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

by Thomas of Monmouth

  Therefore, the leaders and rabbis of the Jews who dwell in Spain, at Narbonne,56 where the seed of kings and their glory flourishes greatly, meet together, and cast lots of all the regions where Jews lived. Whichever region was chosen by lot, its capital city had to apply that lot to the other cities and towns, and the one whose name comes up will carry out that business, as decreed. In that year, however, when William, the glorious martyr of God, was killed, it so happened that the lot fell on the men of Norwich, and all the communities of the Jews of England offered their consent by letters or by messengers for the crime to be performed at Norwich. ‘I was at the time in Cambridge, a Jew among Jews, and the crime of the action performed was not hidden from me. With the passage of time, when I learned of the glorious greatness of miracles which by divine virtue happened through the merits of the blessed martyr William, I was greatly afraid and, consulting my conscience, I left Judaism and converted to the faith of Christ.’ These words, indeed, of the Jewish convert we believe to be all the truer for having learned them from a converted enemy, revealed by someone privy to the secrets of the enemies.

  SIXTH PROOF

  But if the doubt of the unbelievers is not dissipated by these arguments, we introduce a most efficacious sign of truth. While King Stephen reigned, both by royal edict and by the support of the sheriff John, the Jews, having now become more confident, were in the habit of insulting us boldly, saying: ‘You should pay us great thanks, because we have made a saint and martyr for you. We have done something very beneficial for you, which you twist against us by making it a crime. We have done something that you yourselves could not do for yourselves.’

  [XII] SEVENTH PROOF

  At this point let another proof be put forward by which the faith of the doubters might be strengthened. William of Hastings,57 formerly dean of Norwich, as we were discussing once the death of the blessed martyr William, truthfully maintained that he had some time been present at a dispute between two Jews. And when one argued against the other with words of criminal accusation, the other, prompted by anger, turned to the dean and pointed his finger at the Jewish litigant, saying: ‘Sir William, what is spoken so confidently before you ought not to be heard by you who are a Christian. He, indeed, was the first to lay his hands on your Christian, whom you call the martyr William, and slay him with bloody hands. So it is only fitting that he should not be allowed to dwell among Christians.’

  CONCLUSION

  And so, after so many and such [great] proofs have been put forward to manifest the truth, there can be no longer any doubt in my opinion that the holy martyr William was killed by the Jews. What is put in opposition – suffering does not make a martyr, but rather its cause58 – we ourselves accept as true. Everyone knows that we have seen the marks of torture on Saint William’s body, the cause of which appears to be Christ, as an insult to whom he was killed as a punishment. And, similarly, for the same reason, the glory of martyrdom was not conferred on the Holy Innocents by their suffering, but by the grace of Christ, who was the cause of their death. If, indeed, we ask what happened to the Jewish perpetrators, the following will make that clear.

  [XIII] WHAT END THE CHRISTIAN-KILLER JEWS HAD BY DIVINE VENGEANCE

  Since it is agreed, both by signs of revelations and by the many arguments of proofs, that the most blessed boy and martyr William was killed by the Jews, we believe it happened by God’s just judgement that justice so struck those guilty of so horrible a crime, for the perpetration of the disgraceful act, and that divine vengeance exterminated or dispersed them within a short period of time. For some of them, unable to sustain the growing infamy of such a crime, were scattered to other regions and, as rumour has it, perished by a fitting revenge. Others, indeed, who remained trusting in the protection of the sheriff, were either quickly annihilated by the ruin of death or were killed by the hands of Christians. In particular, we have decided not to ignore the death of the Jew Deus-adiuvet [Eleazar], in whose house – as we have recorded in an earlier book and made known – the most blessed and most glorious martyr William was mocked and killed; and, once he was dead, he [Eleazar] carried him to be hidden in the wood. For if the matter of this event is studied carefully, it will be considered as a strong argument for the truth.

