Blood libel or ritual murder libel is an antisemitic canard which falsely accuses Jews of murdering Christians in order to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals. Echoing very old myths of secret cultic practices in many prehistoric societies, the claim, as it is leveled against Jews, was rarely attested to in antiquity. According to Tertullian, it originally emerged in late antiquity as an accusation made against members of the early Christian community of the Roman Empire. Once this accusation had been dismissed, it was revived a millennium later as a Christian slander against Jews in the medieval period. The first examples of medieval blood libel emerged in England in the mid 1100s before spreading into other parts of Europe, especially France and Germany. This libel, alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration, became a major theme of the persecution of Jews in Europe from that period down to modern times.
Hugh of Lincoln was an English boy whose death in Lincoln was falsely attributed to Jews. He is sometimes known as Little Saint Hugh or Little Sir Hugh to distinguish him from the adult saint, Hugh of Lincoln. The boy Hugh was not formally canonised, so "Little Saint Hugh" is a misnomer.
Host desecration is a form of sacrilege in Christian denominations that follow the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It involves the mistreatment or malicious use of a consecrated host—the bread used in the Eucharistic service of the Divine Liturgy or Mass. It is forbidden by the Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Orthodox Churches, as well as in certain Protestant traditions. In Catholicism, where the host is held to have been transubstantiated into the body of Jesus Christ, host desecration is one of the gravest sins. Intentional host desecration incurs the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae. Throughout history, a number of groups have been accused of desecrating the Eucharist, often with grave consequences due to the spiritual importance of the consecrated host.
The Damascus affair of 1840 refers to the arrest of several notable members of the Jewish community in Damascus on the accusation of murdering Father Thomas, a Christian monk, and his Muslim servant for the purpose of using their blood to bake matzo, an antisemitic accusation also known as the blood libel.
William of Norwich was an apprentice who lived in the English city of Norwich. He suffered a violent death during Easter 1144. The city's French-speaking Jewish community was blamed for his death, but the crime was never solved.
Miri Rubin is a historian and Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London. She was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Cambridge, where she gained her doctorate and was later awarded a research fellowship and a post-doctoral research fellowship at Girton College. Rubin studies the social and religious history of Europe between 1100 and 1500, concentrating on the interactions between public rituals, power, and community life.
Sir John Lexington was a baron and royal official in 13th century England. He has been described as having been Lord Chancellor, but other scholars believe he merely held the royal seals while the office was vacant or the chancellor was abroad. He served two terms, once from 1247 to 1248, and again from 1249 to 1250.
History of European Jews in the Middle Ages covers Jewish history in the period from the 5th to the 15th century. During the course of this period, the Jewish population experienced a gradual diaspora shifting from their motherland of the Levant to Europe. These Jewish individuals settled primarily in the regions of Central Europe dominated by the Holy Roman Empire and Southern Europe dominated by various Iberian kingdoms. As with Christianity, the Middle Ages were a period in which Judaism became mostly overshadowed by Islam in the Middle East, and an increasingly influential part of the socio-cultural and intellectual landscape of Europe.
William de Turbeville was a medieval Bishop of Norwich.
Antisemitism in the history of the Jews in the Middle Ages became increasingly prevalent in the Late Middle Ages. Early instances of pogroms against Jews are recorded in the context of the First Crusade. Expulsions of Jews from cities and instances of blood libel became increasingly common from the 13th to the 15th century. This trend only peaked after the end of the medieval period, and it only subsided with Jewish emancipation in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
Antisemitic tropes or antisemitic canards are "sensational reports, misrepresentations, or fabrications" that are defamatory towards Judaism as a religion or defamatory towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Since as early as the 2nd century, libels or allegations of Jewish guilt and cruelty emerged as a recurring motif along with antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Ariel Toaff is a professor of Medieval and Renaissance History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, whose work has focused on Jews and their history in Italy.
The Rhodes blood libel was an 1840 event of blood libel against Jews, in which the Greek Orthodox community accused Jews on the island of Rhodes of the ritual murder of a Christian boy who disappeared in February of that year.
"Sir Hugh", also known as "The Jew's Daughter" or "The Jew's Garden", is a traditional British folk song, Child ballad No. 155, Roud No. 73, a folkloric example of a blood libel. The original texts are not preserved, but the versions written down from the 18th century onwards show a clear relationship with the 1255 accusations of the murder of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln by Jews in Lincoln, making it likely that the known versions derive from compositions made around that time.
Saint Robert of Bury was an English boy, allegedly murdered and found in the town of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk in 1181. His death, which occurred at a time of rising antisemitism, was falsely blamed on local Jews. Though a hagiography of Robert was written, no copies are known, so the story of his life is now unknown beyond the few fragmentary references to it that survive. His cult continued until the English Reformation.
Anderl (Andreas) Oxner von Rinn, also known as Andreas Oxner, is a folk saint of the Roman Catholic Church. A later writer alleged that the three-year-old boy had been ritually murdered by the Jews in the village of Rinn. The story is an example of a Blood libel common in medieval Europe.
Augustus Jessopp was an English cleric and writer. He spent periods of time as a schoolmaster and then later as a clergyman in Norfolk, England. He wrote regular articles for The Nineteenth Century, variously on humorous, polemical and historical topics. He published scholarly work on local Norfolk history and on aspects of English literature. A good friend of the academic and ghost-story writer M. R. James, he is described by James' biographer R. W. Pfaff as "a fine specimen of the learned but somewhat eccentric country parson."
Harold of Gloucester was a supposed child martyr who was falsely claimed by Benedictine monks to have been ritually murdered by Jews in Gloucester, England, in 1168. The claims arose in the aftermath of the circulation of the first blood libel myth following the unsolved murder of William of Norwich. A Christian cult and veneration of Harold was briefly promoted in Gloucester, but soon died out.
Werner of Oberwesel was a 16-year-old boy whose unexplained death was blamed on Jews, leading to revenge killings of Jews across Europe. He was venerated as a Christian saint, and his memorial day was 19 April.
The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich is a Latin hagiography of William of Norwich by the Benedictine monk Thomas of Monmouth that was written in the second half of the twelfth century. It puts forth the false claim that a young boy named William, who had been found dead in a forest, was in fact ritually murdered by Jews, and was therefore eligible for sainthood.
Rose's conclusions have been challenged by Eamon Duffy, Royal Books and Holy Bones: Essays in Medieval Christianity. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.
