarly, we later discovered truly the traces made by the wounds and the chains. On the right, the right hand and foot tightly bound by chains; but on the left, the left hand and foot both pierced by a nail. And they did this with such care, of course, that if he was at any time found with nails fixed into him from this side and that, it would not be indicated that he had been killed by Jews, but rather by Christians. But while they did so, they added to the painful wounds other pains and wounds, since they could not extinguish their mad cruelty, nor satisfy their inborn hatred of the Christian name. Truly, after so great and so many sufferings of tortures, they inflicted a grievous wound to his left side31 up into his heart and, as if bringing the affair to an end, they extinguished the mortal life that still remained within him. And since several rivers of blood flowed from the whole of his body, both in order to staunch the blood and to wash and close the wounds, they poured boiling water from his head downwards.

  And so the glorious boy and martyr of Christ, William, dying in this world the disgrace of the death of the Lord, was crowned with the blood of glorious martyrdom and achieved the kingdom of eternal glory, alive for eternity.32 His soul is exalted joyfully in heaven among the illustrious host of saints; and his body works wonders gloriously on earth by the omnipotence of divine mercy.

  [VI] HOW THEY ACCEPTED THE PLAN TO HIDE HIM

  Having accomplished their proposed malice in this way, the Jews consulted each other as to what more was to be done, took care to remove the lifeless body hanging from the post, and entered into collective consultation as to what to do with it. Several said it should be thrown into a privy,33 for greater shame and degradation, but some of the cleverer ones thought to hide it in the ground, lest the Christians somehow manage to find it. Yet the working of divine clemency, which prepared for later times the discovery of so great a martyr, allowed neither that he be cast down into the privy nor that he be hidden in the earth. Therefore, by the provision of the divine plan, making them doubt themselves, not knowing for certain as yet what to do, they all agreed unanimously on the matter, that while they carefully reflected on the issue, they should keep him in the meantime in a more hidden place.

  On the morrow, indeed, as day rose, they met again for the business at hand, and, as we later learned from one of them, while they were still discussing it and not knowing entirely as yet what to do, it is said a certain person who had considerable authority among them, divine will inspiring and urging him on, gave the following advice: ‘Listen to me, brothers, followers of the Lord’s law. I consider it utterly useless for us – and I fear greatly the danger which would follow in the future – if the body of this Christian were to be drowned in our privy or concealed in the earth within the area of our houses. Since, indeed, we dwell in rented houses, if within a month or sooner when some new reason arises, we move away from these dwellings to others, I fear what might follow after our departure, and I will be greatly amazed if what I fear were not to happen. For once we have left, the Christians who will move in will assuredly inspect everything, and one cannot believe that they will not – to shame us – either cleanse the sewers or fill up the old ones and dig new ones where they wish.34 What then? It is likely and easy then that the body will be found by the cleaners or the diggers. Having found it, in no way will the deed be imputed to Christians, but the blame for the whole affair will undoubtedly be passed on to us. It does not seem likely that Christians would have been willing to do such a thing to a Christian, nor, up to a point, Jews to a Jew.

  ‘Therefore, what remains to become common knowledge, if not the truth of the events, and the discovery of the truth to the detriment and danger of us all? Because of our lack of foresight, and not undeservedly, our people will then be totally eliminated from the realm of England.35 Indeed, and what is extremely terrifying to us, we and our wives and little ones will be handed over to the Gentiles as victims, be carried off to death, be given to utter destruction, and our names will be as a reproach to all peoples to eternity. So as to avoid meeting such imminent evils, it is wiser that we be provide
nt in counsel and take another route from the one we have planned. Be careful, I say to you, and pay heed to our advice. Since what is done is done and what has happened cannot be undone, above all we must take care both to hide the deed from the Christians and to avoid what we fear. What then? I say the body should be carried away and be left exposed in a place far away from us, where – if perchance it is found – the Christians may think of it, so to speak, as a murder. And when news of the murder becomes common knowledge there is no doubt that the officers of the king’s justice, to make their profit, may willingly lend covetous ears to the false rumour. At that time, when the blame has been attached to Christians, it will render us secure for ever.’

