Blood Libels between Trento and the Bodensee

Abstract

Abstract This article examines a little-known event that took place in 1475. This year saw a well-publicized trial at which the Jews of Trento were falsely accused of kidnapping a Christian toddler named Simon and murdering him in a religious ritual. Pope Sixtus IV, abiding by the long-standing papal tradition of defending the Jews against such accusations of ritual murder (known as blood libels), sent an apostolic commissioner to Trento to investigate the legitimacy of the proceedings opened by the local prince-bishop, Johannes Hinderbach. To defend his version of the story, namely that the Jews were responsible for the crime and that the ritual killing of Christian children was a long-established Jewish practice, Hinderbach sent the Dominican friar Heinrich Kramer von Schlettstadt (later known for his role in the development of the witch hunt) on a mission to the Bodensee region to uncover reports of previous alleged Jewish ritual murders. During his journey, Kramer managed to obtain a bundle of written notarial documents that attempt to prove the thesis of the magistrates and the bishop of Trento. Kramer’s mission is analysed by comparing the documents produced for him in southern Germany with other sources concerning the same cases and within the broader context of the blood libel of Trento.