  In fact, that Jew was the richest of them all and he put a certain Simon de Nodariis59 under obligation to him for a great debt of money. And when the term of payment had passed he frequently pressed the knight for repayment. And so the knight was in dire straits, because he did not have the means to repay the debt and daily renewed his requests to defer payment. His men, indeed, seeing their lord in such straits, took counsel among themselves in secret, as to how they might succeed in freeing him. After consulting together, one of them was sent to waylay the Jew – who was unaware of the ruse – as if he were to receive what was owed; I am not sure whether with or without his lord’s approval – God knows – the others, meanwhile, hid themselves in the wood through which his [the Jew’s] route passed. As soon as the Jew arrived, led by the squire, immediately he was seized by the others, dragged away and killed. When the other Jews found out about the death by the spread of rumour, they took the body away and transported it to London for burial.60

  Let the diligent reader note in these events how God allowed for just judgement to take place, what fitting retribution He meted out: a Jew – who had with sacrilegious hands killed a Christian in his house and, having killed him, had him thrown in a wood and exposed him to the dogs and the birds – this Jew was led away from his own house to be killed by Christian hands in the wood, and there was left under the sky, exposed to the bites of dogs and birds. After some time had passed, when the king visited Norwich, the Jews assembled in front of him and brought forth the case of the murder of the aforesaid Jew.61 And they attributed the guilt of the whole crime to the same knight, accusing him in the following manner.

  XIV AN IMAGINARY ACCOUNT OF THE TRIAL62

  ‘Listen to us, most benign king, your well-known mercy is celebrated throughout the whole world: it is not withheld from anyone who merits it, and, thanks to its favour, peace and tranquillity reign. Behold, we run to you for succour, as to our sole and unique haven, secure in your patronage and not doubting your justice; we come together to you, just judge, true adherent of law and fairness. Therefore, because we wish to have due justice for damage and injury done to us, and in the fear of similar misfortune, we petition for the defence of your protection, and we will put forth in a few words what evil has been done to us and what we desire.

  ‘We Jews are yours, your tributaries year in and year out, often required by you for your needs and always loyal and useful to your kingdom. As to you, you govern us kindly enough and rule with tranquillity; but the audacity of this fraudulent Simon, whom we see standing opposite us, has audaciously presumed to stir up in an atrocious manner events worthy of punishment.

  ‘This man had as creditor one of our brethren, a certain servant of yours, a Jew to whom a certain squire was sent and asked him to come out of the city to the countryside, as if to receive payment for the debt, and en route had him killed. What need to say more? It is clear, Lord King, that your very own Jew was killed and we plead that that is so. We bring to court for the crime of his murder this Simon of Nodariis, and we assert that this evil act was planned, indeed enacted, with his advice and arrangement. And the diligence of the just judge fully knows what consequence so nefarious a deed truly deserves.

  ‘In order that you believe that it happened so, however, these come in proof of good faith: the fraudulent abduction; the path taken via a diversion; the opportune place and time; and the circumstances that made it easy to take care of the business. [1] The squire sent by the knight was appointed by arrangement, he was well known to the Jewish creditor, and he invited him [the Jew], as if to receive the payment, and led him away; [2] The route was distorted by roundabout diversions and avoided suspicious encounters; [3] On the road through the wood, the silence of the dark night provided the
opportunity; [4] The squire’s sword and the crowd of his associates, as rumour has it, lying in wait to pursue this purpose, made it easy to commit the crime. What other purpose could the knight – being so pressed by debt and unable to repay – have had, than to enter into a plan to get rid of such daily trouble of servitude, to reclaim his freedom, and, having done so, to put an end to the troublesome exactions?

