Ritual Murder & The Blood Libel - Part One: From Rome to the Late-Middle-Ages

Our work is committed to exploring and challenging propaganda, misinformation and popular conspiracy theories. Much of the popular narratives that exist today – from Antisemitic narratives to Islamophobic narratives – have their roots in discursive practices which go back centuries and even millennia, fueling hatred, intolerance, and gruesome acts of violence throughout human history. Through this work, we can dispel the narratives that segregate us and find common ground through our shared humanity.

It is also my personal belief that, faced with the contemporary Israel/Palestine crisis, many of these narratives are still subtly spilling over into these discourses.

By bolstering the defense of Palestinians through anti-Jewish conspiracy theories – from the Blood Libel to Holocaust denialism – we weaken this position instead of strengthening it; consequently, furthering the cause of hatred and intolerance rather than rejecting it in favour of our shared humanity. At the same time, the antisemitic and conspiratorial nature of the Blood Libel narrative is being used to dismiss Israel's actions in Gaza and Palestine (including prominent organizations like the Anti-Defamation League), and the death count of children; claiming these deaths are an antisemitic claim based on the historic Blood Libel conspiracy.

Exploring these conspiracies, highlighting their faulty origins, and demonstrating the gruesome violence and massacres they motivated, should inspire a critical awakening towards this sense of compassion and understanding by demonstrating the common systems of meaning as well as the common experiences of loss and trauma inherited through cultural traditions that outsiders can empathize with and understand. Reflecting on these hateful conspiracies, the violence they manifested, and crucially, the political maneuvering they facilitated, should serve as lessons for our contemporary social divisions.

What is The Blood Libel?

The Blood Libel is an anti-Jewish conspiracy theory that dates back to the Middle Ages; it accuses Jewish communities of kidnapping Christian children in order to drain their blood which is used in the performance of Jewish religious rituals. These types of 'ritual murder' accusations have been employed throughout history as propaganda tools to alienate, isolate and exclude particular communities. Living in the shadow of Rome, early Christians were the subject of these conspiracies which dehumanized them and justified their persecution. The common narrative employed was that of ritual murder and child sacrifice in order to procure blood in order to perform Christian practices like Communion. Absurd as it may seem today, these beliefs supported the harsh treatment and persecution of these early Christian groups.

After Rome became a Christian empire, this concept still persisted, and remerged in the Middle-Ages with the Blood Libel; once again resulting in extreme violence and intolerance – against Jews. The common components between both were the ritual sacrifices of children, and the extraction of their blood. The ‘Blood Libel’ was a series of evolving conspiracies and accusations that centred on the ritual-murder and sacrifice of young Christian children by the Jewish community. 

Matzah bread (image credit: animalia-life)

The Blood Libel’s legacy has contributed to a general suspicion of the Jewish population which persists in the Antisemitic conspiracy theories of today. Common to all the Blood Libel incidents and conspiracies is the ritual sacrifice of Christian children followed by the extraction and consumption of the child’s blood. Allegedly, the blood is used in preparation for the Jewish sacred day of Passover to make matzah bread; a bread which is culturally symbolic of the Jewish exodus from Egypt (which Passover commemorates), in which it was believed they fled so desperately that they did not have enough time for their bread to rise. That bread became matzah. The Blood Libel conspiracies allege that Christian blood taken from a child is a necessary component in completing the bread.  

This allegation has a long historical record and has been repeated throughout history; from the first emergence of the Blood Libel conspiracy, all the way to the modern age where this bizarre and gruesome conspiracy persists in various forms, being one of the central tenets of the QAnon conspiracy – the drinking of blood from child-victims in order to extract adrenochrome which grants the drinker eternal youth.  

(Above) An artistic portrayal of Blood Libel; depicting Jewish people coveting infants and young children, even extracting blood from a child (centre-right) 

Rome during the Late Antiquity

Tertullian (155-220A.D.)(image credit: biteproject)

While early writings about the Blood Libel theory is scant, making its true origin quite difficult to pin down; there are writings that can give us some idea as to the development of allegations of ritual child sacrifice narratives as a whole within Judeo-Christian tradition. Ironically, these writings demonstrate Roman beliefs about Christians and Christianity in which the Christians commit the same tropes they allege the Jews commit; i.e ritually sacrificing children. Early clues to this Roman conspiracy about the Christians arise from Tertullian (155-220 A.D), the early Christian writer, wrote a series of apologies to the Roman magistrates in which he defends Christendom while criticizing the Roman claims and allegations against Christianity. 

