(A.D. 1475.)
[Roman Martyrology. Authority:--The Acts of Canonization by Benedict
XIV., and the Acts published in the Italian immediately after the
event took place.]
Through the Middle Ages, in Europe the Jews were harshly treated,
suffering from sudden risings of the people, or from the exactions
of princes and nobles. This nourished in them a bitter hatred of
Christians and Christianity, and in some instances led to cruel
reprisals. Such was, perhaps, the case in Trent, where on Tuesday in
Holy Week, 1475, the Jews met to prepare for the approaching Passover,
in the house of one of their number named Samuel, and it was agreed
between three of them, Samuel, Tobias, and Angelus, that a child should
be crucified, as an act of revenge against their tyrants, and of hatred
against Christianity. The difficulty, however, was how to get one.
Samuel sounded his servant Lazarus, and attempted to bribe him into
procuring one, but the suggestion so scared the fellow, that he packed
up all his traps and ran away. On the Thursday, Tobias undertook to get
the boy, and going out in the evening, whilst the people were in church
during the singing of Tenebræ, he prowled about till he found a child
sitting on the threshold of his father's door in the Fossati Street,
aged twenty-nine months, and named Simon. The Jew began to coax the
little fellow to follow him, and the boy did so, and he conducted him
to the house of Samuel, where he was put to bed, and given raisins and
apples to amuse him.
In the mean time the parents, Andrew and Mary, missing their child,
began to seek him everywhere, but not finding him, and night falling
darkly upon them, they returned, troubled and alarmed to their home.
During the night, when all was still, a Jew named Moses took the child
from its bed, and carried it into the vestibule of the synagogue, which
formed a part of the house of Samuel, and sitting down on a bench began
to strip the infant; a handkerchief being twisted round its throat to
prevent it from crying. Then stretching out his limbs in the shape of a
cross they began the butchery of the child, cutting the body in several
places, and gathering his blood in a basin. The child being half dead,
they raised him on his feet, and whilst two of them held him by the
arms, the rest pierced his body on all sides with their awls.
When the child was dead, they hid the body in a cellar behind the
barrels of wine.
All Friday the parents sought their son, but found him not, and the
Jews, alarmed at the proceedings of the magistrates, who had taken the
matter up, and were making investigations in all quarters, consulted
what had better be done. They could not carry the body away, as
every gate was watched, and the perplexity was great. At length they
determined to dress the body again and throw it into the stream which
ran under Samuel's window, but which was there blocked by an iron cage
in which the refuse was caught. Tobias was to go to the bishop and
chief magistrates and tell them that there was a child's body entangled
in the grate, and he hoped that by thus drawing attention to it all
suspicion of having been implicated in the murder would be diverted
from him and his co-religionists.
This was done, and when John de Salis, the bishop, and James de Sporo,
the governor, heard the report of the Jew, they at once went, and the
body was removed before their eyes, and conveyed to the cathedral,
followed by a crowd. As, according to a popular mediæval superstition,
blood is supposed to flow from the wound when the murderer approaches,
the officers of justice examined the body as the crowds passed it; and
they noticed that blood exuded as Tobias approached. On the strength of
this the house of Samuel and the synagogue were examined, and blood and
other traces of the butchery were found in the cellar, and in the place
where the deed had been done, and the bowl of blood was discovered in
a cupboard. The most eminent physicians were called to investigate
the condition of the corpse, and they unanimously decided that the
child could not have been drowned, as the body was not swollen, and
as there were marks on the throat of strangulation. The wounds they
decided were made by sharp instruments like awls and knives, and could
not be attributed to the gnawing of water-rats. The popular voice now
accusing the Jews, the magistrates seized on the Jews and threw them
into prison, and on the accusation of a renegade Jew named John, who
had been converted to Christianity seven years before, and who declared
that the Jews had often sought to catch and kill a child, and had
actually done this elsewhere, more than five of the Jews were sentenced
to be broken on the wheel, and then burnt.
The blood found in the basin is preserved in the cathedral of Trent,
and the body of the child is also enshrined there in a magnificent
mausoleum.
March 25.
_The Annunciation of S. Mary_.
MEMORIAL OF THE CRUCIFIXION.
THE PENITENT THIEF, A.D. 33.
S. QUIRINUS, _M. at Rome_, A.D. 269.
S. IRENÆUS, _B.M. at Sirmium_, A.D. 304.
S. PELAGIUS, _B. of Laodicæa, end of 4th cent._
S. DULA, _V.M. at Nicomedia_.
S. CAMIN, _Ab. of Iniskeltra, in Ireland, circ._ A.D. 653.
S. HUMBERT, _P.C. at Marolles, in Hainault, circ._ A.D. 680.
SS. BARONTUS AND DESIDERIUS, _HH. at Pistoria, circ._ A.D. 725.
S. HERMELAND, _Ab. of Hindre, in France, 8th cent._
S. ALFWOLF, _B. of Sherborne_, A.D. 1075.
S. WILLIAM, _Child M. at Norwich_, A.D. 1144.
S. RICHARD, _Child M. at Paris_, A.D. 1179.
S. IDA, _Abss. of Argensolles, in the diocese of Soissons,
circ._ A.D. 1250.