What is the “blood
libel” or the “myth of Jewish ritual murder”? Using the Simon
of Trent case as your example, discuss the essential elements of this
alleged crime. How did prosecutors construct this accusation? How did
they make their case? What cultural building blocks could they draw
upon to construct the myth of Jewish ritual murder? What role did
politics play in such cases?
In the year 1475 in the
German city of Trent a body of a boy was found. The three major
Jewish families were accused of murder. The crime happened on
Passover. At first all the men denied everything, however under
sufficient torture by the podesta they all confessed. Each day the
podesta would tell the interviewed man what the previous Jews had
said. This way all the accused had a story that was in agreement.
Very often the podesta would torture the Jews until it heard
sufficient answers to the details of the murder. Bishop of
Hinderbach, or the Bishop of Trent was fully aware of other ritual
murder trails all over Germany. Thus, the podesta had examples to
draw on when interviewing the Jews. In the end the story of the
murder of Simon was that the Jews murdered him by mutilating his body
and draining his blood. They also circumscribed the boy. The blood
was important for the Jews because it was Passover and they needed
the blood for making masa. The Jewish women who lived in the
households were also interviewed and put under torture. When the
Vatican heard of what was going on in Trent they ordered Hinderbach
to stop what he was doing. The
Pope commanded Bishop Hinderbach to stop the proceedings until the
arrival of the papal authority. Hindebach believed in the martyrdom
of Simon unlike the papal commission. The papal commission agreed
that the Jews were innocent, however in the meantime the Bishop of
Trent and the podesta executed the Jews. The
Vatican was concerned with how the trial was spreading feelings of
anti-Semitism.
Trent 1475 Stories of Ritual Murder Trial by R. Po-chia Hsia
Discuss the impact of the
Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation on
attitudes towards Jewish ritual murder on the popular and elite level
as well as on patterns of prosecution.
The new Protestant
religions (Lutheranism and Calvinism) were very different from
Catholicism. Protestants removed all spiritual and ritual aspects of
Catholicism out of their beliefs. In 1517 Martin Luther viewed the
Catholic Church as being on the path of error. At first Luther was
very optimistic about Jewish conversion to Lutheranism however that
did not happen. Thus, with time Luther became an anti-Semite.
Calvinists differed from Luther in that they saw all of human kinda
as 100% corrupt. Out of the Reformation came out Humanism, which was
interested in ancient culture, languages, etc. Humanists were
interested in finding the original text of the Bible. Why this sudden
interest during the Protestant reformation? Because Protestants
focused on Scripture as the only source of learning about religion.
Humanists also studied Hebrew and found no signs of magic in ancient
Hebrew texts. Thus, Protestants did not see Jewish ritual murder as
Catholics did. Of course, if the Protestants said that Jewish ritual
murder was not possible the Catholics had to say the opposite.
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