  Thus he concluded and his speech pleased them all, and in the end his advice was adopted as the plan. The body was seized without delay and was delivered to a suitable secret place, where it was hidden carefully for a while, so that it could be buried secretly when an opportunity emerged to do so. And that day was the day of absolution, Maundy Thursday, on which a crowd of penitents of the whole diocese customarily gathered in the mother church of Norwich, and the streets of the whole city were then visited by an unusual multitude of people wandering about. For that reason they did not consider it safe to do with the body what they had planned on that day. Therefore, it was put off to the morrow, when it would be more convenient for them to be wandering in the streets and much safer than at other times to go where they wished.

  [VII] HOW HE WAS CARRIED AND BURIED IN THE WOOD

  The next day rose [Good Friday, 24 March 1144], on which wherever the Christian religion flourishes the ritual36 of the Adoration of the Cross takes place. On that day, indeed, the custom of all Christians is – by avoiding gluttony more than usual, abstaining from all delicacies and delights, and visiting the churches of the saints devoutly – to persist most assiduously in pious labours of prayer. And so at the dawn of that light, the body of the blessed William the martyr was carried away enclosed in a sack by Deus-adiuvet [Hebrew: Eleazar] and another, Jews preselected for the purpose on the previous day. As they left the city with the body and were already entering Thorpe Wood,37 they met by chance along the way a certain burgess, one of Norwich’s richest and most prominent men, that is Aelwerd, by surname Ded. After already visiting that night the churches which are in the city, finally he was returning, along the edge of the wood, with a single servant as company, from that of St Mary Magdalene,38 a house for the sick in the same wood, on his way to St Leonard’s.39 This happened by the dispensation of divine grace, both in order that a credible witness be present and so that after the body was found the event would not be hidden from the Christians.

  And so Aelwerd, coming upon the Jews on their journey, and indeed recognizing them as Jews,40 wondered as to what it was that one of them was carrying in front of him on the horse’s neck. Wondering in this way and turning over in his mind what business was being transacted by the passers-by and what the thing he saw them carrying could be – because Jews did not usually go out of their houses on that day41 and he had noticed that they had already gone quite far – he held back for a little while and asked them where they were going. Coming closer and stretching out his hand, he touched with his right hand the object they were carrying and realized it was a human body. They, for their part, panic-stricken that they had been discovered and having nothing to say for trepidation, gave their horses rein, passed on and entered into the thickness of the wood. Not surprisingly, the suspicion of evil in the matter struck Aelwerd’s mind, but he turned his attention back to the road he had embarked on with pious devotion. Meanwhile, the Jews entered the rough and thorny thickness of the wood,42 and they hung the raised body from a tree by a flaxen rope; they left him there and returned home by another route. To them, struck as they were by no small degree of alarm and with new horrors born every time they met someone, I think that there happened what usually happens to very timid people aware of their own guilt. Whoever is in this situation suspects everyone they meet, they think there are pitfalls everywhere, they take the tree trunks and stones seen at a distance to be humans. Why say more? The returning Jews reported to the others the misfortune that had occurred to them on their way.

  [VIII] HOW THEY WERE FREED OF FEAR BY GIVING THE SHERIFF 100 MARKS

  The enemies of the Christian name were much upset and did not know what to do next. Since they were devoid of hope, while they discussed their common safety, one suggesting this and another that, they at length decided to hurry to John, the sheriff43 – as to their one and only protector – who was a regular refuge to them. And so the decision was taken by all that some of them, those pre-eminent in authority and power, should go to him and so deal with him that, supported by his patronage, they would thereafter have nothing to fear. They went and entered the castle’s rampart and were admitted to the sheriff’s presence. They told him that they had a very great secret they wished to communicate only to him, very confidentially. All those present were at once removed; John ordered them to speak up and they said: ‘We find ourselves here in great anxiety and we promise you 100 marks44 if we are freed of it thanks to your help.’ Attracted by that sum of marks, he gave his word both that he would keep their secret and that his help would not be lacking to them in anything as far as was in his capacity. Accordingly, once the matter of so great a secret was revealed, Aelwerd was immediately summoned. When he arrived there, under the urgent orders and coercion of the sheriff, he was constrained, willy-nilly, by his word and oath, not to defame the Jews over what he had seen, nor as long as he lived – or at least until the last day of his life – to divulge what he had seen.

