The rite of the wine, or blood, and curses had a dual significance. On the one hand, it was intended to recall the miraculous salvation of Israel brought about through the sign of the blood of the lamb placed on the door-posts of Jewish houses to protect them from the Angel of Death when they were about to be liberated from slavery in Egypt. It was also intended to bring closer final redemption, prepared for through God’s vengeance on the gentiles who had failed to recognized Him and had persecuted the Jewish people. The memorial of the Passion of Christ, relived and celebrated in the form of an anti-ritual miraculously exemplified the fate destined for Israel’s enemies. The blood of the Christian child, a new Agnus Dei, and the eating of his blood, were premonitory signs of the proximate ruin of Israel’s indomitable and implacable persecutors, the followers of a false and mendacious faith.
The old man, Mosè da Würzburg, stressed both the significance of the blood rite and the curses, from the positive memorial of the blood of the lamb on the door-posts of the houses and the negative memorial of the passion of Christ, scorned and abhorred.
"According to the laws of Moses, it is commanded to the Jews that, in the days of the Passover, every head of family should take the blood of a perfect male lamb and place it (as a sign) on the door-posts of the dwellings. Nevertheless, since the custom of taking the blood of
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the perfect male lamb was being lost, and, in its place, (the Jews) now used the blood of a Christian boy [...] and they do this and consider it necessary as a negative memorial (of the Passion) of Jesus, God of the Christians, who was a male, rather than a female, and who was hanged and died on the cross in torment, in a shameful and vile manner" [567].
Israele, Samuele of Nuremberg’s son, referred to the rite’s ancient value in a response to his judges relating to the significance which came to be attributed, over time, to the mixing of the blood into the unleavened bread. "We consume it in the unleavened bread" he said, “as a memorial of the blood with which the Lord commanded Moses to paint the door-posts of the doors of Jewish houses when they were the slaves of the Pharoah" [568].
On the other hand, Vitale of Weissenburg, Samuele’s agent, preferred to confer a second meaning upon the rite, that is, that of an upside-down memorial to the Passion of Christ, considered as an emblem and paradigm of the fall of Israel’s enemies and of divine vengeance, forewarning of final redemption. "We use the blood", he declared, "as a sad memorial of Jesus [...] in outrage and contempt of Jesus, God of the Christians, and every year we do the memorial of that passion [...] in fact, the Jews perform the memorial of the Passion of Christ every year, by mixing the blood of the Christian boy into their unleavened bread [569].
The origins of the ritual of the use of blood in the Passover dinner are not very clear; nor do we know the names of the rabbinical authorities who presumably taught it. The only defendants in the Trent trials able to shed any light on the subject were Samuele da Nuremberg and Mosè da Würzburg, both of whom possessed a high degree of Hebrew culture, the fruit of many years of arduous study in the most famous Talmudic academies (yeshivot) in Germany. Neither Samuele nor Mosè were able to provide precise answers in this regard, entrenching themselves behind the hypothesis that the ritual was based on ancient traditions which were only transmitted orally, for obvious reasons of prudence, and that no written traces of it remain in the tests of ritual law. Just when these traditions were formed, and why, was, for them, an unresolved mystery, enveloped in the mists of the past.
Samuele vaguely attributed these traditions to the rabbis of the Talmud (Iudei sapientiores in partibus Babiloniae), who were said to have introduced the ritual in a very remote epoch, "before Christianity attained its present power". Those scholars, united at a learned congress,
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were said to have concluded that the blood of a Christian child was highly beneficial to the salvation of souls, if it was extracted during the course of a memorial ritual of the passion of Jesus, as a sign of contempt and scorn for the Christian religion. Over the course of this counter-ritual, the innocent boy, who had to be less than seven years old and had to be a boy, like Jesus, was crucified among torments and expressions of execration, as had happened to Christ [570]. Another praiseworthy addition was circumcision, to make the symbolic similarity more obvious and significant. We do not know how firmly convinced Samuele was of what he said; but it seems certain that the judges were highly gratified with this kind of macabre confession. This does not detract from the fact that the allegations of this Jew, at least in historical and ideological terms, if not in relation to the practical application of the [alleged] ritual in the case of little Simon, were quite plausible.
Mosè, "the Old Man" of Würzburg, was even vaguer than Samuele, noting that the blood ritual was not recorded in any of the ritualistic scripts of Judaism, but was transmitted orally, and in secret, by rabbis and scholars in Jewish law. Mosè nevertheless confirmed that the Christian boy who was to be crucified during the rite in commemoration of the Christ’s shameful Passion had to be less than seven years old and of the male sex [571].
In accordance with Samuele da Nuremberg’s statements ("we believe that the blood of the sacrificed Christian boy is of great benefit in the salvation of our souls"), it was the custom, attributed to the participants in the blood ritual, to perform collective acts, even if only symbolic, to stress their intervention in the ceremony, such as that of touching the victim’s body. "All those present placed their hands, now one and now the other, as if to suffocate the child, because the Jews believe that they render themselves meritorious before God by demonstrating their participation in the sacrifice of a Christian child". Isacco da Gridel, Angelo da Verona’s cook, in effect, affirmed this in his confession, by describing his own participation in a ritual child murder committed at Worms in 1460, according to him [572].
In a certain sense, this behavior recalled the collective funereal rituals proper to the Judaism of the German territories during medieval times, testified to, among other things, in the writings of Rabbi Shalom of Wiener Neustadt. These writings include a description of the hakkafoth, the circular procession around the coffin of the deceased by the persons
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present at the funeral to drive evil spirits away from the soul of the deceased, which reveals undoubted links with the Cabbalah; the collective custom of placing the hand on the casket or the tomb to implore divine mercy in favor of the deceased; and finally, the custom of placing a tuft of grass, a clod of earth, or a stone or pebble on the mound to testify to their own presence at the burial [573].
