Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln

Hugh of Lincoln
The body of Hugh in its shrine, drawn by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm
Little Sir Hugh
Born	1246
Died	27 August 1255 (aged 8-9)
Venerated in	Folk Catholicism
Major shrine	Lincoln Cathedral
Feast	27 July

Hugh of Lincoln (1246 – 27 August 1255) was an English boy whose death was falsely attributed to Jews. Hugh is sometimes incorrectly known as Little Saint Hugh (sometimes "Little Sir Hugh") to distinguish him from Saint Hugh of Lincoln, an adult saint. Hugh became one of the best known of the blood libel 'saints': generally children whose deaths were interpreted as Jewish sacrifices. Little Sir Hugh was never actually canonised.

The nine-year-old Hugh disappeared on 31 July, and his body was discovered in a well on 29 August. A man called John of Lexington appears to have suggested that Jews were responsible. Hugh's friends apparently claimed that Copin (or Jopin), a local Jew, had imprisoned Hugh, during which time he tortured and eventually crucified him. It was said that the body had been thrown into the well after attempts to bury it failed, when the earth had expelled it. Copin was arrested and, under torture, confessed to killing the child. He later appears to have implicated the Jewish community as a whole. He was executed, and the story would have ended there were it not for a series of events that coincided with the child Hugh's disappearance.

Some six months earlier, King Henry III had sold his rights to tax the Jews to his brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Having lost this source of income, he declared that if a Jew was convicted of a crime, any money he had would then belong to the king. As a result, some ninety Jews were arrested in connection with Hugh's disappearance and death and held in the Tower of London, charged with ritual murder. Such accusations had become increasingly common following the circulation of the Life of Saint William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth, the hagiography of William of Norwich, a child-saint said to have been crucified by Jews in 1144. This story clearly influenced the myth that developed around Hugh.

Eighteen of the Jews were hanged for refusing to participate in the proceedings by throwing themselves on the mercy of a Christian jury. It was the first time ever the civil government handed out a death sentence for a conviction of ritual murder. King Henry promptly expropriated the property of those convicted. The others were pardoned and set free, most likely because Richard, who saw a potential threat to his own source of income, intervened on their behalf.