page_title: Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
section_title: The accusation and myth
hierarchical_section_title: Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln / The accusation and myth
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawing of the headless statue of Little St Hugh at Lincoln Cathedral, by Smart Lethieullier. The headless statue was originally made in the 13th century, and held at the niche at the head of the shrine in the south choir aisle of Lincoln Cathedral.
context_page_description: Hugh of Lincoln was an English boy whose death was falsely attributed to Jews. He is sometimes known as Little Saint Hugh or Little Sir Hugh to distinguish him from 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 canonised, so "Little Saint Hugh" is a misnomer.
  It is likely that the Bishop and Dean of Lincoln steered events in order to establish a profitable flow of pilgrims to the shrine of a martyr and saint. Hugh's death is significant because it was the first time that the Crown gave credence to ritual child murder allegations, through the direct intervention of King Henry III. As a result, in contrast to other English blood libels, the story entered the historical record, medieval literature and popular ballads that circulated until the twentieth century.
context_section_description: The nine-year-old Hugh disappeared on 31 July, and his body was discovered in a well on 29 August. It was claimed that Jews had imprisoned Hugh, during which time they 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.
  The chronicler Matthew Paris described the supposed murder, implicating all the Jews in England:
  This year [1255] about the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul [27 July], the Jews of Lincoln stole a boy called Hugh, who was about eight years old. After shutting him up in a secret chamber, where they fed him on milk and other childish food, they sent to almost all the cities of England in which there were Jews, and summoned some  of their sect from each city to be present at a sacrifice to take place  at Lincoln, in contumely and insult of Jesus Christ. For, as they said, they had a boy concealed for the purpose of being crucified; so a great number of them assembled at Lincoln, and then they appointed a Jew of Lincoln judge, to take the place of Pilate, by whose sentence, and with the concurrence of all, the boy was subjected to various tortures. They scourged him till the blood flowed, they crowned him with thorns, mocked him, and spat upon him; each of them also pierced him with a knife, and they made him drink gall, and scoffed  at him with blasphemous insults, and kept gnashing their teeth and  calling him Jesus, the false prophet. And after tormenting him in diverse ways they crucified him, and pierced him to the heart with a spear. When the boy was dead, they took the body down from the cross, and for some reason disemboweled it; it is said for the purpose of their magic arts.
  While the Paris account is important as the most famous and influential version of the myth, due to his own popularity as a chronicler and talent as storyteller, it is also thought to be the least reliable of the contemporary accounts of what had taken place. Other contemporary accounts include the Annals of the Abbey of Burton on Trent and Waverley.
caption: Drawing of a 13th-century statue of St Hugh at Lincoln Cathedral, by 18th-century antiquary Smart Lethieullier. This statue was posed at the head of the Shrine of Little St Hugh.[4]
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