Hugh of Lincoln (c. 1246-1255)

English Christian child. Traditionally he is alleged to have been crucified by a group of Jews in Lincoln, England. Having been accused of the child's death, the group's leader, Copin, was brought to trial and executed on the orders of the king, along with a number of others supposedly involved. Reputed miracles were claimed after the discovery of the body and a shrine was made at Lincoln. The story of Hugh's martyrdom, today regarded as fictitious, was popular during the Middle Ages and provides the theme of the ‘Prioress's Tale’ in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (c. 1387). It is also referred to by Christopher Marlowe in The Jew of Malta (c. 1591).