From ritual crucifixion to host desecration: Jews and the body of Christ

Jewish History

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 11-28

  Stacey, Robert C ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 54649084754     PISSN: 0334701X     EISSN: 15728579     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/BF02335451     Document Type: Review

References (95)

1. E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure ofdesus (Harmondsworth, 1993), 273-4,
2. and Krister Stendahl, "Anti-Semitism," in Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan (eds.), The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford, 1993), 33, represent a wide (although not universal) consensus amongst New Testament scholars on this issue. For the New Testament references, see Matthew 27:11-26 and John 18:28-19:16; and, less explicitly, Mark 15:1-15, Luke 23:1-24.
3. Matthew 27:24-25.
4. On the development of the notion of deicide, see Jeremy Cohen, "The Jews as Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to the Friars," Traditio 39 (1983), 1-27.
5. See now Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 (New York, 1995).
6. For this common Pauline metaphor, see I Corinthians 6:15, 12:12; 12:27; Colossians 1:18.
7. Francis Oakley, The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1979), 82-3,
8. following Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 2nd ed. (London, 1960), 240-50.
9. Joseph A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origin and Development, trans. F. A. Brunner, 2 vols. (New York, 1950), remains the standard account of the mass.
10. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine. Volume III: The Growth of Medieval Theology, 600-1300 (Chicago, 1978), 74-80, 184-204;
11. Oakley, Western Church, 83-6;
12. and see also Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), 48-69.
13. I Corinthians 10:16-17, my translation from the Vulgate.
14. Pelikan, Growth, 75;
15. and see also the classic work by Henri de Lubac, Corpus mysticum: L'eucharistie et l'église au Moyen Age, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1949).
16. G. Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period (Oxford, 1984).
17. Pelikan's translation (Growth, 191) of Alger of Liege, On the Sacraments: Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, vol. 180: 790-1.
18. For what follows, see Oakley, Western Church, 161-3;
19. Lubac, Corpus mysticum, 116-35;
20. and Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957), 194-206.
21. Oakley, Western Church, 162.
22. Oakley, Western Church, Ibid., 162-3;
23. Brien Tiemey, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism (Cambridge, 1955), 132-53;
24. Kantorowiez, King's Two Bodies, 196-202.
25. Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi (Cambridge, 1991);
26. and see also John Bossy's classic article, "The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200-1700," Past and Present 100 (1983), 29-61.
27. Bynum, Holy Feast, 63-4;
28. and see also two important articles by Denise Despres: "Cultic Anti-Judaism and Chaucer's Little Clergeon," Modern Philology (1994), 413-27;
29. and "Mary of the Eucharist: Cultic Anti-Judaism in Fourteenth-Century English Devotional Manuscripts," in Jeremy Cohen (ed.), From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (Wiesbaden, 1996), 375-401.
30. Wayne A. Meeks and Robert L. Wilken, Jews and Christians in Antioch (Missoula, 1978);
31. Robert L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (Berkeley, 1983).
32. Anna Sapir Abulafia, "Bodies in the Jewish-Christian Debate," in Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (eds.), Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester, 1994), 131-2.
33. The standard work on Rupert of Deutz is John Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983).
34. Miri Rubin is engaged in a comprehensive study of host desecration stories. See "Desecration of the Host: The Birth of an Accusation," in Diana Wood (ed.), Christianity and Judaism (Studies in Church History 29, Oxford, 1992), 169-85;
