Robert of Bury

Robert of Bury (died 1181) was an English boy, allegedly murdered and found in the town of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk in 1181. His death, which occurred at a time of rising antisemitism, was blamed on local Jews. Though a hagiography of Robert was written, no copies are known, so the story of his life is now unknown beyond the few fragmentary references to it that survive. His cult continued until the English Reformation.

Robert of Bury joined a small group of 12th-century English unofficial saints of strikingly similar characteristics: all young boys, all mysteriously found dead and all hailed as martyrs to alleged anti-Christian practices among Jews. Contemporary assumptions made about the circumstances of their deaths are typical of blood libel. The first of these was William of Norwich (d.1144), whose death and cult were probably an influence on the story that grew up around the death of Robert.

Cult Tradition states that Robert was kidnapped and then killed on Good Friday 1181. By the 1190s Robert had become the focus of a martyr cult. Jocelyn de Brakelond, a monk of Bury St. Edmunds, later wrote a chronicle covering this period. He also mentions writing a book about the life and miracles performed by the boy saint, but this book has not survived.

Information about the circumstances of his death remains unclear. The monk John de Taxster is the source for the date. Jocelyn's surviving account, in his history of the abbey of Bury, says only "the saintly boy Robert was murdered and buried in our church; many signs and wonders were performed among the people as I have recorded elsewhere." Another record merely states that he was "martyred" at Easter by Jews. A later record refers to him as "a boy crucified by the Jews".

John Lydgate wrote a poem entitled Prayer for St. Robert, which implies that the story of his death closely mirrored that of William of Norwich, in which Jews are supposed to have kidnapped the child with the help of a Judas-like Christian accomplice, and tortured and then crucified him over Easter in a parody of Jesus's death.

Bale, referring to the research of Hillaby, suggests that the cult was promoted at a time when the abbey at Norwich was attempting to assert authority over Bury. He argues that Samson of Tottington, Abbot of Bury St Edmunds from 1182 to 1211, decided that the town needed the cult to preserve its independence. It may have also been linked to local political rivalries, as Samson was trying to undermine his rival William the Sacrist who had business links with the town's Jews.

The cult of Robert may have served as a contributing factor in the later violent attack upon the Jews of Bury St Edmunds on Palm Sunday 1190, in which fifty-seven were killed. The whole surviving Jewish community was immediately thereafter expelled from the town by order of Abbot Samson. According to Bale, the cult may have paved the way for the expulsion, "demonising the Jews for the practical purpose of their removal", but not enough is known about its early history to be sure that it did not develop as a retrospective justification for the expulsion.