ks to Richard's desire
to protect his securities. History does not tell what their liberty cost
them; but we must hope that a sense of justice alone guided the English
prince, and that the Jews found other means besides money by which to show
their gratitude.

There is scarcely a country in Europe which cannot recount similar tales.
In 1171, we find the murder of a child at Orleans, or Blois, causing
capital punishment to be inflicted on several Jews. Imputations of this
horrible character were continually renewed during the Middle Ages, and
were of very ancient origin; for we hear of them in the times of Honorius
and Theodosius the younger; we find them reproduced with equal vehemence
in 1475 at Trent, where a furious mob was excited against the Jews, who
were accused of having destroyed a child twenty-nine months old named
Simon. The tale of the martyrdom of this child was circulated widely, and
woodcut representations of it were freely distributed, which necessarily
increased, especially in Germany, the horror which was aroused in the
minds of Christians against the accursed nation (Fig. 361).

[Illustration: Fig. 360.--The Infant Richard crucified by the Jews, at
Pontoise.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut, with Figures by Wohlgemuth, in the
"Liber Chronicarum Mundi:" large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]

[Illustration: Fig. 361.--Martyrdom of Simon at Trent.--Fac-simile,
reduced, of a Woodcut of Wohlgemuth, in the "Liber Chronicarum Mundi:"
large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]

The Jews gave cause for other accusations calculated to keep up this
hatred; such as the desecration of the consecrated host, the mutilation of
the crucifix. Tradition informs us of a miracle which took place in Paris
in 1290, in the Rue des Jardins, when a Jew dared to mutilate and boil a
consecrated host. This miracle was commemorated by the erection of a
chapel on the spot, which was afterwards replaced by the church and
convent of the Billettes. In 1370, the people of Brussels were startled in
consequence of the statements of a Jewess, who accused her co-religionists
of having made her carry a pyx full of stolen hosts to the Jews of
Cologne, for the purpose of submitting them to the most horrible
profanations. The woman added, that the Jews having pierced these hosts
with sticks and knives, such a quantity of blood poured from them that the
culprits were struck with terror, and concealed themselves in their
quarter. The Jews were all imprisoned, tortured,