The claims made by the Romans accuse the Christians of sacrificing children as part of the religious rite of Communion. The Romans were strongly against human sacrifice which was a practice amongst other cultures of the time, including Carthage, where Tertullian was from. A scholar of law  fluent in both Greek and Latin, Tertullian addresses the Roman magistrates in his Apologeticum, where he uses sarcasm to criticize the claims of the Romans by presenting their idea of Christian life; the following is an extract from The Tertullian Project which covers the Apologeticum:  

If to be a Christian is to take part in baby-eating and ritual incest, why does no-one try to prove those charges? Despite the activities of the informers and way that soldiers blackmail the Christians, no-one has ever come across a half-eaten baby! It's all just rumour. And do you think eternal life is worth it, if the price is eating babies and incest? If not, why do you suppose we do?   

But maybe you believe it, because you know that infant sacrifice to Cronos was still going on until very recently, right here in Africa. Maybe you remember that it is quite legal to drown an unwanted baby, or expose it. Do you suppose that these stern magistrates, baying for the blood of the Christians, might know something of infanticide and abortion? How cruel to snuff out a child in the womb, or in water. Grown-ups would rather die by iron. Ritual murder is already part of pagan religion, in specially convened games. 

(The Tertullian Project, 1999) 

These ‘apologies’ reflect much of the theological discourse of the time; in which Christian scholars and theologians wrote to the Roman elites in defense of the Christian faith. Much of this centred on countering and dispelling propaganda and conspiratorial beliefs about Christians and affirming their humanity and countering the challenges of dehumanization.  

This tradition began with Justin Martyr (also known as Justin the Philosopher; the surname ‘Martyr’ was given posthumously after he was martyred), who wrote a series of apologies addressed to the Roman emperor Antonius Pius. These apologies sought to curb the persecution of Christians simply for being Christian; instead, they should be punished for evildoing and law-breaking like any other citizen. One of themes that runs through several of the apologies, from Martyr and others, is that criminals had a trial to determine guilt, whereas Christians were guilty by virtue of being Christian (this is a theme that is common in minoritization discourses today; generating fear and intolerance of both Jews and Muslims, and demonstrates why studying these historical phenomena is critical to developing a common way forward).  

In another historic irony, other early references to ritual child sacrifice accusations come from Christian sources themselves – against subsects within Christendom. Many of the early works produced by prominent Christian scholars of the day worked to outline the workings of the faith, and distinguish what was lawful under Christian law, and crucially, what was unlawful. Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lugdunum (also known as Irenaeus of Smyrna), was an early Christian scholar and theologian. Lugdunum was an important city in the Roman province of Gaul, which is today Lyon in France. His most famous work, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) (180 C.E), served as a response to the breadth of differing opinions on religious doctrine and even competing Christian ideologies at the time.  

A stainglass depiction of Saint Irenaeus from Lyon, by Lucien Bégule (1848–1935) 

This climate of competing opinions would ferment into the cultures of heresy and the theological science of heresiology; the study and identification of heretic ideologies. These scholars would also develop heresiographies: historically documented accounts from these theological scholars of their interactions with heretical groups and cultures in ancient Christendom. These works sought to distinguish what was and what was not considered Christian. 

Irenaeus, writing in the generation after Martyr, targeted many ‘cults’ within Christendom that did not follow the doctrines that would become enshrined as Orthodox Christianity. From Gnostic groups like the Valentinians, to the Carpocratians, and the Marcionists; Irenaeus sought to identify and distinguish their doctrines from the ‘proto-orthodox’ doctrine. Adversus Haereses thus featured many accounts vilifying the followers of these doctrines, and Irenaeus’ works would eventually see the followers of these sects being expelled from Christendom entirely; with Irenaeus heralded as the man who vanquished the Gnostic heretical legacy. Some of these heresiographical accounts have much more of a conspiratorial flavour to them; in a chapter called ‘The Arts of Marcus’, Irenaeus describes Marcus, the founder of the Gnostic sect Marcosianism, as a precursor of the antichrist who uses magical arts to sway followers to his doctrine. Irenaeus’ works represent a developing culture of intolerance and exclusion for other sects; resplendent with terrifying conspiracies and impossible accusations (Marcus as the antichrist). Until the discovery of the Library of Nag Hamadi which provided direct access to the beliefs of Gnosticism; Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses was the primary source to learn about Gnostic Christianity. 

Over a hundred years after Irenaeus’ death, Constantine the Great, Rome’s emperor, would enact significant religious reforms to the Roman empire. First, the Edict of Milan in 313 (which recognized Christianity as a faith within the empire and enforced tolerance of Christians), and then, following his own conversion to Christianity, the Council of Nicaea in 325 in which he instituted Christianity as the religion of the empire. This made Christian institutions the dominant cultural institutions of the time.  

