Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln: A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval EnglandMarson, Charles L. (Charles Latimer)
History
Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln: A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England
Marson, Charles L. (Charles Latimer)
Hugh, of Lincoln, Saint, 1140-1200
{4} He was acting by a Canon of 1138, passed at Westminster.
{5} Thornholm is near Appleby, and is a wooded part of the county even
to this day.
{6} From this and from various incidental remarks it may be concluded
that Hugh knew Hebrew, which is not remarkable, because the learned just
then had taken vigorously to that tongue and had to be restrained from
taking lessons too ardently in the Ghetto. Some of his incidental
remarks certainly did not come from St. Jerome, the great cistern of
mediaeval Hebrew.
CHAPTER V
THE BISHOP AT WORK
Henry was dead before his friend was three years a bishop, and with him
died Hugh's hopes of better men on the bench, for Richard's bishops were
treasurers, justiciars and everything but fathers of their dioceses.
Tall, blue-eyed, golden-haired Richard the Viking, had a simple view of
his father's Empire. It was a fine basis for military operations.{7} He
loosed some of the people's burdens to make them pay more groats. He
unlocked the gaols. He made concessions to France and Scotland. He
frowned upon the Jews, a frown which only meant that he was going to
squeeze them, but which his people interpreted into a permission to
wreak their hatred, malice, and revenge upon the favoured usurers.
The massacre of Jews which began in London and finally culminated in the
fearful scenes of York, spread to other parts and broke out in place
after place. In Lent (1190) the enlisting for the crusade was going on
in Stamford. The recruits, "indignant that the enemies of the Cross of
Christ who lived there should possess so much, while they themselves
had so little for the expenses of so great a journey," rushed upon the
Jews. The men of Stamford tried to stop the riot, but were overcome, and
if it had not been for the Castle the Jews would have been killed to a
man. Two of the plunderers fell out over the booty. One, John by name,
was killed, martyred it was supposed. The old women had dreams about
him. Miracles began. A shrine was set up and robber John began to
develop into Saint John. Then down came the bishop, scattered the
watchers and worshippers, hacked down the shrine and forbade any more
such adoration of Jew-baiting thieves, with a thundering anathema. The
Lincoln people next began the same game, but they did not reckon with
the new warden, Gerard de Camville, who had bought the revenues and
provided a harbour there for the Israelites. We may believe that the
bishop also was not behind hand in quelling such bloody ruffianism, for
the Jews were afterwards very conspicuous in their grief at his death,
evidently owing him something.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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