82 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
enact a mockery of christ’s crucifixion.88 A predictable series of events frequently
followed such supposed murders: christians claimed that the child’s corpse, or the
grave or shrine built to commemorate his or her death, manifested miraculous
signs indicating not only Jewish guilt but also christian martyrdom.
in england charges of ritual murder began during the reign of Stephen (1135–
- with the discovery of the body of a boy—known as William of Norwich—
who had supposedly been murdered by Jews in 1144: the first Jewish ritual murder
on record in medieval europe. Several decades later, in 1173, the Benedictine
monk Thomas of Monmouth, who does not seem to have been present in Norwich
in 1144, but was extremely interested in the case, wrote The Life and Miracles of
St. William of Norwich in which he claimed that William was seen entering a
Jewish house with a stranger, was subsequently tortured and crucified, and that when
discovered his body showed miraculous signs of martyrdom.89 Thomas was con-
vinced that Jews had perpetrated the crime, pointing to the testimony of Theobold,
a converted Jew from cambridge, who he claimed had informed him that:
in the ancient writings of his fathers it was written that the Jews, without the shedding
of human blood, could neither obtain their freedom, nor could they ever return to
their fatherland. hence it was laid down by them in ancient times that every year they
must sacrifice a christian in some part of the world to the Most high God in scorn
and contempt of christ, that so they might avenge their sufferings on him.90in particular Jews were supposed to carry out a ritual murder annually at the
time of the Passover, since—again according to Theobold—it made sense at that
time for the people who spilt God’s blood to seek to re-enact the crucifixion.91
Theobold’s claim that Jews sacrificed christians every year because they needed to
shed christian blood in order to ‘return to their fatherland’ suggests that some
christians believed that Jews mistakenly thought that christian blood would bring
salvation. By contrast, in line with traditional christian theology as expressed in the
‘constitutio pro iudaeis’, they in fact believed that salvation could only be attained
through conversion to christianity and that Jews would never achieve it until—in
accordance with Pauline theology—the remnant was saved at the end of days.92
The incident at Norwich in 1144 was followed by a whole spate of similar accusa-
tions in england: at Gloucester in 1168, Bury St edmunds in 1181, Bristol in 1183,
88 Brenda deen Schildgen, Pagans, Tartars, Moslems, and Jews in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (florida,
2001), p.99.
89 The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315–1791, ed. J. Marcus (New York, 1975),
p.121. for a recent edition of the work, see Thomas of Monmouth, The Life and Passion of William of
Norwich, ed. and trans. M. rubin (London, 2014), passim.
90 The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth, ed. and trans. A. Jessop,
M. r. James (cambridge, 2011) pp.93–4: ‘referebat quidem in antiquis partum suorum scriptis
scriptum haberi, iudeos sine sanguinis humani effusione nec libertatem adipisci nec ad patrios fines
quandoque regredi. Unde ab ipsis antiquitus decretum est omni anno eos in obprobrium et contume-
liam christi christianum ubicunque terrarum deo litare altissimo, ut sic suas in illum ulciscantur
iniurias cuius mortis causa ipsi et a sua exclusi sunt patria et tanquam serui exulant in aliena.’
91 Marvin Perry, frederick Schweitzer, Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present
(London, 2002), pp.47–8.
92 romans 11: 11–12, Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Weber, Vol. 2; romans 11: 25–6,
Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Weber, Vol. 2.