Another noted Christian theologian and heresiologist was Epiphanius of Salamis, the Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, who wrote the Panarion in which he identified a total of 80 heretical sects and religions. Ephiphanius’ works, unlike Irenaes, was written under the context of a Christian Rome; where the Church had significantly greater institutional power. Epiphanius is venerated as a Saint, and championed as an early defender of Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church. This passion is demonstrated in the writing of the Panarion, which is often loaded with conspiratorial connotations and propagandist discourse; and goes much further in its vilifying descriptions of these sects and their members than previous heresiographies.  

He gives detailed characterizations of these varying sects as various different animals with beastly qualities inherent to each one. This type of characterization is common with Antisemitic tropes, as well as Islamophobic tropes that would come in the centuries to follow. Similarly, another common element between the Blood Libel and the accounts given in the Parnarion are the consuming of blood, and revolting reinterpretations of Christian religious rites. Though lengthy, the following is a richly characterized extract from the Parnarion, titled, On Gnostics; a passage laden with conspiratorial tropes, from blood rituals and the consumption of fetuses mirroring the Blood Libel of later centuries: 

But I shall get right down to the worst part of the deadly description of them—for they vary in their wicked teaching of what they please—which is, first of all, that they hold their wives in common. And if a guest who is of their persuasion arrives, they have a sign that men give women and women give men, a tickling of the palm as they clasp hands in supposed greeting, to show that the visitor is of their religion. And once they recognize each other from this they start feasting right away—and they set the table with lavish provisions for eating meat and drinking wine even if they are poor. But then, after a drinking bout and, let us say, stuffing their overstuffed veins, they get hot for each other next. And the husband will move away from his wife and tell her—speaking to his own wife!—“Get up, perform the Agape with the brother.” 

For after having made love with the passion of fornication in addition, to lift their blasphemy up to heaven, the woman and man receive the man’s emission on their own hands. And they stand with their eyes raised heavenward but the filth on their hands and pray, if you please — the ones they call Stratiotics and Gnostics—and offer that stuff on their hands to the true Father of all, and say, “We offer thee this gift, the body of Christ.” And then they eat it partaking of their own dirt, and say, “This is the body of Christ; and this is the Pascha, because of which our bodies suffer and are compelled to acknowledge the passion of Christ.”  

And so with the woman’s emission when she happens to be having her period—they likewise take the unclean menstrual blood they gather from her, and eat it in common. And “This,” they say, “is the blood of Christ.”  

But although they have sex with each other they renounce procreation. It is for enjoyment, not procreation, that they eagerly pursue seduction, since the devil is mocking people like these, and making fun of the creature fashioned by God. They come to climax but absorb the seeds of their dirt, not by implanting them for procreation, but by eating the dirty stuff themselves. But even though one of them should accidentally implant the seed of his natural emission prematurely and the woman becomes pregnant, listen to a more dreadful thing that such people venture to do. They extract the fetus at the stage which is appropriate for their enterprise, take this aborted infant, and cut it up in a trough with a pestle. And they mix honey, pepper, and certain other perfumes and spices with it to keep from getting sick, and then all the revellers in this herd of swine and dogs assemble, and each eats a piece of the child with his fingers.  

And now, after this cannibalism, they pray to God and say, “We were not mocked by the archon of lust, but have gathered the brother’s blunder up!” And this, if you please, is their idea of the “perfect Passover.” And they are prepared to do any number of other dreadful things. Again, whenever they feel excitement within them they soil their own hands with their own ejaculated dirt, get up, and pray stark naked with their hands defiled. The idea is that they can obtain freedom of access to God by a practice of this kind. 

(Epiphanius of Salamis, 375 C.E) 

Though these heresiographies pre-date the term ‘propaganda’, this revolting account is evidently being used to influence public opinion in order to exorcise sects like the Gnostics from the body of Christendom. As we move our discussion onto the Blood Libel itself, we will see that these anti-Gnostic tropes have much in common with the Blood Libel of the Middle-Ages. From the passover-based focus, the recreation of Christian acts of worship and iconography, and the targeting of children for their blood. Ultimately, this connection is still just a hypothesis; between the demonization of Gnostics and other heretical groups with the Blood Libel that would first appear around seven hundreds of years later. 

The Crusades

In the centuries following Epiphanius’ writing, the Roman empire declined, new powers arose filling the void left behind; and new faiths like Islam appeared in the Arabian Peninsula. As the Muslim nations grew and spread, they soon became recognized as the next significant threat to Christianity. This led to the call for the first Crusade. The Crusading period was fraught with much propaganda (and is one of the reasons we will cover it on this site; much of the anti-Muslim propaganda circulating online has been influenced by the Crusading period) against non-Christian sects – not just the Muslims, but the Jewish communities too. The Crusades inspired powerful Christian fervor as priests and clerics preached about war in the name of God, “taking up the cross”, promising divine forgiveness and granting ‘indulgences’ to those who went out Crusading.

