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, thanks 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, and burnt alive (Fig. 362).  In order to perpetuate the memory of the miracle of the bleeding hosts, an annual procession took place, which was the origin of the great kermesse, or annual fair.