In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “english boy whose murdered body was said to have been found in the town of bury st edmunds”. Today it says “english boy”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-02. In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “english boy whose murdered body was said to have been found in the town of bury st edmunds”. Today it says “english boy”.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2010 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2010
Robert of Bury (died 1181) was an English boy whose murdered body was said to have been found in the town of Bury St Edmunds , Suffolk in 1181 and whose death at a time of rising anti-Semitism was blamed on local Jews .1He quickly became the focus of a martyr cult and it is likely this cult was a contributing factor in the later violent attack upon the Jews of Bury St Edmunds on Palm Sunday 1190, in which fifty-seven were killed. The whole Jewish community was afterwards expelled from the town. Jocelin de Brakelond , a monk of Bury St. Edmunds who later wrote a Chronicle covering this period, also mentions writing a book about the miracles performed by the boy saint: but this is no longer extant.2Robert of Bury is one of a small group of 12th century English saints of strikingly similar characteristics: they were all young boys, all mysteriously found dead and all hailed as martyrs to alleged anti-Christian practices among Jews.3 Contemporary assumptions made about the circumstances of their deaths are typical of blood libel . Other such saints include Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln , Harold of Gloucester , and William of Norwich .4
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 336934676.
The opening as it stood in 2015 5 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Saint Robert of Bury (died 1181) was an English boy, allegedly murdered and found in the town of Bury St Edmunds , Suffolk in 1181. His death at a time of rising anti-Semitism was blamed on local Jews . Though a hagiography of Robert was written, no copies are known, so the story of his life is now unknown beyond the few fragmentary references to it that survive.His cult continued until the English Reformation . Robert of Bury joined a small group of 12th century English saints of strikingly similar characteristics: all young boys, all mysteriously found dead and all hailed as martyrs to alleged anti-Christian practices among Jews. Contemporary assumptions made about the circumstances of their deaths are typical of blood libel . The first of these was William of Norwich (d.1144), whose death and cult were probably an influence on the story that grew up around the death of Robert.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 634184839.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023
English Roman Catholic saint Saint Robert of Bury (died 1181) was an English boy, allegedly murdered and found in the town of Bury St Edmunds , Suffolk in 1181. His death, which occurred at a time of rising antisemitism , was blamed on local Jews . Though a hagiography of Robert was written, no copies are known, so the story of his life is now unknown beyond the few fragmentary references to it that survive. His cult continued until the English Reformation . Robert of Bury joined a small group of 12th-century English unofficial saints of strikingly similar characteristics: all young boys, all mysteriously found dead and all hailed as martyrs to alleged anti-Christian practices among Jews. Contemporary assumptions made about the circumstances of their deaths are typical of blood libel . The first of these was William of Norwich (d.1144), whose death and cult were probably an influence on the story that grew up around the death of Robert.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1175109645.
The opening as it stood in 2025
English blood libel Robert of Bury (died 1181) was an English boy, allegedly murdered and found in the town of Bury St Edmunds , Suffolk in 1181. His death, which occurred at a time of rising antisemitism , was blamed on local Jews . Though a hagiography of Robert was written, no copies are known, so the story of his life is now unknown beyond the few fragmentary references to it that survive. His cult continued until the English Reformation . Robert of Bury joined a small group of 12th-century English unofficial saints of strikingly similar characteristics: all young boys, all mysteriously found dead and all hailed as martyrs to alleged anti-Christian practices among Jews. Contemporary assumptions made about the circumstances of their deaths are typical of blood libel . The first of these was William of Norwich (d.1144), whose death and cult were probably an influence on the story that grew up around the death of Robert.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1285519889. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “english boy whose murdered body was said to have been found in the town of bury st edmunds”. Today it says “english boy”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
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2025
antisemitism
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martyr
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Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined between 2010 and 2025.
Then
english boy whose murdered body was said to have been found in the town of bury st edmunds
Now
english boy
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
