“On Everyone’s Lips”: Humanists, Jews, and the Tale of Simon of Trent (Volume 418) (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies)

On Easter Sunday in 1475 the corpse of a two-year-old child was found in a ditch in Trent, and the rumour that he had been ritually murdered by Jews quickly gained acceptance; suspects were tried, confessed under torture and executed. Examining how a cult of Simon and the blood libel against Jews were widely spread through printed verse and prose accounts, this volume presents a selection of vernacular and Latin texts with facing translations and notes. The death of a small child called Simon in the town of Trent in 1475 was blamed on the local Jewish community who were accused of abducting, torturing, and strangling him as a way of obtaining Christian blood to use in their rituals. The prince-bishop of Trent orchestrated a campaign against the Jews: poets and humanists wrote about the case on the basis of first-hand knowledge or acquaintance with the trial records and provided detailed accounts of the supposed Jewish conspiracy and murder. The 'blood libel' against the Jews was familiar to most Europeans but the tales from Trent made available in English here for the first time were unprecedented in their detail, savagery of denunciation, and scope of circulation thanks to the new medium of print. As a result the story of Simon's 'martyrdom' and miracles, as well as the prosecution and execution of the Jews, resonated in the European consciousness for centuries