  ‘And so, to make the matter even clearer, the debtor knight either wanted to pay and could, or wanted to and could not, or did not want to and could, or – the possibility which remains – did not want to and could not. If he wanted to and could, why did he not pay? Or why did he remain so long in bondage? If he wished to, but could not, this inability doubtless gradually led to a desire in his mind to be free. If he did not want to and could pay, thus the inner voice of the evil mind already conceived the misdeed. But if – and we think this most likely – he neither wished to pay nor could do so, it is clear that diligent and careful thought gave birth to the plan of the crime. Again, if he did not want the killing of the Jew, with which he is accused, if he knew nothing of it, if he had not planned it, why did he not repay the debt to the widow of the dead man or his heirs in order to remove any suspicion of evil from himself? Why did he carelessly neglect the undertaking by which he was bound to the creditor? And why has he become so insolent and obstinate that when we came to see him to settle the bond, he hurled at us abusive curses and aimed at us a multitude of threats, which we do not deserve. So we consider the guilt of the murderous knight to be sufficiently demonstrated, since we have explained both the case of the murder and the manner thereof, as well as the insolence of the killer and the audacity of his threats. We do not think it right that any Christian who wants to can kill a well-behaved Jew and go unpunished in this manner. And if what is without doubt illicit be left unpunished in this way, we doubt not that there will be many future imitators of his audacity, and, indeed, that worse will follow. Moreover, being very much afraid of this sort of thing and mourning the undeserved death of our brother, we beg you, just king, for your clemency, to provide for our peace and security, so that you will not let the undeserved death of your Jew pass unpunished.’

  Accused in this manner, the knight first denied that he was guilty in this matter, and then, having begged the king’s permission before answering, proceeded to consult his friends with care on the content of his response. And since the knight was, so to say, a vassal of the bishop, by the king’s permission, Bishop William went forth to confer with them and to offer the knight advice. And since all could see that in so difficult a case the speech for the defence would have to be something very special in quality, it was thought wise that in this case the bishop should act as defender of the knight, both because his authority would make the king – who seemed already to be persuaded – turn his mind to the case and be favourable, and that his skilful eloquence, by which he outstripped all others, would weaken the plea of his opponents and free the knight. And so the bishop, finally persuaded by much imploring, committed himself to the business. And since he had sensed that the king on one side and those present on the other were already incensed, he judged it best in such type of case to use openly at the outset a short statement to curry favour. With it the experienced orator would approach, step by step, the hostile minds of the listeners, and when he had won over their goodwill with such skill, the rest of the speech would be devoted to turning the accusation around. In this manner, as if armed with weapons, he stood up to engage in pleading the case; he returned from taking counsel with his people and began to deliver his statement before the king in this manner.

  The speech for the defence.

