The Jews were again accused of crucifying a child. The story and the made-up circumstances are so extraordinary, that I shall give you the whole account, as given by Matthew Paris, and translated by William Prynne, in his malicious Demurrer. “Anno 1244 in August, the corpse of a little male child was found buried in the city of London, in whose thighs and arms, and under whose paps, there was a regular inscription in Hebrew letters. To which spectacle when as many resorted, admiring at it, and not knowing how to read the letters, knowing that the letters were Hebrew, they called thither converted Jews who inhabited the house which the king had founded in London, that they as they loved their life or members, for the honour, love, and fear of their Lord the King, without figment of falsehood, might declare that writing. For the king’s bailiffs, and conservators of the peace were present. They likewise believed, neither without cause, that the Jews had either crucified that little child in obloquy and contumely of Christ (which was related frequently to have happened) or had afflicted him with sundry torments to crucify him, and when he had given up the ghost, they had now cast him there, as unworthy the cross. Moreover, there appeared in his body blue marks, and rents of rods, and manifest signs and footsteps of some other torment. And when as those converts were brought to read those things that were inscribed, and studied that they might perfectly read them, they found the letters deformed, and now not legible, being many ways disordered, and tossed up and down, by reason of the extension and contraction of the skin and flesh. But they found the name of the father and mother of the little child, suppressing their surnames, and that the child was sold to the Jews; but to whom, or to what end, they could not find. In the mean time, certain of the London Jews took a secret and sudden flight, never to return again, who by this very thing rendered themselves suspected. And some affirmed, that the Lord had wrought miracles for the child. And because it was found that the Jews at other times had perpetrated such wickedness, and the holy bodies crucified had been solemnly received in the Church, and likewise to have shined brightly with miracles, although the prints of the five wounds appeared not in the hands and feet and side of the said corpse, yet the canons of St. Paul took it violently away, and solemnly buried it in their church, not far from the great altar.” To the honour and credit of the then Jewish converts, let this event be recorded, that though they were stimulated by the Christians to accuse their unconverted brethren, by whom they were so violently hated, they brought no accusation whatever against their enemies; and their total silence respecting the charge of crucifying Christian children should have convinced the dignitaries of the Church, that that charge was nothing more but a base and false calumny.