SAINT WILLIAM OF NORWICH

William of Norwich
Died 1144 March 25
Feast day: March 24

 William of Norwich is one of many boy "martyrs" who were allegedly ritually murdered by Jews out of hatred for the Christian faith. There were six other reports in the 12th century and 116 others between the 13th and 20th centuries. In some cases, a Jew did kill a child who happened to be a Christian, but the accusation of religious malice is ill-placed in most, if not all, cases.

At age 12, William of Norwich, an apprentice to a tanner in Norwich, England, died March 25, 1144 (Holy Saturday). He was abducted by a stranger who lured the boy with the promise that he would become the archdeacon's kitchen-boy. Another version says that William was kidnapped by two Jews and ritually tortured and crucified in derision of Christ. On Easter Day, the killers presumably put the body into a sack and hung it on a tree in Thropwood  Mousehold Wood near the gates of Norwich. His body was found in a wood outside Norwich, where a chapel was built and named Saint William's in the Wood. (The chapel fell into decay before the Reformation after a brief period as a pilgrimage site.) The story was forgotten until in 1149 a Jew named Eleazer was murdered, so William's murder was brought up.

There is no doubt that the boy was murdered, and the murderers may have been Jews, but there is no evidence that the boy was killed by Jews out of hatred for Christians, as was alleged at the time. His uncle Godwin raised the assertion that William was that year's victim of the annual sacrifice. The authorities did not credit the story; but the common people did, and William was venerated locally as a martyr. Because of the miracles said to have occurred at his grave, in 1144, his body was moved into the churchyard of Holy Trinity Cathedral; in 1150, into the choir. His cultus began in earnest when his body was translated in 1154 to the cathedral's martyrs' chapel (later the Jesus Chapel).

Though William's cultus was popular at the time, it didn't last very long. Visions and supposed miracles accompanied a translation; but by 1314 offerings at the shrine were substantially reduced and nearly non-existent by 1343. Even within the community of Norwich itself, there were doubts from the beginning. Papal letters from Innocent IV in 1247 and Gregory X in 1272 vigorously refuted the accusations against the Jews of ritual murder. These may have had some effect on the cultus, which was always only local.

This was the first accusation of its kind, but not the last  see    Saint Simon of Trent; Richard of Pontoise; Little Hugh of Lincoln .     Belief that the Jews killed Christian children for ritual purposes--though condemned by the popes--was fed in the later middle ages by a growing anti-semitism. No instance of the charge has been substantiated. For more information on the history of William's martyrdom and miracles, see Thomas of Monmouth, a contemporary monk of Norwich who wrote William's vita c. 1169; also the Saxon Chronicle of the person; and Bloomfield's History of Norfolk

In art, William is represented as a boy carrying three nails or being stabbed and crucified, while Jews look on. Screen paintings of William survive at Loddon, Eye, and Worstead in East Anglia