  Yet the dispensation of divine grace willed that what it had disposed to the praise and glory of God’s martyr, and for the repetition of the memory of His own Passion, should not be forever hidden and should be revealed in manifold ways shortly after. For indeed, after five years had elapsed, that same Aelwerd was brought to his last hour, being seized by illness. And at the time of his final passing, he was admonished in a vision by the same holy boy William – who was already shining forth throughout the whole region by the abundant virtues of his miracles – not to neglect to reveal the things he had seen to whom he wished. Summoning to him certain persons whom he thought worthy of being told so great a secret – the monk Wichemann, to whom in the counselling of penitents the bishop had committed his own functions,45 and 46 the priest of St Nicholas – while dying and gasping his final words, according to the command of the same martyr, he set forth to them in order47 those things which he had seen and subsequently knew for sure about him. I, Thomas, monk of Norwich, hearing report of them, and knowing it to be true indeed, have taken the care to put them down in writing, because I did not think such evidence of truth should be passed over or hidden in silence.

  [IX] HOW LIGHT SHONE FROM HEAVEN ABOVE HIS BODY IN THE SHAPE OF A FIERY LADDER48

  While these events were happening within the city, on that very day – that is the Friday before Easter of the Lord’s Resurrection – divine grace, which is never absent from its servants, deigned to show signs of its mercy around the body of the glorious martyr lying in the wood. For indeed, around the evening of that day, suddenly a fiery light was sent forth from heaven above, and it stretched out at length to the place of the same martyr and shone brightly in the eyes of many people in diverse places. Henry of Sprowston, once the stableman of Bishop Everard,49 certainly saw it as he was standing at the door of his house with his whole family. Lady Legarda – the widow of William Apulus50 – saw it, too; a woman who, for the love of God, dwelt at St Mary Magdalene, serving the poor and in such service, like a beggar, seeking the salvation of her soul. But also the sick of that place, waking up in silence in the middle of the night for matins, had it pointed out to them by the same Legarda and also saw the brightness of the light. Many of them said that such splendour had already appeared to them as they gazed that morning – that is, on Saturday before dawn. Moreover, that light was seen divided into two r
ays in the form of a very long ladder, stretching from below high up into the east,51 for, as those who first found the body lying under the sky in the wood attested, one of those rays reached to the head, and the other to the feet. What else did divine grace wish to indicate to its faithful, but to take care and inform everyone with a clear sign how many merits he possessed, whom it so greatly glorified by celestial signs? In the shape of a ladder surely is indicated his ascent to glory; in the brightness of light indeed is signified that he has deserved to attain a crown.

  [X] HOW AND BY WHOM HE WAS FOUND

  As the day of Easter Saturday was dawning, that nun whom I mentioned just a while ago, Legarda, was so very concerned by so extraordinary a vision of light that, taking her companions with her, early before sunrise she made her way again to view the light, wanting to know what it was that the Lord wished to reveal by such signs. So walking, she fixed her bodily eyes outwards onto the light, while a light of pious devotion shone inwardly in her mind. The woman went, beseeching God piously that He might direct her by the correct route to the place of the light she had seen, and show her most clearly the sacred things hidden there. Before too long, led by divine mercy through thickset bushes, she was privileged with her companions to arrive where she found, in truth, that illustrious treasure overflowing with a wealth of merits. She saw indeed at a distance a boy lying at the root of an oak tree, dressed in a tunic, wearing shoes, his head shaven and pierced52 with innumerable cuts; but, seized at once by feminine fear, she did not approach any closer. And when with intent and heartfelt gaze she considered the nature of what lay there, she saw two ravens above it, attempting with a frenzy of raven-like voracity to dismember him zealously with the beak, but in no way succeeding in making contact, they were toppling off from either side.53 Though they attacked again and again from different directions, they did not succeed at all, and fell back from his sides.