Editing Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (section)

==Legacy and significance==
{{Further|Blood libel|Sir Hugh}}
The myth of ritual child murder was a continuing theme in anti-semitism and long-standing in English culture.<ref>Simon Sharma 'The Story of the Jews Finding the Words (London: Random House 2013) p. 307-310</ref> The Hugh story is referenced by [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[Canterbury Tales]]'' in ''[[The Prioress's Tale]]''. [[Christopher Marlowe]] also apparently refers to the story in ''[[The Jew of Malta]]'', where Friar Jacomo at the end of Act Three asks of a Jew, "What, has he crucified a child?"<ref>''[[The Jew of Malta]]'', Act Three, Scene Six, Line 49.</ref> Again, Marlowe may have known the story through Paris's account. The story is retold as fact in [[Thomas Fuller]]'s 1662 ''Worthies of England''.<ref name=fuller>{{harvnb|Fuller|1662}}; Lincolnshire, ''HUGH [SAINT HUGH OF LINCOLN, b. 1246?]''</ref>{{efn|Fuller says of Hugh: [he was] "a child, born and living in Lincoln, who by the impious Jews was stolen from his parents, and in derision of Christ and Christianity, to keep their cruel hands in use, by them crucified, being about nine years old. Thus he lost his life, but got a saintship thereby; and some afterwards persuaded themselves that they got their cures at his shrine in Lincoln.<br/>"However, this made up the measure of the sins of the Jews in England, for which not long after they were ejected the land, or, which is the truer, unwillingly they departed themselves. And whilst they retain their old manners, may they never return, especially in this giddy and unsettled age, for fear more Christians fall sick of Judaism, than Jews recover in Christianity."<ref name=fuller/>}}

Ballads referring to the incident circulated in England, Scotland and France.<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|1904|pp=487–488}}</ref> The earliest English and French versions appear to have been composed near the time.<ref>{{harvnb|McCabe|1980|p=282}}</ref> The "[[Sir Hugh]]" ballad went through many variations, and was still well known into the nineteenth and twentieth century, when versions could be found in the United States.

Langmuir describes the fantasy concocted by Lexington as contributing to some of the darkest strands of anti-Jewish prejudice. Lexington:

<blockquote>inspired Matthew Paris to write a vivid garbled yarn that would ring in men's minds for centuries and blind modern historians. A century and a half later, Geoffrey Chaucer, after letting the legend of the singing boy slip from the prioress's lips, would inevitably be reminded of England's most famous proof of Jewish evil and conclude with an invocation to young Hugh – whose alleged fate neither he nor his audience were likely to question. John de Lexinton died in January, 1257, and his elegant learning will not be described in any history of mediaeval thought, yet his tale of young Hugh of Lincoln became a strand in English literature and a support for irrational beliefs about Jews from 1255 to Auschwitz. It is time he received his due 'credit' for such wickedness.<ref>{{harvnb|Langmuir|1972|pp=481–482}}</ref></blockquote>

The Hugh myth continued to resonate into the nineteenth century, when European antisemitic polemicists attempted to 'prove' the veracity of the story.<ref>{{harvnb|Langmuir|1972|pp=459–60}}</ref> In the twentieth century, a well in the former Jewish neighbourhood of [[Jews' Court, Lincoln]] was advertised as 'the well in which Hugh's body was found', however this was found to have been constructed some time prior to 1928 to increase the tourist attraction of the property.<ref>{{harvnb|Langmuir|1972|p=461}}</ref> A Lincolnshire preparatory school, [[St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa]], was named after Little St Hugh in 1925; its school badge featured a ball travelling over a wall.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Martineau|first1=Hugh|title=Half a Century of St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa|date=1975|publisher=Cupit and Hindley|location=Horncastle|page=2}}</ref>

In 1955, the [[Church of England]] placed a plaque at the site of Little Hugh's former shrine in Lincoln Cathedral, bearing these words:

<blockquote>
By the remains of the shrine of "Little St Hugh".

Trumped up stories of "ritual murders" of Christian boys by Jewish communities were common throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and even much later. These fictions cost many innocent Jews their lives. Lincoln had its own legend and the alleged victim was buried in the Cathedral in the year 1255.

Such stories do not redound to the credit of Christendom, and so we pray:

Lord, forgive what we have been,<br>
amend what we are,<br>
and direct what we shall be.<ref>{{harvnb|Coakley|Pailin|1993}}</ref>
</blockquote>