A few years afterwards Chaucer, in his _Prioresses Tale_, immortalised the monkish fiction of child-murder, which had already done yeoman’s service in justifying the persecution of the Jews. Chaucer’s child, to judge from the scene of its murder being laid in Asia, seems to be the eldest member of the large family of massacred Innocents, representatives of which are to be met with in nearly every European country. “Heere bigynneth the Prioresses tale: “There was in Asie, in a gret citee, Amonges Cristen folk a Jewerye, Sustened by a lord of that contree, For foule usure and lucre of vilanye, Hateful to Crist and to his companye; And thurgh the strete men myght ryde or wende, For it was free, and open at eyther ende.” At the further end of this Jewish quarter stood a little school for Christian children, who learnt in it “swich maner doctrine as men used there,” that is, “to singen and to rede.” Among these youthful scholars was a widow’s son, “a litel clergeon, seven year of age,” whom his mother had taught to kneel and pray before the Virgin’s image. Day by day on his way to and from school, as he passed through the Jewry, this Innocent used full merrily to sing “Alma Redemptoris”: “The swetnes hath his herte perced so Of Cristes mooder, that, to hir to preye, He can not stinte of singing by the weye.” But “Our firste foo, the serpent Sathanas, That hath in Jewes herte his waspes nest,” was sorely vexed at the child’s piety, and stirred up the inmates of the Jewry with such words: “O Hebraik peple, allas! Is this to yow a thing that is honest, That swich a boy shal walken as him lest In your despyt, and singe of swich sentence, Which is again your lawes reverence?” The Jews took the hint, and conspired to chase this Innocent out of the world. They hired a homicide, and, as the boy went by, this cursed Jew seized him, cut his throat, and cast him into a pit. The poor widow waited all night for her little child in vain, and as soon as it was daylight she hastened to the school and elsewhere, seeking it, until she heard that it had last been seen in the Jewry. Half distracted with anguish and fear, she continued her search among the accursed Jews, now calling on Christ’s mother for help, now imploring every Jew she met to tell her if her child had passed that way. They all answered and said no! But Jesus, who loves to hear his praises sung by the mouth of Innocence, directed her steps to the pit, and there, wondrous to relate, she heard her child, with its throat cut from ear to ear, singing lustily “Alma Redemptoris.” “So loude, that al the place gan to ringe.”