they possessed, and listened tremblingly to the
clamour of the multitude which was about to besiege them.

[Illustration: Fig. 359.--Secret Meeting of the Jews at the Rabbi's
House.--Fac-simile of a Miniature of the "Pelerinage de la Vie Humaine,"
Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.]

In 1255, in Lincoln, the report was suddenly spread that a child of the
name of Hughes had been enticed into the Jewish quarter, and there
scourged, crucified, and pierced with lances, in the presence of all the
Israelites of the district, who were convoked and assembled to take part
in this horrible barbarity. The King and Queen of England, on their return
from a journey to Scotland, arrived in Lincoln at the very time when the
inhabitants were so much agitated by this mysterious announcement. The
people called for vengeance. An order was issued to the bailiffs and
officers of the King to deliver the murderer into the hands of justice,
and the quarter in which the Jews had shut themselves up, so as to avoid
the public animosity, was immediately invaded by armed men. The rabbi, in
whose house the child was supposed to have been tortured, was seized, and
at once condemned to be tied to the tail of a horse, and dragged through
the streets of the town. After this, his mangled body, which was only half
dead, was hung (Fig. 359). Many of the Jews ran away and hid themselves in
all parts of the kingdom, and those who had the misfortune to be caught
were thrown into chains and led to London. Orders were given in the
provinces to imprison all the Israelites who were accused or even
suspected of having taken any part, whether actively or indirectly, in the
murder of the Lincoln child; and suspicion made rapid strides in those
days. In a short space of time, eighteen Israelites in London shared the
fate of the rabbi of their community in Lincoln. Some Dominican monks, who
were charitable and courageous enough to interfere in favour of the
wretched prisoners, brought down odium on their own heads, and were
accused of having allowed themselves to be corrupted by the money of the
Jews. Seventy-one prisoners were retained in the dungeons of London, and
seemed inevitably fated to die, when the king's brother, Richard, came to
their aid, by asserting his right over all the Jews of the kingdom--a
right which the King had pledged to him for a loan of 5,000 silver marks.
The unfortunate prisoners were therefore saved, than