Blood libel, urban quarters and ethnicity: What BBCs "History Cold Case" -Bodies in the Well - Norwich - failed to say

BBC2, History Cold Case, on the Bodies in the Well presented the evidence of a group of bodies with DNA evidence suggesting a Jewish lineage, found with cats down a well. The cats were thought to possibly be related to medieval tanners found in the area. Historical research showed that there were many properties nearby owned by tanners. Tanneries are notoriously smelly and dangerous, and tanners consequently dehumanised and often pariah occupations.

But, the significance of this small area of tanners in the 12th or 13th centuries was not explained. Truth is amongst this group of people originated the first ever story that, later, grew into the "blood libel" that was to unleash murderous pogroms against jews throughout "Christendom". That was the tale of  St William of Norwich   (pictured), a 12-yr old apprentice TANNER tortured and killed in 1144. The locals blamed the Jews, in the first ever instance of what has become known as the "blood libel", that Jews took Christian blood for ritual observance. A tanner mob is known to have been on the rampage and the Sheriff intervened to save jews from them. The Blood Libel was later to be repeated and used to incite violence by poor Christians against Jews, throughout Europe.

So a tiny ghetto of Tanners, opposed by an equally small neighbourhood of Jews, was the scene of the germ of am idea that was to ultimately lead to the genocidal Holocaust.

That is why mixing social classes and occupations in the  same social space - squares, pavements, schools and colleges - is essential to avoid introverted ghettos ansd the breeding of hatred. The so-called "Blood Libel" unleashed anti-Jewish pogromss through europe, spread as a contagion from this small, dehumanised, brutalised community...