Beorn
09-26-2009, 01:24 AM
One of the darkest chapters in Lincoln's history is being revisited to help heal a schism between two different faiths.
The notorious story of Little Saint Hugh, popularised by medieval Canterbury Tales author Geoffrey Chaucer, encouraged hostility between Christians and Jews in Lincoln which lasted for centuries.
In the Prioress's Tale Chaucer wrote that Hugh, the nine-year-old son of a widow called Beatrice, had been lured into the home of a man named Koppin, imprisoned, scourged, crowned with thorns, and crucified in mockery of Jesus.
His body was then thrown into a well in Lincoln to hide it and to poison the water. Whatever the truth of how Hugh died, 19 Jews were rounded up in 1255 and hanged for the crime without any evidence of guilt.
Now the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, will be sung in Hebrew in Lincoln Cathedral as part of a ceremony to unveil a new sign which fully explains the city's shrine to Hugh.
Cathedral spokesman the Very Reverend Philip Buckler said: "This is a significant moment in the history of Lincoln Cathedral and for our neighbours in the Jewish community.
"This new sign is a symbol of changed attitudes and the rejection of false prejudice – it can speak clearly to our world today of the need to overcome ancient misunderstandings and create new relationships."
The text of the sign, explaining the facts of the false allegation against the Jewish community and the fabrication's fatal consequences, was written cathedral education officer Carol Bennett, Professor Brian Winston, representing the Lincoln Jewish Community and Marcus Roberts, an historian of Anglo-Jewry.
Professor Winston said: "I feel there could be no better symbol of the changed relationship between Lincoln and its Jewish population than this initiative."
Source (http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/news/Jewish-prayer-sung-cathedral/article-1367993-detail/article.html)
Unbelievable! Words simply fail me. How anyone can still consider history from as far back as 800 years ago as even worthy of a collective apology as pertinent is beyond me. I seriously wonder if a Synagogue in Israel is in the midst of atoning for the sins committed against Christians?
The notorious story of Little Saint Hugh, popularised by medieval Canterbury Tales author Geoffrey Chaucer, encouraged hostility between Christians and Jews in Lincoln which lasted for centuries.
In the Prioress's Tale Chaucer wrote that Hugh, the nine-year-old son of a widow called Beatrice, had been lured into the home of a man named Koppin, imprisoned, scourged, crowned with thorns, and crucified in mockery of Jesus.
His body was then thrown into a well in Lincoln to hide it and to poison the water. Whatever the truth of how Hugh died, 19 Jews were rounded up in 1255 and hanged for the crime without any evidence of guilt.
Now the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, will be sung in Hebrew in Lincoln Cathedral as part of a ceremony to unveil a new sign which fully explains the city's shrine to Hugh.
Cathedral spokesman the Very Reverend Philip Buckler said: "This is a significant moment in the history of Lincoln Cathedral and for our neighbours in the Jewish community.
"This new sign is a symbol of changed attitudes and the rejection of false prejudice – it can speak clearly to our world today of the need to overcome ancient misunderstandings and create new relationships."
The text of the sign, explaining the facts of the false allegation against the Jewish community and the fabrication's fatal consequences, was written cathedral education officer Carol Bennett, Professor Brian Winston, representing the Lincoln Jewish Community and Marcus Roberts, an historian of Anglo-Jewry.
Professor Winston said: "I feel there could be no better symbol of the changed relationship between Lincoln and its Jewish population than this initiative."
Source (http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/news/Jewish-prayer-sung-cathedral/article-1367993-detail/article.html)
Unbelievable! Words simply fail me. How anyone can still consider history from as far back as 800 years ago as even worthy of a collective apology as pertinent is beyond me. I seriously wonder if a Synagogue in Israel is in the midst of atoning for the sins committed against Christians?