When Faith Turns Bad

You'll have to bear with me on this one. We're going down a rather darker alley than we have trodden so far - an alley that will lead us back to the year 1255 before heading to more recent, though no lighter, times.

When I was at school (no, this isn't the mediaeval bit, thank you) I was lucky to have an extremely good English teacher. As well as covering Shakespeare we delved into the murky world of English and Scottish ballads. The word 'ballad' has been misappropriated somewhat recently and is now associated with the sort of love songs that famous mono-brow Chris de Burgh seemed to have made his own when 'Lady in Red' was released. Originally a ballad was simply a song that told a story. Ballads were written about love, sure, but it was either unrequited, or extremely well requited. Many ballads have a supernatural element which lift them above the ordinary.

One that we studied was called "Little Sir Hugh". This song was covered by 60's folk-rock combo Steeleye Span on the album "Commoner's Crown".

In this tale the titular hero is harmlessly playing ball when he acidentally kicks said item over the castle wall. He asks for his ball back but gets ritually sacrificed instead. The song is pretty gaphic, particularly when dealing with poor Hugh's body being bled:-

Out came the thick, thick blood,
Out came the thin,
Out came the bonny heart's-blood,
'Til there was none within.

Hugh's body is then chucked down a well. This is where the Span version ends.

The original versions contain rather more detail. Church bells ring out without the attention of bellringers and the bibles sing out the whereabouts of the poor unfortunate lad's body.

The original also states that the castle over which wall Hugh's ball is kicked belongs to the "Jew".

Today this is shocking enough - at least it should be. The story is made even more shocking when you realise that it is based, at least in part, on factual events.

In August 1255 a young lad of eight years was found dead in a stream near Lincoln. Six months prior to this, the king, Henry III, had lost a large source of income to his brother. As mediaeval England was largely bankrolled by Jewish moneylenders he decided that all lands and titles owned by Jews who were convicted of any crime would be forfeit to the crown.

A Jew named Copin admitted to killing Hugh after being threatened with torture. His confession stated that Jews crucified a Christian child every year, bleeding them dry. Some ninety Jews were rounded up in the Lincoln area. Eighteen of them were hanged and their property seized.

Only a few years prior to this, in 1190, Jews had been massacred in York because of the money owed by the king to moneylenders. He tapped into a deep grain of anti-semitism that threaded right through English society and used his appointed sherriffs to incite riots.

And what was this hatred based upon? The belief that Jews had killed Christ.

For this piece I shall gloss over the whole theological issue of Christ's "death" and just focus on the fact that this hatred was based on faith - and by faith I mean "belief in something for which there is no evidence".

Unfortunately, such faith is still appallingly prevalent, and it still kills.

Elizabeth Ashley King, aged 12, died in 1988 of bone cancer. Her tumour was over a yard in circumference and she was in appalling pain. She was placed in the care of the Phoenix Christian Science nursing home. The only treatment they gave her was prayer.

Elizabeth's death and the murder of the Jews following Hugh's unfortunate demise are the result of the same thing - religious ignorance and the willingness of the faithful to act on belief without evidence.