A.D. 1189. PERSECUTION OP THE JEWS. ceded by the taper-bearers and the three swords before-mentioned. After this, the mass of our Lord was commenced, and, when they came to the offertory, the before-named bishops led him to the altar, where he offered one mark of the purest gold, such being the proper offering for the king at each coronation ; after which, the bishops before-named led him back to his seat, ι The mass having been concluded, and all things solemnly performed, the two bishops before-named, one on the right hand the other on the left, led him back from the church to his chamber, crowned, and carrying a sceptre in his right hand and the rod of royalty in his left, the procession going in the same order as before. Then the procession returned to the choir, and our lord the king put off his royal crown and robes of royalty, and put on a crown and robes that were lighter ; and, thus crowned, went to dine ; on which the archbishops and bishops took their seats with him at the table, each according to his rank and dignity. The earls and barons also served in the king's palace, according to their several dignities ; while the citizens of London served in the cellars, and the citizens of Winchester in the kitchen. While the king was seated at table, the chief men of the Jews came to offer presents to him, but as they had been forbidden the day before to come to the king's court on the day of the coronation, the common people, with scornful eye and insatiable heart, rushed upon the Jews and stripped them, and then scourging them, cast them forth out of the king's hall. Among these was Benedict, a Jew of York, who, after having been so maltreated and wounded by the Christians that his life was despaired of, was baptized by William, prior of the church of Saint Mary at York, in the church of the Innocents, and was named William, and thus escaped the peril of death and the hands of the persecutors. The citizens of London, on hearing of this, attacked thè Jews in the city and burned their houses ; but by the kindness of their Christian friends, some few made their escape. On the day after the coronation, the king sent his servants, and caused those offenders to be arrested who had set fire to the city; not for the sake of the Jews, but on account of the houses and property of the Christians which they had burnt and plundered, and he ordered some of them to be hanged. On the same day, the king ordered the before-named William, who from a Jew had become a Christian, to be presented to