Skeletons discovered in England, victims of an anti-Semitic massacre in the Middle Ages

Fifteen human skeletons discovered in 2004 at the bottom of a medieval well in the United Kingdom are probably those of victims of an anti-Semitic massacre perpetrated more than 800 years ago, reveals a study.

The attack is said to have occurred in 1190 in the city of Norwich (eastern England), where a few decades earlier local Jews had been accused of murdering a Christian child, which had sown the seeds of a “anti-Semitic theory of “Jewish conspiracy” which continues to this day”, write the authors of the study. Scientists have deployed a multitude of techniques, including genetics, to lift the veil on this mysterious slaughter.

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It all started in 2004 with the discovery, during development work, of at least 17 human remains – 6 adults and 11 children – in an old well. The bodies had been dumped there haphazardly, some placed head first, suggesting a violent death.

Ian Barnes, a geneticist at the National Museum of Natural History in London, began to take an interest in it in 2011, when he was working on a documentary devoted to unsolved cases (“cold case”) of history. “We first thought that these individuals had been victims of a plague-type epidemic, or of a famine”tells AFP this geneticist, one of the authors of the study published this week in Current Biology.

Similar genetic predispositions

Radiocarbon dating was able to determine that the deaths had occurred at a time between 1161 and 1216. In parallel, analyzes of ancient DNA taken from six of the victims revealed that they were predisposed to certain genetic diseases. Numerical simulations then showed that the frequency of these diseases – which could have struck these people because of their predispositions – was almost similar to that observed in contemporary Ashkenazi Jewish populations. Suggesting a probable common ancestor.

These results shed new light on a known episode in history but not precisely dated and whose cause is unknown, during which the Ashkenazi Jewish population suddenly decreased. It is this event, called a demographic bottleneck, which is at the origin of these genetic variants.

According to Mark Thomas, study co-author and geneticist at University College London, these findings “strongly suggest” that this bottleneck preceded the Norwich massacre, and that it would have occurred much earlier than previously estimated. The scientists also discovered that a young boy buried in the well had red hair – an anti-Semitic stereotype at the time.

In the end, all their analyzes converged on documented anti-Semitic riots which broke out in Norwich on February 6, 1190. “Anti-Semitic sentiment was then reinforced by the preparations for the third crusade” intended to retake Jerusalem, underlines Ian Barnes.

And less than 50 years earlier, the family of William of Norwich, a young boy found brutally murdered, blamed local Jews for the murder. The case was the first known case of an anti-Semitic accusation of ritual murder against Christian children.

“These bodies found in the well represent a unique opportunity to go back to the roots of the theories of “Jewish conspiracy” that still persist today”commented, in a Tweet, Adam Rutherford, a geneticist at University College London, who did not take part in the study.