Peter the Hermit (centre); a key figure in preaching and leading the People's Crusade.

Jewish communities which had stretched out of the Middle East and across Europe were seen as non-Christian populations closer to home for those preparing to go on Crusade. The ‘People’s Crusade’ (which I like to call the real First Crusade as they departed on crusade prior to the First Crusade’s departure) - massacred Jewish communities along the Danube and the Rhinelands on their way to the Holy Lands of Jerusalem. These are considered by some historians to be the earliest pogroms; and are remembered today as the Rhineland Massacres. This violence continued with the First Crusade, which murdered both Jews and Muslims on their path to conquering Jerusalem.  

The First Blood Libel

William of Norwich:

Many historians regard the eruption of intolerance towards non-Christians that was birthed from the crusader ideologies as being responsible for the social climate from which the Blood Libel arose from.  Beginning in 1144 in the town of Norwich, the discovery of the body of a missing 12-year-old boy named William would go on unsolved for several years till it was picked up by the Bishop of Norwich, William Turbe, who cited the murder in 1150 during a judicial trial in which a knight of Norwich was accused of murdering a Jewish moneylender and community member. The bishop claimed that the murdered Jew deserved to die for his involvement in the ritual-sacrifice and murder of the child (William of Norwich) many years earlier.  

This would be the first recorded instance of the Blood Libel conspiracy.  

According to historian Emily Rose, a scholar of the Blood Libel who wrote The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe (2015), the Bishop would commission a monk named Thomas Monmouth, to conduct an investigation of sorts and publish a tale of William’s murder which would become called “The Life and Passion of Saint William of Norwich” (still on sale today). The monk’s narrative identified the murderers as the Jewish community of Norwich who were using the child’s body in a macabre ritual-sacrifice; though, as outlined by Rose, the intention was to generate propaganda declaring William a saint, and draw pilgrimage to the cathedral. “At the behest of the chapter, one of its members, Thomas of Monmouth, became William’s advocate, forging a text that made him into an innocent young martyr cruelly murdered by Jews, fabricating testimonies from now-dead “witnesses,” recounting successive translations of the boy’s body into (and around) Norwich cathedral, relating miracles produced at his tomb.” (Rose, 2015) 

William would remain a minor saint, and his cult would not erupt in anti-Jewish uprisings across Europe – as did many other Blood Libel cases that followed. The propaganda involved in the tale of William of Norwich would draw on Christian mythology and rhetoric in establishing its premise – particularly the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In Monmouth’s tale, he alleges that William was sacrificed in a manner similar to Christ’s crucifixion, and that this theme was a deliberate endeavor of the Jewish ‘villain’. Depictions of William of Norwich often feature crucifixion-like symbolism and imagery (as seen below). 

In the years that followed, two more notable Blood Libel incidents occurred in England; that of Harold of Gloucester in 1168, and Robert of Bury in 1181. Historians regard these incidents, and the cults that flourished around these martyrs, as opportunistic moments to develop these towns into sites of veneration and pilgrimage. According to the medieval chronicler Robert of Bale (1410-1473), the death of Robert of Bury in 1181 which occurred many years after William of Norwich (1144), provided the town of Bury with its own child martyr. Bury had a local saint that inspired pilgrims prior to the formation of the cult of William in nearby Norwich. However, the cult of William became a rival to that of Bury; encouraging pilgrimage to Norwich instead of Bury. A child martyr offered the elders of Bury a means to resuscitate pilgrimage to Bury. 

The Martyrs of Blois: 

While Thomas Monmouth’s story of William of Norwich was an example of fake news in England; our next instance takes us to the town of Blois, in France, almost thirty years later in 1171. Blois housed a small Jewish community of around 40 individuals, which would become the victims of a severe blood libel case after a Jewish skinner and tanner was found with bloody remains of an animal – mistaken as that of a child. The Blood Libel narrative from Norwich may have travelled and fermented itself into the broader Christian consciousness of the time, and may account for the hysteric response to the discovery. The following is a historical account taken from the work of Ephraim Ben Jacob titled The Ritual Murder Accusation at Blois, May, 1171 (as featured in Jacob Marcus’s The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook); depicting how the propaganda in Blois began.

