On December 28, three days after Christmas, the Church honors the Holy Innocents — the male children of Bethlehem whom Herod the Great ordered killed in his attempt to eliminate the newborn King of the Jews. Matthew's Gospel (2:16-18) records that Herod, when the Magi did not return to report the child's location, "was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under." The Church has always read these children as the first martyrs of Christ — they died not for confessing Christ in words but for the sake of Christ himself, before they could know what they were dying for. The feast is kept on December 28 from at least the 5th century.
The Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem stands over the cave where Christ was born, and the memory of the Innocents is kept there in the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, a small chapel off the north aisle of the basilica, dedicated to the children who died in the town where the Holy Family was sheltering. The Chapel of the Holy Innocents in the cathedral of Krakow at Wawel is named for them; the Coventry Carol, the English lullaby sung in the medieval Coventry mystery plays, is a mother's lament for the children of Bethlehem, and is still sung at Christmas. The Coventry Carol — "Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child, by by, lully lullay" — is the only surviving song from the medieval mystery plays.
Rome keeps the feast at the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo on the Caelian Hill, where a cycle of 16th-century frescoes depicts the martyrdoms of the saints, including the Holy Innocents. The feast, kept in the Octave of Christmas, is the Church's acknowledgment that the birth of the Saviour and the shedding of innocent blood are inseparable in the Gospel narrative.
