When the due date rolled around, the full sum had not yet been collected, and only part of the sum had found its way to the coffers of the Sforzas. A few months later, the disillusioned Ludovico the Moor ordered a public bonfire of the seized books. Mendele (Menachem) Oldendorf, a young German Jew and son of a bankrupt merchant, a certain Herz (Naftali), also known as “Golden”, perhaps in remembrance of when he had been rich, no doubt possessed a lively and versatile wit, in addition to an unusual degree of Hebraic culture; he was known for holding brilliant homilies in the synagogue and functioned as a ritual butcher, he was an able writer in the Yiddish language and was a respected copier of Hebraic codes. In 1474, he traveled from Regensburg to Venice, where he stayed until at least 1483, when he was present at the famous bonfire at the Ducal Palace. In his autobiography, the young Oldendorf described the manner in which he had been informed by trust-worthy persons of bonfires of Jewish texts at Milan and other places in the Duchy of Milan in 1490, regretting that the burnt manuscripts included some which he had copied personally [278].
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"I learned from one of the wise men of Israel [...] that in the year 5248 (=1488) Lord Ludovico the Moor ordering the burning of a great number of Jewish books at Milan, the capital city, as well as in other localities in his territories. I, personally, a copier of codes, saw some of my own texts among the books consigned to the flames. Blessed be God who enabled me to witness the revenge of God’s Law against that same nobleman (Ludovico the Moor), who has been captured and taken into France, where he died [...] Menachem Oldendorf, the German. 5274 (=1514)".
One of the most important defendants in the Milan trial of 1488 was -- and this is not surprising -- Jacob, son of Manno of Pavia, who had died in the meantime [279]. Before the inquisitors, Jacob was requested, among others, to deny the rumor that the Jews were accustomed to "making images in the form of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, and then throwing them in the fire, trampling them under foot or covering them with excrement" [280]. The accusation was not a new one. During Passover in 1493, Joav (Dattilo) and the other Jews, living at Savigliano in Piedmonte, were condemned to the payment of a fine of five hundred gold ducats for a serious act of wickedness.
"[These Jews] kneaded the unleavened bread or mazzot, according to their rite and in outrage to the glorious crucifix [...] and prepared four images of dough in the form of our Lord, Jesus Christ, in mockery of God and the Catholic faith, then burnt these dough dolls in the oven"
[281] .
At a distance of only a few years from the Trent trials, it is not surprising that the judges should turn to one of the inquisitors, Lazzaro da San Colombano to ask: whether or not the Jews were actually accustomed to abduct Christians for the purpose of committing reprehensible acts against them in contempt for the Christian faith [282].
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p. 93]
CHAPTER SIX
MAGICAL AND THERAPEUTIC USES OF BLOOD
Reading the depositions of defendants accused of ritual child murder with relation to the utilization of blood, one is left with the clear impression that, rather than explain the need for the blood of a Christian child, the defendants were attempting to provide a description of the wonderful therapeutic and magical properties of blood generally, and of blood extracted from children and young persons in particular. The principle emphasis was placed upon scorched, dried blood which been reduced to powder; such blood is said to have been used as an haemostatic [coagulant] of extraordinary effectiveness when applied to the wound caused by circumcision. Angelo da Verona had no doubt in this regard and explained to the judges at Trent that, once the blood had been reduced to powder, Jews normally save it for later re-use when their sons were circumcised, to heal the wound in the foreskin. If available, they were said to have used other haemostatic powders as an alternative, such as bolo di Armenia and the so-called "dragon's blood", a sort of dark red colored resin, known in pharamceutics as Calamus Draco or Pterocarpus Draco [283]. The physician Giuseppe di Riva del Garda, known as the "hunchbacked Jew", who had circumcised Angelo’s sons, normally used it during the course of the holy operation [284].
Obviously, Maestro Tobias, who rightly considered himself a medical expert, also knew how to prepare the magic haemostatic: "You take the blood, allowing it to coagulate; then you dry it and make a powder out of it, which can be used in so many different ways" [285]. Giovanni Hinderbach seemed scandalized by these revelations and censured the wickedness of the Jews in healing the circumcision wounds of their sons with the blood of Christian children in his opening address at the Trent trial. "As with other things Tobias confessed", explained the prince bishop, "they medicate their circumcisions with the powder of that coagulated blood and then, in the
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second or third day after the operation, recovering their health" [286].
Elias and Mercklin (Mordekhai), as well, two of the brothers accused of the terrible multiple homicide of Endingen in Alsace, during their trial in 1470, attempted uselessly to beat around the bush before the inquisitors’ demands relating to the use of the blood of Christian children by Jews. This blood was then utilized for the marvelous balsamic qualities which it possessed, beneficial in curing epilepsy and eliminating the disgusting body odour of Jews [il disgustoso fetore giudaico]. But in the end, they both admitted to making use of the magical healing liquid to cure the circumcision wounds of their sons [287]. Leo of Pforzheim, the most illustrious among the defendants accused of acquiring blood from the children killed at Endingen, confessed that he had procured it because it was required for the circumcision procedure. Leo had known that the powdered blood of children was used as a coagulant of proven efficacy on those occasions for more than twenty years, ever since the first time he had been present at a circumcision ceremony with his father, twenty years before [288]. The Jews accused of ritual child murder at Tyrnau in Hungary in 1494 also declared, among other things, that they had used powdered blood as a circumcision haemostatic [289] . The widespread use of blood as a powerful haemostatic among the Jews is probably the reason for the widespread notion that Jewish males – all directly or indirectly guilty of Deicide – suffered painful and abundant monthly menstruation periods [presumably anally].