In the year 4931 [1171], evil appeared in France, too, and great destruction in the city of Blois, in which at that time there lived about forty Jews. It happened on that evil day, Thursday, toward evening, that the terror came upon us. A Jew [Isaac bar Eleazar] rode up to water his horse; a common soldier-may he be blotted out of the book of life-was also there watering the horse of his master. The Jew bore on his chest an untanned hide, but one of the corners had become loose and was sticking out of his coat. When, in the gloom, the soldier's horse saw the white side of the hide, it was frightened and sprang back, and it could not be brought to water. 

The Christian servant hastened back to his master and said "Hear, my lord, what a certain Jew did. As I rode behind him toward the river in order to give your horses a drink, I saw him throw a little Christian child, whom the Jews have killed, into the water. When I saw this, I was horrified and hastened back quickly for fear he might kill me too. Even the horse under me was so frightened by the splash of the water when he threw the child in that it would not drink.  

(Marcus, 1938)

The Count of Blois, Thibaut Le Bon, also known as Theobald V, or Theobald the Good, was alleged to have had a relationship with a known female figure in the Jewish community, known as Pulcellina of Blois, who was a successful moneylender and businesswoman. The nature of their relationship varies through different historical accounts, however what is known, is that Pulcellina was accused of being responsible for orchestrating the ritual-sacrifice of the alleged child victim – in keeping with the tradition of Blood Libel from Norwich, a few decades earlier. Interestingly, unlike many of the other Blood Libel cases, there was no victim, no murder to drive the accusations.

Artistic depiction of a Jewish community being burned to death

Count Thibaut sentenced her, along with the rest of the Jewish community of Blois, to be burned to death. Their younger children were taken in by Christian families and forcibly converted to their new families’ faith. Some accounts claim that Pulcellina was Thibault’s lover; and that his wife encouraged him to condemn her. It is also likely that Pulcellina’s successful moneylending business created a situation wherein many other citizens, likely Christians, were indebted to her; and that the allegations of an affair between her and Thibault was done to frame her more as a tragic romantic heroine.  

Little Saint Hugh: 

Perhaps history’s most famous Blood Libel, the murder of Hugh of Lincoln, famously known as Little Saint Hugh, was immortalized when it was featured in Geoffrey’s Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Hugh of Lincoln’s murder was the first of these Blood Libel murders to achieve royal intervention as Henry III was personally involved in the outcomes of the trial. The issue of moneylending and indebtedness towards the Jewish community had central relevance to the accusations; and was used by the local barons – themselves indebted – to inspire a revolt against the crown in what became known as the Second Baron’s War.  

In July of 1255, a nine-year-old boy named Hugh went missing. His remains were found in a well almost a whole month later. The death was blamed on the local Jewish population resulting in around 90 arrests – of which 18 were executed, including Koppin (or Copin), the lead Jewish suspect to whom the allegations of ritual child sacrifice were brought against. 

Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; the first literary work published in English

Once again, the suspects were subjected to torture; through which they confessed, and the allegations of ritual child sacrifice were confirmed. Mathew Paris (whos’ works as a chronicler are widely regarded as a historical source on the High Middle-Ages; with acknowledgements of the ‘flourishes’ and exaggerations therein) writes of the incident, including details of the torturous death of Hugh at the hands of the Jews as they tried to blasphemously recreate the death of Christ by crucifying Hugh. This recreation became a popular representation of the murder of Hugh, including that Jews from across England were summoned to Lincoln to participate in the sacrifice. 

After shutting him up in a secret chamber, where they fed him on milk and other childish food, they sent to almost all the cities of England in which there were Jews, and summoned some of their sect from each city to be present at a sacrifice to take place at Lincoln, in contumely and insult of Jesus Christ.  

For, as they said, they had a boy concealed for the purpose of being crucified; so a great number of them assembled at Lincoln, and then they appointed a Jew of Lincoln judge, to take the place of Pilate, by whose sentence, and with the concurrence of all, the boy was subjected to various tortures. They scourged him till the blood flowed, they crowned him with thorns, mocked him, and spat upon him; each of them also pierced him with a knife, and they made him drink gall, and scoffed at him with blasphemous insults, and kept gnashing their teeth and calling him Jesus, the false prophet.  

And after tormenting him in diverse ways they crucified him, and pierced him to the heart with a spear. When the boy was dead, they took the body down from the cross, and for some reason disembowelled it; it is said for the purpose of their magic arts. 

(Giles, 1852) 

The death of Hugh of Lincoln became a central driver of anti-Jewish sentiment in the region. This was climate of intolerance was furthered by royal decrees which taxed the Jewish citizens heavily; and church decrees, which required the Jewish citizens to wear yellow badges which identified them as Jews. The heavy taxation resulted in many of these moneylending Jews selling their debts as bonds back to the Christians – many of which were bought up by the King’s nobles. Debts which weren’t paid would be seized by the crown.

