Historical Note

 

HISTORICAL NOTE

 

"A curious incident is brought to our attention from the year 1377. In December of that coldest year in the medieval records, the village of Duns in the northeast of England suffered a great tragedy.  Five of its young boys were burned to death in a house fire near the center of the village.

 

As was common with many tragic events in that century, it was supposed the Jews were to blame. Yet all Jews were destroyed, forcibly converted, or expelled from England by order of the Crown, some fifty years earlier, in 1325.

           

Although most English peasants at that time had never traveled during the course of their lives more than twenty miles from the place of their birth, five men from the village of Duns loaded the charred bodies of their children on a farm cart and journeyed over 200 miles to London. The record of the Court states that the villagers went to present the bodies to the King, and to demand justice against the Jews.

           

                        The historical record is clear on these few facts.

           

History does not record any further details about the incident — neither the motivations, intentions, nor experiences of those who undertook this arduous journey are noted. Not a single person from the village is identified, not even the guilty party. " 

 

         —- The Hollow Womb: Child Loss in the Middle Ages, Miria Hallum