Philip Augustus had often heard that the Jews living in Paris went secretly into underground chambers every year at Easter or during the holy week of the Lord’s Passion. There, it was alleged, they killed a Christian as a sacrifice intended to express contempt for the Christian religion.

They had supposedly continued this crime for many years at the devil’s prompting. During the reign of Philip’s father, many Jews accused of it had been seized and burned. Richard, whose body rests in the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris, was said to have been killed and crucified by the Jews and to have entered into blessedness through martyrdom.

Through the prayers and intercession of Saint Richard, many miracles were said to have been performed by the hand of God for His glory. We report these things as we have heard them.

Because the most Christian King Philip investigated carefully and believed that he had learned the truth of these and many other offenses allegedly committed by the Jews during the reigns of his predecessors, he burned with religious zeal. In the same year in which he was consecrated at Reims to exercise sacred rule over the kingdom of the Franks, he issued an order concerning the Jews.

On a Sabbath in February 1180, Jews throughout France were seized in their synagogues. They were stripped of their gold, silver and clothing, just as the Jews themselves had stripped the Egyptians when they departed from Egypt. This foreshadowed their future expulsion, which followed in due course according to God’s design.