35. and her article in R. Po-chia Hsia and Hartmut Lehmann (eds.), In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1995).
36. Rubin, "Desecration of the Host," 169-72.
37. Cohen, "Jews as Killers of Christ," 1-27;
38. Kenneth R. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 231-51;
39. Rubin, Corpus Christi.
40. I am adopting Langmuir's terminology for these accusations, which too often are lumped together under the analytically unsatisfactory heading of "blood libel." For Langmuir's understanding of medieval antisemitism, see his synthetic treatment, History, Religion and Antisemitism (Berkeley, 1990),
41. and his collected essays, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley, 1990).
42. have offered my own evaluation of Langmuir's arguments in "History, Religion, and Medieval Antisemitism: A Response to Gavin Langmuir," Religious Studies Review 20:2 (1994), 95-101.
43. Rubin, "Desecration of the Host," 169-72.
44. Although she is not responsible for my conclusions, I must acknowledge the help of Deborah Jo Miller, Cornell University, in formulating these observations on ritual crucifixion stories. Her most important work is as yet unpublished; but in the meantime, see her Cambridge University M. Phil. thesis, "The Development of the 'Ritual Murder' Accusation in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries and its Relationship to the Changing Attitudes of Christians Toward Jews" (1991).
45. The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, ed. Augustus Jessopp and M. R. James (Cambridge, 1896);
46. Gavin Langmuir, "The Knight's Tale of Young Hugh of Lincoln," in Toward a Definition, 237-62,
47. Despres, "Cultic Anti-Judaism."
48. The lengthy collection of miracle stories which follows the account of William of Norwich's life and crucifixion is thus an essential part of the Vita et Passio Willelmi, as Jo Miller has pointed out to me.
49. As William Jordan has noted, the saint's days for many of these child martyrs frequently coincide with Marian feast days: see his The French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians (Philadelphia, 1989), 19.
50. The stories themselves, however, do not generally accord a significant role to Mary in their narratives. She is neither a principal target for the hostility of the Jewish perpetrators toward Christianity, nor does she intervene to lessen the suffering of the child martyr. Nor is it always easy to determine the date at which a formal saint's day was assigned to these child martyrs. In some cases, for example that of Hugh of Lincoln, the official saint's day of 27 July seems to have been assigned quite late, perhaps not until the eighteenth century: see Langmuir, "Knight's Tale," 238.
51. For the analysis that follows, I am indebted to Rubin, "Desecration of the Host."
52. Despres, "Cultic Anti-Judaism," and idem, "Mary of the Eucharist."
53. The story appears in British Library Harleian MS. 957, fols. 19r-27r. A Latin transcript of the tale has now been published by Christoph Cluse, "Fabula Ineptissima: Die Ritualmordlegende um Adam von Bristol nach der Handschrift London, British Library, Harley 957," Aschkenas: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der Juden 5:2 (1995), 293-330. I am grateful to Dr. Cluse for his generosity in sharing his work with me, after discovering that we were both simultaneously at work on this fascinating text. I hope to complete my own edition, translation and study of the text shortly.
54. Cluse, "Fabula," 305; fol. 19r. Scholars have presumed that this must refer to Henry II, whose son Henry, "the young king," died in 1183 - hence the dating of a Bristol ritual crucifixion accusation to 1183 in Michael Adler, Jews of Medieval England (London, 1939), 185-6,
55. followed by Cecil Roth, A History of the Jews in England, 3rd. ed. (Oxford, 1964), 13,
56. and Langmuir, "Knight's Tale," 241. As Dr. Paul Brand has pointed out to me, however, the reference could conceivably be to the reign of King Henry I, who was sometimes thought in the thirteenth century to have been the father (rather than the grandfather) of King Henry II.
57. Cluse, "Fabula," 304, reproduces folio 22r with the two illuminations.
