Richard de Paris

Who they were

Chroniclers of the reign of Philip Augustus, Robert of Torigny and William the Breton, record several killings of Christian children said to have been carried out by Jews, accusations that led to the Jews' expulsion from France in 1182. Among the alleged victims was a child named Richard, from Pontoise, said to have been killed on 25 March 1179. His body was carried to Paris and placed in the church of the Holy Innocents, where, on the eve of the Revolution, the head was still kept.

Robert Gaguin, head of the Trinitarian Order (d. 1502), wrote a funeral oration for him, later included in the Acta Sanctorum. The historical truth of the story is today much disputed, and the entry itself urges caution in judging these alleged crimes.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

A child said to have been killed near Paris in 1179 in a medieval blood-libel legend; venerated as a martyr, though the entry says the story's historicity is much disputed.