Bloodbath at the Lionheart’s Coronation
Richard I’s Coronation: 836 Years Ago Today
Richard I’s coronation, shown in a later medieval chronicle. The day was meant to mark glory, but it ended in blood.
The bells of Westminster rang out on 3 September 1189, summoning lords and bishops to the glittering coronation of Richard the Lionheart. The abbey glowed with candles, incense filled the air, and the new king processed in robes heavy with jewels and gold thread. It should have been a day of triumph, the dawn of a glorious reign.
But Richard himself was restless. Impatient with the long rituals, he hurried the ceremony along, barely allowing the archbishop to finish his prayers before he seized the crown and set it upon his own head. England’s new king had no time for delay—his mind was already on the Crusade.
When the solemnities ended, Richard led the procession to Westminster Hall. There, beneath the soaring hammer-beam roof, tables groaned with food and wine for the great coronation feast. The guest list was a mark of status—nobles, bishops, abbots, and the king’s chosen knights. But Richard had made his will clear: no women and no Jews were to be admitted.
As the king sat to celebrate, another story was unfolding just outside the hall doors—and it would end in tragedy.
Benedict and His Friend
Waiting outside the hall was Benedict of York—one of the wealthiest Jews in England: a financier, a man who lent to earls and barons, whose coins built castles and armed knights. But wealth was never protection. On this September day he came not as a moneylender but as a subject—not to intrude, or partake in the feast, but to bear gifts of loyalty to his new king. At his side was Josce, his fellow leader of the York community.
Among the Christians at the feast was the Benedictine Prior William of St Mary’s Abbey in York. William had crossed paths with Benedict often in business matters. They may even have met at the bible discussions between churchmen and Jews that were still prevalent at the time. Their relationship bloomed into friendship, and each recognised the other as a man of honour, even if divided by faith.
But Benedict and Prior William’s bond was about to be tested.
A medieval Benedictiine monk
Beaten at the Hall Doors
As Benedict and Josce sought permission to enter the hall to offer their gifts, they were turned away. The guards, recalling the king’s ban on Jews and women, took this as license to humiliate. A mob formed, struck Benedict down and beat him until he was half dead.
It was then, in the crush of the crowd, that Prior William acted. Seeing his friend bloodied and the mob ready to kill, he baptised Benedict on the spot. It was not malice, but desperation—a declaration to those around: this man is now a Christian; you must not harm him further.
But rumours had already spread like sparks in dry grass: the king has ordered the Jews to be destroyed. The mob left Westminster for London, seeking more victims.
A Baptism Rejected
For Benedict, baptism was no salvation. Though he lingered for a few days after, his wounds would not heal. As he lay dying, he spoke with clarity: the baptism had not been his choice. He did not wish to live—or die—as a Christian. He renounced it, clinging to his faith to the last.
Even in death, Benedict found no peace. Because he had been baptised, Jewish law forbade his body from being laid to rest among his people. And because he had renounced that baptism, Church would not permit burial in consecrated ground.
And so he was buried in neither cemetery, but cast into unconsecrated earth. Not Christian. Not Jew. A man exiled even in death.
A City in Flames
A Victorian illustration of the massacre at Richard I’s coronation, from John Cassell’s Illustrated History of England (1857).
While Richard continued his feast in Westminster Hall, the mob ruled, and London burned. The crowd needed no further encouragement. Shouts of “Death to the Christ-killers!” rang out as torches were thrown. Jewish houses were set to the torch as mothers clutched their children, watching helplessly as flames devoured their homes. Some were dragged to the font, forced into baptism at sword-point, whilst other were simply cut down in the streets.
When news of the violence reached the king inside the hall, he was furious. This was not the spectacle he had planned for his first day as king. To show his displeasure, he ordered the rioters seized and hanged. But his justice was too late, and too limited. By nightfall the city was already a charnel ground, and Richard’s first day as king was indelibly stained.
Across England, the antisemitic violence spread in the months to come: Norwich, Stamford, Bury St Edmunds, and most infamously York in 1190, where hundreds perished in ‘Clifford’s Tower’ (it was probably simply called ‘the tower’ at the time). Richard, realising he could not afford to lose his Jewish financiers, reaffirmed Jewish rights in royal charters. But the damage was done.
Remembering the Bloodbath
We remember Richard the Lionheart as a crusader king, a warrior who fought Saladin, and whose name resounded across Christendom. But for England’s Jews, his reign began in fire and betrayal.
Benedict of York’s story embodies that betrayal. Beaten at the doors of Westminster Hall, baptised by a friend who meant him no harm, denied even a grave among his people, his fate symbolises the peril of being both essential and despised in medieval England.
And the tragedy did not end with him. Josce, who had stood at his side in London, lived to see the fury reach York. Six months later he was among those who took refuge in ‘Clifford’s Tower’, where the community chose death over forced conversion. Benedict’s lonely grave foreshadowed a greater catastrophe—the destruction of almost the entire community of a city’s Jews.
The day Richard took his crown was the day Benedict lost everything—even, in the end, his resting place. But it was also the beginning of a darker storm that would engulf them all.
Read more about the lives of medieval Jews in Rachel Elwiss Joyce’s upcoming novels. Sign up to her newsletter for updates on releases.