King Henry himself would make a royal to visit to Lincoln during the trial; and himself ordered the execution of Koppin, as well as the arrest of the 90 other Jews and their imprisonment in the Tower of London. This would have made the murder into a national ordeal. In the years that followed, the anti-Jewish sentiment that had been growing, combined with the state of indebtedness towards the Jews, provided an opportunity for the local barons to inspire their uprising against Henry III – resulting in pogroms and massacres of the Jewish population. Simon de Montfort, one of the barons and key instigators in the Second Baron’s War, led his forces against the Jewish communities of London, Worcester, and Derby; and seized their property. In 1265, Monfort’s forces massacred 500 Jews in London.  

The King’s intervention made the tale of Little Saint Hugh a nationwide narrative; this popularity was immortalized when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Tale of the Prioress in The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s work is a significant part of English literary history because it was the first piece of English literature – meaning the first literary work published in English. In the Tale of the Prioress, Chaucer tells of a Christian child captured and bled to death by the local Jews. 

Our firste foe, the serpent Satanas,

That hath in Jewes' heart his waspe's nest,  

Upswell'd and said,"O Hebrew people, alas!  

Is this to you a thing that is honest, 

That such a boy shall walken as him

lest In your despite, and sing of such sentence,

Which is against your lawe's reverence?"  

From thenceforth the Jewes have conspired , 

This innocent out of the world to chase;  

A homicide thereto have they hired,

That in an alley had a privy place, 

And, as the child gan forth by for to pace,  

This cursed Jew him hent (ceased),

and held him fast,

And cut his throat, and in a pit him cast. 

(Chaucer, The Prioress’s Tale) 

At the end of Chaucer’s tale, he references Little Saint Hugh:  

O younge Hugh of Lincoln! 

slain also With cursed Jewes, 

as it is notable, For it is but a little while ago,  

Pray eke for us, we sinful folk unstable,  

That, of his mercy, God so merciable 

On us his greate mercy multiply,

For reverence of his mother Mary. 

(Chaucer, The Prioress’s Tale) 

This has cemented Little Saint Hugh into English literary history; and demonstrates the evocative power of these narratives – whether true or not – of murdered innocents.  

Simon of Trent:  

In 1475, Simon, a toddler from the Italian town of Trent, was discovered murdered beneath the town’s Jewish quarter – particularly beneath the area the Jewish community used as a synagogue. This finding would lead to a case of Blood Libel, but in dramatically different context to the cases that came before; this case featured a campaign characteristic of the media propaganda campaigns we see today; it engaged the technological media of the day, as well as the sociocultural currents and trends in distributing, maintaining and mythologizing its message. The incident led to a trial which became immortalized through the production of pamphlets, drawings, and books; as well as the canonization of the child into a Saint; which was eventually reversed by the Vatican in the 20th century. 

The murder trial and the media produced around it provide us with significant detail into the incident; which researchers like Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia have drawn together to construct the events for us. Simon, a two-and-a-half-year-old, had gone missing around 5pm on Thursday, the 23rd of March, 1475. The next day, his father approached the bishop informing him that his son was missing and requesting a search; and for the next few days, a large search was underway. Rumours began to spread that the Jewish community were responsible; this attitude was fermented by earlier sermons demonizing the local Jewish community – largely made up of three households. In response to the rumour, the local Jews joined in the search, hoping to dispel the rumours of their guilt. Simon’s father, likely swayed by the rumours, requested the bishop search the properties of the Jewish community – yet nothing was found. 

Later, a servant working for one of the Jewish citizens, Samuel, discovered one of the bodies on Samuel’s property. Together with Samuel, they reported it to the authorities. Accordig to Hsia, this fact was not mentioned in the trial documents (that the Jews themselves reported the body). The entire Jewish community was arrested, and subjected to judgment under torture; meaning that they were tortured and if they confessed, they were guilty. This method coerced confessions; confirming the murder and scandal, while condemning themselves to execution. The women were spared through papal intervention; the men were burned at the stake.   

Depiction of the murder of Simon; named Jewish figures surround him, piercing his body and draining his blood. 

The ‘trial’, and the confessions produced, were quickly distributed through the media channels of the day; from woodcuts to pamphlets, from writers to poets, the tale was nurtured and distributed through the local communicative cultures and pathways.  

However, the case of Simon of Trent was exceptional as the first such incident (of blood libel) to receive extensive press coverage: over thirty separate editions of verse and prose accounts of Simon’s murder are known to have been issued during the last quarter of the fifteenth century.  