  ‘We agree that those who defraud their creditors – who deserve to be paid – and who, having defrauded them, kill them, should be detested and publicly punished. We consider that those who habitually violate trust, think nothing of oaths, pay little attention to the crime of lying, who wish not or know not how to seek remedy for their debts except by planning the death of another, should indeed be pursued assiduously. On the other hand, the Jew, of whose death the knight Simon is being accused, had had in his lifetime very many debtors besides Simon, some who owed him smaller, some equal, and others with even greater debts. If, indeed, someone – in order to get rid of the burden of debt – desired his death, it would appear more likely that it would be planned by a person pressed by a greater debt rather than by a smaller one. Who, however, would believe that he [Simon] desired the death of his creditor, whose death caused no little damage to him, and whose life was not without many benefits? By what sort of reasoning should I wish the death of someone whose untimely removal I fear and whose life I desire to have extended for all the good that it brings me? So it is with the knight who is being accused of the death of his creditor: if he loved him when alive as someone most useful and necessary in many ways, now dead, he has not stopped mourning him; how could he not mourn him – for whom he had so much love – when he died? And who can claim that he was delighted or pleased by his death – he who is mourning so over this loss? The squire utterly denies the guilt of the crime brought against him. As to the truth in this matter, we will explain it briefly as we have learned it from him. The knight, whom we are amazed [to see] accused in this matter, whom we have always known to be of good repute, mild, benign and harmless, was detained by some necessary domestic matters and so could not go to Norwich, and so through his squire he summoned his creditor to be repaid. The squire, according to the Jew’s arrangement, left the city with him in the silence of night and took a route he knew to be quite safe, so that in the darkness they would escape from the notice of evil men and avoid meeting all suspicious ones. After making a good part of the journey, and in a place where they suspected no ambush at all, they fell among thieves.63 The thieves arrived suddenly and seized them, threw them off their horses and dragged them along violently in order to rob them. Meanwhile, the Jew, as he tried to defend himself with a dagger he carried, fell to the ground, killed by a hostile sword. At which point the squire, thinking of his own safety, escaped from the hands of those seizing him, while the others were busy around the Jew, and saved his own life by quick escape through the thickness of the forest that was there. That is how, Lord King, it happened that the Jew was killed. You should not doubt that the knight to whom the guilt of his death is imputed is indeed innocent. Immediately upon learning of the atrocity committed, he deeply mourned the undeserved death of so notable a friend. Yet not even until this very hour, despite being assiduous in investigating it, has he been able to discover the perpetrators of so great a crime. And we do not wonder that rumour has strayed off the course of truth in this matter, but because we know false rumours arise daily, credence should not be accorded lightly to all rumours. Furthermore, the knight is very surprised that he is charged with threats and insults, because he himself always respected and much loved the Jews. And so let me conclude the whole matter with a brief summary: the knight is here to prove, as the court will require, that he neither wanted nor committed the murder of the Jew in question, nor knew of it in any way, contrary to what has been said, nor in any way did he insult the Jew. But, meanwhile, by your most serene wisdom, most just king, we wish to make clear to you that we think that we Christians should not have to answer in this manner to the accusation of the Jews, unless they are first cleared of the death of our Christian boy, of which they themselves are known to have been previously accused and have not been purged. And so we explain the whole matter – which pertains to all Christians – to your most Christian mercy, clearly and summarily: that Jew – with whose death the knight is charged, though innocent – together with some other Jews who lived in Norwich at the time, as rumour has it, subjected a Christian boy to tortures of a terrible kind, killed and hid him in the wood. In the days of our predecessor Bishop Everard the Jews were accused of this crime by a priest before the whole synod, but since the sheriff John was obstructive and supported them, the Christians were unable thereafter
to have any justice of the Jews. What is more, we have at hand that very priest, who, when and however the court desires, would prove them guilty of the aforementioned crime. Wherefore, if it would not displease the royal majesty, it seems sensible and just to us that just as the death of our Christian, carried out to insult and deride the Passion of Christ, took place before the death of the Jew, so indisputably the purgation of the knight should follow the proof of the accusing priest. And the rigour of justice should not be delayed too long, because we complain that so great a crime is unpunished to this very day, and beg that it be deferred no longer. So let everything be done in such a manner that Christ be to the fore in all things and that due reverence be displayed towards Christian law, as is appropriate.’

  As the bishop spoke in this manner the minds of the king and those present were moved and already so very much persuaded that they decided that the criminal audacity of the Jews be punished immediately, and were already more and more roused to vengeance. But, since the subject of the speech appeared to be of general interest to all Christians, the king commanded that it be delayed until the next council of clergy and barons was held in London. And so it was done. A while later, when the council was gathered, William, Bishop of Norwich, attended with many of his men and the accused knight. And a few days earlier the wisest Jews from the various cities of England came together in London to deliberate in joint counsel over the aforementioned speech and how they might secure their safety in so difficult a case, as the outcome of the affair later showed. Finding no other way out and, if we are to believe common rumour, by giving money to very corrupt royal advisers, they met with the king himself and – as they say – having given him a large sum of money, just managed to extort a pardon from him. They swiftly went from the meeting with him to the Bishop of Norwich, but despite having promised a large number of silver marks and that they would condone the death of the Jew, they succeeded not at all in corrupting the bishop’s mind. What need of more? Three days later, the king, bishops and barons all gathered, and among them was the aforementioned Bishop William. After much business had been transacted, he rose with the accused knight. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘Lord King, we are ready to restate our case and to hear forthwith your sentence and that of those around you.’ To whom the king said: ‘Since, Lord Bishop, we have been exhausted today by many speeches and are still detained by more to come, we cannot show this case the attention it deserves. But wait patiently for a while, while we cut these brambles off, so to speak, and then we can more readily sharpen the hatchet of our justice and apply it, as if to cut down a poisonous tree.64 And since the case is so very difficult, it is not fitting for us to enter or approach it hastily. For the more urgent and displeasing a case is, the more caution must be exhibited in attaining justice. And so let us postpone the case to another time and reserve it for a better opportunity: when possible and pleasing to us, we will undertake it anew with the help of common counsel.’