The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle on the Jews

In the Peterborough Manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 1137 we read:

‘Now we wish to tell some part of what happened in King Stephen’s time. In his time the Jews of Norwich bought a Christian child before Easter, and tortured him with the same tortures with which our Lord was tortured, and on Good Friday hanged him on a cross for love of our Lord and afterwards burying him – imagined him concealed, but our Lord showed that he was a holy martyr, and the monks took him and buried him reverently in the minster, and through our Lord he performs wonderful and manifold miracles; and he is called St. William.’ (1)

I present this quotation here without significant elaboration, but I will be going into the jewish ritual murder (aka the ‘Blood Libel’) of William of Norwich – that which is the subject of this entry in the manuscript – in detail soon. However I just wanted to put this little titbit out there for others to use in their own research.

References

(1) M. J. Swanton (Ed. And Trans.), 1996, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, 1st Edition, J.M. Dent: London, pp. 265-266