...the death of Simon was turned by jobbing poets and humanists into a sensational and instructive moral tale. 

(Bowd, 2015; p.183) 

Albrecht Kunne (1475)

The leading church-figure of the town, Prince-Bishop Johannes Hinderbach, led a propaganda campaign to beatify the child – declaring the child a resident of heaven; and a figure capable of communing with God, and thus, a figure capable of interceding between an individual and God. From prayers and invocations, to poems and sculptures, a cult began to build around the child, with Trent becoming a popular destination for pilgrimage.  

During the very same year of the murder, a series of woodcuts by artist Albrecht Kunne (1475) were commissioned depicting various scenes from the murder and trial. Kunne’s woodcuts depicting the post-mortem examination of Simon's body show us the Christians standing on the left and facing to the right; while standing on the right and facing to the left, are the Jewish elders. “The depiction of a calm and solidly united group of Christians in charge of investigating the horrific crime juxtaposed with a conspiratorial and agitated group of Jews on the other side forms a clear visual argument: it is an image of deep mistrust and cultural separation.” (Kohn, 2018; p.37) 

This ‘cultural separation’ is evident in the Christian beliefs of the time regarding the Jewish Passover; specifically, the conspiracy theory that the Matzah bread required in Passover is made using the blood of children. According to the autopsy; “Simon’s body had been ravaged: cuts on his penis, needle holes over large parts of his body, strangulation marks on his neck, and one cheek torn apart — which seemed to corroborate the allegations of joint ritual murder by the Jews in order to use the victim’s blood to bake the Passover matzah.” (Kohn, 2018; p.39) 

In the Blood Libel tradition going back to William of Norwich, many of the other depictions often characterized Simon as a Christ-like symbol; bearing strong similarities and representations with the crucifixion of Christ. This comparison was frowned on by the Pope and many authority figures in the Church, who sought to deny any such beatification of the child.

The Roman curia was reluctant to endorse or encourage popular veneration of unauthorized local saints and was outraged by the comparisons made between Simon and Christ. In September 1475 envoys from the archduke and Battista dei Giudici, an apostolic commissioner appointed by Pope Sixtus IV (r. 1471–84), came to Trent to investigate the conduct of the trial, the position of the remaining prisoners, and the cult of the martyr ‘Saint’ Simon which had sprung up around the body on display in St Peter’s church and which the prince-bishop was keenly promoting. The commissioner examined the body, sought to obtain the trial records, attempted to interview the remaining prisoners, and gathered evidence on a Christian suspect for the murder.  

The commissioner accused Hinderbach of hindering his interviews with the accused and with witnesses sympathetic to them, and generally of impeding his investigations. He also found the local populace credulous and hostile to any doubts about the miraculous nature of Simon’s corpse; he observed that they had used fraudulent means to preserve the body and had lied about the supposed miracles associated with Simon. For his part, the prince-bishop gathered evidence of Jewish ritual murder in German lands, and accused the commissioner of succumbing to Jewish bribery and of making an unwarranted interference in secular jurisdiction. 

(Bowd, 2015; p185) 

Prince-Bipshop Hinderbach’s propaganda also made ample use of the new technology of the printing press; developing and distributing pamphlets featuring drawings and documented accounts. Hundreds of miracles were attributed to Simon; especially after his body was displayed by the church in Trent, adding credibility and faith in the movement. The name ‘Simonino’ also became popularly used by the cult, referring to ‘Little Simon’; a name evocative of the tragedy of the death of a young child. This cult would become so widespread and popular that chapels and statues dedicated to Simon were commissioned. The relics of Simon of Trent were even carried in the procession of Emperor Maximilian I during his coronation as emperor in 1508.  

A recently restored fresco of Simon in which he is presented as a resurrected Christ-like figure. This was a common theme identified in the many depictions of Simon.

Known poets and writers were engaged in the production of propaganda around Simon. Many wrote in literary styles mirroring the classical literary tradition; using language both complex and provocative in a deliberate flourish to appeal to the more educated and ‘cultured’ classes of society.

It is also important to note that while the authors as Christians drew on medieval tales of Jewish host desecration and child murder, as humanists they also applied classical poetic meter, imagery, and style to heighten dramatic efect. Tiberino, Calfurnio, and Pusculo provide a plethora of classical phrases or images drawn from Lucretius, Vergil, and Horace. For example, both Tiberino and Calfurnio contrast the peacefulness of night with the anguished events of Simon’s last hours in a way which recalls a key scene in the Vergilian story of Dido and Aeneas. 