Perhaps first advanced by Cecco d'Ascoli in his commentary De Sphaera by Sacrobosco in 1324, this eccentric opinion is said to have received enthusiastic support from the Dominican friar Rodolfo de Selestat in Alsace [290]. The Jews, the killers of Christ, and their progeny, were said to been inflicted with an abnormal escape of blood, menstruations, bleeding hemorrhoids, hematuriae [blood in the urine] and exhausting fits of dysentery, which they were alleged to attempt to cure through the application of Christian blood as a haemostatic. "I heard of the Jews [...] that all the Jews, descendants of those guilty of Deicide, have escapes of blood every month and often suffer from dysentery, from which they frequently perish .But they recover their health by virtue of Christian blood, baptized in the name of Christ" [291].
278
Fragments of Mendele Oldendorf of Regensburg’s autobiography have been published by E. Kupfer, in "Di goldene keyt. Periodical for Literature and Social Problems", 58 (1967) pp. 212-223 (in Yiddish). He has stressed its importance as a source for the history of the Jews at Venice and in the Ashkanazi communities of northern Italy in the last part of the Fifteenth century, D. Nissim,
279
In the trial documents, Jacob is referred to as "Jacob ebreus de Papia, filius quondam Manni, habitator in civitate Papie". (Cfr. Antoniazzi Villa,
280
"Si faciunt aliquam ymaginem ad symilitudinem Iesus Christi et Virginis Marie et ipsam ymaginam proyciunt in igne vel in aliquo, vel ponunt sub pedibus, vel alidquid faceunt in contemptum" (cfr. Ibidem, p. 86; "[...] et ipsam ymaginem proyciunt in igne, vel stercore vel sub pedibus" [“Whether they make images in the likeness of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary and those these images in the fire or elsewhere, or stamp them underfoot, or otherwise hold them in contempt”] (cfr. Ibidem, p. 88).
281
"(Judaei} panes azymos seu mazoctos secundum ritum eorum legis confecisse ad instar tamen gloriossimi cruxifficii et eius vilipendium [...] quia fecerunt quatuor imagines de pasta ad imaginem domini nostri Jehesus Christi in obproprium Christi et fidei catholice, comburendo ipsas imagines infra quendam furnam" (cfr. Segre, The Jews in Piedmont, cit., vol. I, pp. 146-147, nos. 326-327). For documentation on other cases in which, in the Middle Ages, the Jews were accused of making, on the eve of the Passover, leavened bread with the image of the crucicifed Christ, and then causing them to be consumed in the heat of the furnace, see D. Nirenberg,
282
"Si (hebrei) capiunt aliquem christianum et aliquid de ipso in comtemptum fidei christiane faciunt" (cfr. Antoniazzi Villa,
283
"Accipiunt dictum sanguinem dictorum puerorum Christianorum et illu redigunt in pulverem, quem pulverem ipsi Iudei servant et postea, quando circumciserunt eorum filios, ponunt de sanguine pueri Christiani super preputiis circuncisourm [...] et si non possunt habere de sanguine pueri Christiani quando circumcisorum, ponunt de bolo Armeno et de sanguine draconis, et dicit quod dictus pulvis mirabiliter consolidat vulnera et restringit sanguinem" [“They take the blood of Christian boys and reduce it to powder, which powder these Jews use themselves, and later, when they circumcise their sons, they place the blood of Christian boys on the foreskin of the circumcised child […] and if they cannot obtain the blood of Christian boys they circumcise, they use Bolo of Armenia and Dragon’s Blood, and say that the said power miraculously heals the wound and clots the flow of blood”] T. Deposition of Angelo da Verona to the Trent judges on 8 April 1475. Cfr. A. Eposito and D. Quaglioni,
284
"Magister Ioseph, qui habitat Ripe et qui circumcidit filios ipsius Angeli, tenet de sanguine predicto, quod postea utitur quando circumcidit" [“Master Joseph, a resident of Riva, who circumcised Angelo’s sons, obtained blood, and then used it when he circumcised”] (cfr. Esposito and Quaglioni, Processi, vol. I, cit, p. 288). "Magister Iosephus phisicuc", known as the "zudio gobo" [hunchbacked Jew], the circumcisor of the sons of the Angelo da Verona, appears to have been active at Riva del Garda, together with his son Salomone, at least until the end of 1496 (cfr. M.L. Crosina,
285
'Thobias [...] dicit quod (judei) accipunt sanguinem pueri Christiani et illum faciunt coagulare et deinde illum essiccant et de eo faciunt pulverem" [“Tobias [...] said that (the Jews) take the blood of a Christian boy and cause it to coagulate and then they dry it and make a powder of it”] (cfr. Esposito and Quaglioni,
286
"Pro ut Thobias inter alias confessus est, (pueros suos circumcisos) cum pulveribus dicti sanguinis coagulati medentur et statim altero vel tertio die santitatem recipiunt" ([Benedetto Bonelli],
287
Cfr. K. von Amira,
290
On this matter, see recently P. Billar,
291
"Audivi a Judeis [...] quod omnes Judei, qui de eorum processerunt, singulis mensibus sanguine fluunt et dissenterium sepius patiantur et ea ut frequentius moriuntur. Sanatur autem per sanguinem hominis Christiani, qui nomine Christi baptizatus est" (