Robert of Bury

Saint Robert of Bury
15th century illumination depicting the martyrdom of St. Robert of Bury. Top left, a woman seems to be placing Robert's body in a well; top right, it is lying next to a tree with an archer standing by. The precise meaning of these scenes is unknown. At bottom, a monk prays to Robert's soul
Martyr
Died	1181 Gloucester, England
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Major shrine	Bury St Edmunds
Catholic cult suppressed	1536

Saint Robert of Bury (died 1181) was an English boy, allegedly murdered and found in the town of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk in 1181. His death at a time of rising anti-Semitism was blamed on local Jews. Though a hagiography of Robert was written, no copies are known, so the story of his life is now unknown beyond the few fragmentary references to it that survive. His cult continued until the English Reformation.

Robert of Bury joined a small group of 12th century English saints of strikingly similar characteristics: all young boys, all mysteriously found dead and all hailed as martyrs to alleged anti-Christian practices among Jews. Contemporary assumptions made about the circumstances of their deaths are typical of blood libel. The first of these was William of Norwich (d.1144), whose death and cult were probably an influence on the story that grew up around the death of Robert.

Tradition states that Robert was kidnapped and then killed on Good Friday 1181. By the 1190s Robert had become the focus of a martyr cult. Jocelin de Brakelond, a monk of Bury St. Edmunds, later wrote a chronicle covering this period. He also mentions writing a book about the life and miracles performed by the boy saint, but this book has not survived.

Information about the circumstances of his death remains unclear. John of Taxster is the source for the date. Jocelyn's surviving account, in his history of the abbey of Bury, says only "the saintly boy Robert was murdered and buried in our church; many signs and wonders were performed among the people as I have recorded elsewhere." Another record merely states that he was "martyred" at Easter by Jews. A later record refers to him as "a boy crucified by the Jews".

John Lydgate wrote a poem entitled Prayer for St. Robert, which implies that the story of his death closely mirrored that of William of Norwich, in which Jews are supposed to have kidnapped the child with the help of a Judas-like Christian accomplice, tortured and then crucified him over Easter in a parody of Jesus's death. Lydgate says he was "scourged and nailed to a tree". An illustration to a Latin prayer to Robert depicts him lying dead in a ditch beside a tree, with an archer nearby shooting an arrow upwards, illuminated by a giant sun. Another image shows a woman holding the child over a well with the inscription "the old woman wished, but was not able, to hide the light of God". This may be the "nurse" obliquely mentioned in Lydgate's poem, possibly the Christian accomplice. Alternatively, she may be a Jewish woman trying to hide the body after the murder.