He died in 1235, and is buried in the north choir aisle. His extremely harsh treatment of the Jews leads us to the curiously tragic events in the life of the third Hugh, called the “Little St. Hugh.” He was born in 1246, and only lived nine years. That great man Grosteste, or Grostête, had succeeded Hugh of Wells, and died after an active episcopate of eighteen years, in 1254. His successor, Henry Lexington, had procured leave to extend the cathedral close beyond the Roman city wall in order to build the beautiful presbytery or angel choir for the shrine of Hugh I. He was still engaged on this when the persecution which the Jews had long endured produced such a bitter feeling that they were believed to be capable of kidnapping and crucifying, or by less conspicuous methods, putting to death a Christian boy when they had a chance. Hugh was said to be a chorister who disappeared, and his mother, led by a dream, discovered his body in a well outside the Newport Gate. A Jew called Jopin, or Chopin, but in a French ballad Peitevin, was accused of his murder, and is said to have confessed and to have been put to death with others of his nation with no small barbarity. He has left his memory at Lincoln in the name of “The Jews’ House,” which is given to the Norman building on the steep hill. This story was not uncommon, and told with much detail, as having really happened, in several places; nor is the belief in it yet dead. The boy’s body was given to the canons of the cathedral, who buried him with much solemnity in the south aisle of the choir, and set a small shrine over him, to which folk came to worship, and he received the title of “the Little St. Hugh.” [Illustration: _St. Mary’s Guild, Lincoln._] [Sidenote: THE JEWS] This story is referred to by Chaucer, who wrote a hundred years later in “The Prioress’ Tale”:— “O younge Hew of Lincoln sleyn also With cursed Jewes, as it is notable, For it nis but a litel whyle ago.” His story makes the murdered boy reveal himself by singing “O alma Redemptoris Mater” “loude and clere,” although, as he says— “My throte is cut unto my nekke-bon.” and he does not stop singing till a ‘greyn’ is taken from his tongue by the abbot “and he yaf up the goost ful softely.” Marlowe has a similar story in his “Jew of Malta,” and ballads constantly were made on this theme. Sir Charles Anderson quotes one beginning:— “The bonny boys of merry Lincoln Were playing at the ball, And with them stood the sweet Sir Hugh, The flower of them all. Whom cursed Jews did crucify,” &c. He was buried, in 1255, next to Bishop Grosteste, who had died two years before.