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Old September 26th, 2016 #13
Karl Radl
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Default Brother Theobald’s Testimony on Jewish Ritual Murder

Brother Theobald’s Testimony on Jewish Ritual Murder


In the first classic jewish ritual murder case in the medieval world, which concerned the murder of the twelve year old William of Norwich by local jews. The only chronicler of the details of the case, Thomas of Monmouth, cites the testimony of one of his fellow brethren named Theobald in regards to why the jews committed the deed.

Thomas of Monmouth writes:

‘We also interpose as an argument of faith and truth what we have heard told by Theobald, a person who was once a Jew and later one of our monks. He told us that in the ancient writings of their ancestors it was written that Jews could not achieve their freedom or ever return to the lands of their fathers without the shedding of human blood. Hence it was decided by them a long time ago that every year, to the shame and affront of Christ, a Christian somewhere on earth be sacrificed to the highest God, and so they take revenge for the injuries of Him, whose death is the reason for their exclusion for their fatherland and their exile as slaves in foreign lands.

Therefore, the leaders and rabbis of the Jews who dwell in Spain, at Narbonne, where the seed of kings and their glory, flourishes greatly, meet together, and cast lots of all the regions where Jews live. Whichever region was chosen by lot, its capital city had to apply that lot to the other cities and towns, and the one whose name comes up will carry out that business, as decreed. In that year, however, when William, the glorious martyr of God, was killed, it so happened that the lot fell on the men of Norwich, and all the communities of the Jews of England offered their consent by letters or by messengers for the crime to be performed at Norwich. ‘I was at the time in Cambridge, a Jew among Jews, and the crime of the action performed was not hidden from me. With the passage of time, when I learned of the glorious miracles which by divine virtue happened through the merits of the blessed martyr William, I was greatly afraid and, consulting my conscience and left Judaism and converted to the faith of Christ.’ These words, indeed, of the Jewish convert we believe to be all the truer for having learned them from a converted enemy, revealed by someone privy to the secrets of the enemies.’ (1)

Theobald, a convert from Judaism, has long been the subject of debate. Nearly all scholars dismiss his assertions as groundless, but some scholars have even claimed that Theobold never existed. (2) That said modern historians tend towards the belief that he did in fact exist. (3)

Now contrary to much of the previous commentary on Theobald: (4) I don’t think Theobald’s claims are as far-fetched as these scholars assume.

Langmuir has argued that ‘we would know’ about such a cult or practice due to the ‘massive amount of documentary evidence’ that we have. (5)

This is not necessarily true because there are a lot of things we don’t know about Judaism despite the aforementioned ‘massive evidence’. We don’t know why the meat and milk differentiation in the laws of Kashruth came to be interpreted figuratively (i.e. you cannot mix meat and milk) in the Mishnah when it was only previously interpreted literally (i.e. you cannot cook an animal in their own mother’s milk). (6)

For another we have little information concerning the Cathar heresy in a similar time period, which has led some scholars to conclude that it was never a defined religious community but rather the figment of the imagination of Catholic scholastics. (7)

Thus saying ‘we would know about it’ is not an argument against Theobald’s assertions and nor is it absurd that we wouldn’t know about it. After all what has survived to be studied and read by historians to this day from the pre-modern past is largely a historical accident.

I contend that there are actually traces of this kind in the historical record, but that in order to see them. We have to get forget the absurd presumption, common to many modern historians, that the jews have never done anything wrong and therefore we must always look for alternative explanations for accusations levelled at them.

Horowitz has for example demonstrated that when we remove this intellectual filter and examine jews as we would any other people. We see that they have frequently exhibited an intense religious based hatred of Christians and particularly of the twin symbols of the cross and crucifix.

This leads to us taking seriously credible accounts from both jewish and non-jewish sources of jews deliberately urinating in baptismal waters and on crosses, (8) attacking crosses during a Christian processions, (9) provocatively throwing meat bones into a Church while mass was being celebrated on Good Friday (10) as well as simply burning down churches. (11)

Before and during the medieval era; jews are known to have beat Christians with canes (for religious reasons) and scourged crucifixes in the privacy of their own homes. (12) The epicentre of these activities was Spain (13) which is the same place that Theobald alleges was the centre of this cult/group. It is therefore not much of an intellectual stretch to suggest that if Spain had a history of jewish anti-Christian religious violence that such could have been transmitted to jews in other parts of Europe.

To counter Theobald’s testimony Rose discusses the successful efforts of Rabbi Jacob Tam to bring together circa one hundred rabbis from across Europe to discuss questions of jewish law in 1150 AD, which is six years after William was killed. (13) This is notable but doesn’t actually relate to Theobald’s testimony since Thomas specifically refers to the jews of Spain meeting in Narbonne and then whichever region is selected also meets to determine which of their communities are to do the deed.

Thus it isn’t likely to be what Thomas and Theobold are referring to.

Rose however does point out that Theobold must have had significant jewish learning because he was aware of the Nasi (i.e. Prince of the jews) in Narbonne in the twelfth century. (14) This means that Theobold must have himself have been jewish as Thomas of Monmouth doesn’t demonstrate similar learning in the rest of his ‘The Life and Passion’ and isn’t likely to have acquired that knowledge either.

This therefore suggests we have to take Theobald seriously as a source on the ritual murder accusation. I don’t wish to delve too deeply here into the William of Norwich trial. And I would point out however that while Theobald’s testimony is likely conflating a much smaller jewish group, likely based around a single obscure Rav’s teachings, within Judaism with ‘all the jews’.

What it does mean is that it is imminently probable that Theobald is telling the truth about what happened as he understood it.

His knowledge and presence within the case by his own admission as well as his inexplicable sudden conversion to Christianity and desire of a religious life (which freed him from the judgment of secular courts) also suggests an intriguing possibility: was Theobald himself one of the murderers of William of Norwich?

It is both an eminently plausible and provocative theory, but as I shall explore in another article: it is likely to be something approaching the truth of the case.


References


(1) Thomas of Monmouth, The Life and Passion of William of Norwich, 2:11 (Rubin translation)
(2) Gavin Langmuir, 1984, ‘Thomas of Monmouth: Detector of Ritual Murder’, pp. 22-24 in Alan Dundes (Ed.), 1991, ‘The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore’, 1st Edition, The University of Wisconsin Press: Madison
(3) Ibid; E. M. Rose, 2015, ‘The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe’, 1st Edition, Oxford University Press: New York, pp. 82-83
(4) For example Langmuir, Op. Cit., pp. 22-24
(5) Ibid, p. 23
(6) Jordan Rosenblum, 2010, ‘Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism’, 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, pp. 141-142
(7) Cf. R. I. Moore, 2014, ‘The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe’, 1st Edition, Belknap Press: Cambridge
(8) Elliot Horowitz, 2007, ‘Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence’, 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton, pp. 165-167
(9) Ibid, p. 150
(10) Ibid, p. 153
(11) Ibid, p. 160
(12) Ibid, pp. 174-179
(13) Rose, Op. Cit., p. 85
(14) Ibid, p. 86

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