58. I have argued the case for this in "From Ritual Crucifixion to Host Desecration: The Excruciating Drama of Adam of Redcliff," an unpublished paper delivered to the annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, Boston, 1993. A revised version of this paper will become part of my book in progress on this tale.
59. The text ends with the following comment, set off in red ink from the dark brown ink of the text: "Amen, the book is finished. Praise and glory to Christ. May the tongue of the reader bless the body of the writer." ("Amen. Finito libro sit laus et gloria Christo. Corpus scribentis benedicat lingua legentis." Cluse, "Fabula," 327; fol. 27r, but reading "benedicat" for Cluse's "benedicit". I am grateful to Dr. Adam Kosto for help with this passage.)
60. "quid fecerint michi judei in Anglia ydolatra et garula" (Cluse, "Fabula," 305; fol. 19r).
61. Cluse, "Fabula," 305-7; fols. 19r-v.
62. "Hie est deus christianorum"; (ibid., 308; fol. 20r);
63. "corpus dei christianorum"; (ibid., 309; fol. 20v). Examples could be multiplied.
64. Cluse, "corpus dei christianorum"; (ibid., 309, 311; fols. 20v, 21v.
65. "Ecce quam pulcre ridet deus christianorum!"; (ibid., 309; fol. 20v).
66. "Ecce quam pulcre ridet deus christianorum!"; (Ibid., 310-11; fol. 21r.
67. Ibid., 311-12; fol. 21v.
68. I'm grateful to Professor Laura Hodges, formerly of Rice University, for advice on stamen.
69. "Miser, hic non purgabis ventrem!" Cluse, "Fabula," 314; fol. 22v.
70. Cluse, "Fabula," Ibid., 317; fol. 23v.
71. Ibid., 317-22; fols. 23v-25r.
72. Ibid., 322-5; fols. 25v-26v.
73. Ibid., 325-6; fols. 26v-27r.
74. Ibids., 326-7; fol. 27r. "Locus iste ignotus erit tibi et omni humane creature usque in diem prefinitarn a deo patre."
75. For the text of this envoi, see note 36 above.
76. On the "Jew of Bourges" tale, see Rubin, "Desecration of the Host," 173 and references cited there.
77. Cluse, "Fabula," 322; fol. 25v:
78. "Ad quem saeerdos: 'Taee ne loquare unum solum verbum. Sedete hic donec veniam ad vos et dicite Pater Noster, dominicam scilicet orationem, et Ave Maria, salutacionem videlicet angelicam, et nolite egredi a loco isto." On the centrality of these prayers to later medieval English devotion, see Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (New Haven, 1992), 53-5, 80, 219.
79. Cluse, "Fabula, 323; fols. 25v-25r.
80. When Samuel's sister sends the Irish priest and his companions offto church in the morning, she gives the priest 3 pennies, telling him to have three priests each say one Mass of the Holy Spirit, "ut omnia nobis prospera sint," with the priest himself saying a fourth Mass. The church of St. Mary, Redeliff, had a Chapel of the Holy Spirit on its grounds, for which I have not yet determined the foundation date.
81. Cluse, "Fabula," 317; fol. 23v.
82. Cluse, "Fabula," Ibid., 319, 321; fols. 24r-24v, 24v-25r.
83. On the links between Redcliff and Bedminster, both held in the twelfth century by the Fitz Harding family, see the article on Bristol in M. D. Lobel (ed.), Historic Towns Atlas, Volume II (Oxford, 1975).
84. Cluse, "Fabula," 316; fol. 23r.
85. "Erat enim muller ceca fidelis in lege sua, dicit dominus deus"; Cluse, "Fabula," 315; fol. 22v. "Non eredam in hominem mortalem Ihesum" ibid., 325; fol. 26v.
86. John McCulloh, "Jewish Ritual Murder: William of Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth, and the Early Dissemination of the Myth," Speculum 72:3 (July, 1997).
87. Langmuir, "Knight's Tale," 240-1, collects the references.
88. A point noted also by Langmuir, "Knight's Tale," 241.
89. Ronald C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims (London, 1997).
90. R.W. Southern, "The English Origins of the Miracles of the Virgin," Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1958): 176-216;
91. Jordan, French Monarchy.
92. Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1993), is an excellent introduction to the burgeoning literature on women and the reading of books.
93. Langmuir, "Knight's Tale," passim.
94. Robert C. Stacey, "John of Lexinton," The New Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
95. Dully, Stripping of the Altars, 209-98.