(Kohn, 2018; p.39) 

This appropriation of classical literary styles in the production of the Simon mythology distinguished it from other forms of conspiratorial rhetoric; it was elevated beyond conspiratorial gossip and presented through a framework of cultural prestige, drama and high art. “The effect was carefully calculated to appeal to the educated elite of Renaissance Italy for whom classical Latin embodied the Roman virtues which they aimed to imitate.” “The visual buildup outdid even the written one, resulting in a multitude of prints, frescoes, and altar paintings throughout northern Italy, with powerful centers of the cult in Brescia, Bergamo, Padua, Mantua, and Venice.” (Kohn, 2018; p.39) 

The Aula Del Simonino, a chapel in Trent dedicated to 'Simonino', now a museum.

An extract from the Epitaphium gloriosi pueri Symonis tridentini novi martiris (1476), with a woodcut by Albrecht Kunne depicting ‘Simon Triumphans’, and bearing the text “BEATUS SYMON” – a call to beatify Simon.

The Epitaphium gloriosi pueri Symonis tridentini novi martiris, a first-person account of Simon’s martyrdom written in 1476 by Giovanni Mattia Tiberino (1420-1490/1497), the physician who conducted Simon’s autopsy, is one such example of the propaganda that circulated through Italy and Europe. Giovanni’s role as scholar and physician, and his placement within the narrative as the person responsible for the examination of Simon’s body, lent credibility and authority to the evolving narrative (Kohl, 2018). Works like these championed the idea of Simon as a martyr, and called for his canonization as a saint – while simultaneously demonizing Jewish communities across Europe. Many of these pieces bore text referring to the beatification of Simon, while containing pictorial depictions of the murder. 

The tale of Simon inspired intense experiences throughout the area, as hundreds of miracles were reported in the town and surrounds within days of the incident. The cult of Simon persists till today; where he is venerated as a saint, and his role in the Blood Libel tale is disputed – perhaps because in the Blood Libel narrative he dies too young to be able to have performed some of the many miracles attributed to him.  

Instances of a popular meme used in QAnon circles; containing an image of Blood Libel, likely depicting Simon of Trent, along with a conspiratorial-explanation of its history, and the word ‘Adrenochrome’ – the alleged hormone being harvested from the blood of children. This post was shared by QAnonAnonymous – a group trying to rehabilitate users consumed by the conspiracies who are trying to readapt to daily life.  

These incidents of the Blood Libel represent the gradual spread of the narrative throughout Europe; from England, to France and Italy. In Spain, Christopher of Toledo, also known as the ‘Holy Child’, was another child whose death was blamed on local Jewish citizens through Blood Libel accusations of ritual murder – resulting in their execution. It is even alleged that the tale of Christopher of Toledo and its connection to ritual child sacrifice was manufactured by the Spanish Inquisition in order to support their banishment of Jews from Spain.

Though we only focused on these select instances, there are many other recorded instances, and it is also reasonable to believe that they may have certainly been unrecorded instances of these accusations resulting in violence. The images and narratives developed through the Blood Libel ideology embedded these concepts within the sociocultural consciousness, which the production of further iconographies and media reinforced. Just as the ‘tradition’ of conspiratorial ideologies around ritual child sacrifice were inherited and disseminated over the centuries, from dawn of Christianity through to the Crusading era; so has the tradition been passed on into the modern era, where cults like QAnon and conspiracy theories like Adrenochrome organize around the same beliefs. Similarly, the conspiracies of today also receive support from politicians and propagandists looking to use them for strategic gains and advantages. Once more, the media plays a pivotal role in the dissemination of these ideologies; this time however, the support these conspiracies receive from the media is far more significant: The Internet and Social Media. This journey, from the Late-Middle Ages through the Industrial Revolution and into the Modern Age, is our subject for Part Two.  

References 

Epiphanius. 2013. The Parnarion. Translated by Williams, F. Originally Published 375 C.E. Available: Epiphanius - Panarion - Bks II & III - 1.pdf 

Giles, J. A. 1852. Translator. Matthew Paris' English history, from 1235 to 1273. 

Irenaeus. 2014. Adversus Haereses. Translated by New Advent. Originally published 180 C.E. Available: CHURCH FATHERS: Against Heresies (St. Irenaeus) 

Kohl, J. 2018. A Murder, a Mummy, and a Bust: The Newly Discovered Portrait of Simon of Trent at the Getty. Getty Research Journal. 10. 37-60. 10.1086/697383. 

Marcus, R. J. 1938. The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook. P. 127-130. New York: JPS. 

Po-chia Hsia, R. 1992. Trent 1475: Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial. New Haven: Yale University. 

Rose, E. M. 2015. The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe. Oxford University Press: United Kingdom. 

The Tertullian Project. 1999. Apologeticum. Available: Tertullian : Apologeticum