While Samuele da Nuremberg maintained more or less deliberately vague with regards the origins of the custom of using the blood of the Christian child in the rituals of the Jewish Passover, he was very precise in discussing the persons who had transmitted and taught him these regulations orally. David Sprinz had actually been his rabbi and teacher, with whom Samuele had studied lovingly and with great success thirty years before, in the yeshivah of Bamberg, and later in the yeshivah of Nuremberg. Samuele knew that Sprinz had since moved to Poland, but didn't know whether or not he was still alive [574].
567
"Secundum legem Moisi, precipiebatur ipsis Iudeis quod in die Pasce unusquisque paterfamilias acciperet de sanguine agni masculi sine macula, et de illo sanguine poneret super liminaribus hostiorum domorum suarum; et quod inter ipsos Iudeos est sublata illa consuetudo de accipiendo sanguinem dicti agni masculi sine macula, ut supra dixit, et in eius locum modo utuntur sanguine pueri Cristiani [...] et hoc faciunt et ita dicunt esse necessarium in pessimam commemorationem Iesu, Dei Cristianorum, qui fuit suspensus et qui fuit masculus et non femina, et qui vituperose et turpiter in cruce et in tormentis mortuus est" [“According to the laws of Moses, the Jews were commanded that each head of the family should take the blood of male sheep without fault and pain the lintels of their doorways with it, and that these Jews, having neglected this custom, of taking the blood of a male sheep without fault, as set forth above, instead, they use the blood of Christian boys […] and they do this and say that this is necessary in bad memory of Jesus, the God of the Christians, who was hanged and who was a male and not a female, and who was shamefully and vilely hanged on the cross and died in torment”] (cfr. Esposito and Quaglioni,
568
"Illa esio sanguinis Cristiani et quare ita illum comedunt in fugatiis [...] est commemoratio sanguinis quem Dominus dixit ad Moisem ut deberet spargere super liminaria hostiorum domorum Iudeorum, quando ipsi Iudei erant in servitute Pharaonis" (cfr. ibidem, p. 186).
569
"(Iudei) haberent sanguinem [...] in (malam) memoriam Iesu [...] in contemptum et vilipendium Iesu, Dei Cristianorum, dicens quod omni anno faciut memoriam dicte passionis [...]; ipsi Iudei faciunt memoriam diete passionis lesu omni anno, quia ponunt de sanguine pueri Cristiani omni anno in eorum azimis sive fugatiis" [Approximately: “(The Jews) obtain blood [...] in bad memory of Jesus […] in contempt and outrage of Jesus, the God of the Christians, saying that every year, they perform a memorial of the said Passion […]; these Jews perform a memorial of Jesus, because they place the blood of a Christian boy in their unleavened bread every year”] (cfr. ibidem, p. 220).
570
"Quod iam multis et multis annis (et aliter nescit dicere quot anni sint, nisi quod credere suo fuit antequam fides Cristiana esset in tanta potentia), quod Iudei sapientiores in partibus Babiloniae seu locis vicinis, ut dicitur, fecerunt consilium inter se, et ibi deliberatum fuit, quod saluti animarum ipsorum Iudeorum; et quod talis sanguis non poterat prodesse nisi extraheretur de puero Cristiano; et qui puer Cristianus, dum sic extraheretur sanguis, interficeretur ea forma qua fuit interfectus Iesus, quem Cristiani colunt pro Deo; et qui puer Cristianus debeat esse etatis annorum septem vel infra et quod non sit maioris etatis .VII. annis, sed potius sit minoris etatis; dicens quod si esset femina Cristiana non esset bona ad sacrificium suum, videlicet ad extrahendum sanguinem, et talis sanguis mulieris, licet minoris etatis .VII. annis, non esset bonus. Et ratio quia curo Iesus, quem nos Cristiani colimus pro Deo, fuerit crucifixus et in eius contemptum et vilipendium hoc faciant, conveniens putant ipsi Iudei quod ille a quo extrahant sanguinem debet esse masculus et non femina" [Approximately: “He said that many, many years ago (he didn’t know how many, but he believed that it was before the Christian faith became so powerful), the Jewish wise men in parts of Babylon or nearby, it is said, held a council and decided that the blood of Christian boys killed in this manner was good for the souls of the Jews, and that this blood could only be extracted from a Christian boy; and that the Christian boy, when his blood was extracted, had to be killed in the same manner as Jesus, whom the Christians claim is their God, and that the Christian boy must be seven years of age or less, and that he could not be older than seven, but that he could be younger, saying that if it was a woman it was no good for their sacrifice, i.e., to extract the blood, and that the blood of such a woman, even if she was less than seven years of age, was no good. And the reason for this is, that Jesus, whom the Christians claim is their God, was crucified and they do this in contempt and outrage against them, since these Jews think that the person from whom one extracts the blood").
571
"Quod apud ipsos Iudeos non reperitur scriptum, sed inter ipsos ita dicitur apud doctos et peritos in lege, et istud habetur ex successione memorie, et tenetur pro secreto inter ipsos Iudeos [...] et quod necesse est quod talis sanguis sit sanguis pueri Cristiani masculi et non femine, et qui non sit maioris etatis 7 annorum" [“That no text will be found among those Jews, but that it was said among those same Jews and experts in the law, and that they handed it down from generation to generation in memory, and it was kept secret among those Jews […] and that it was necessary for this blood to be the blood of a Christian boy and not a girl, and that he could not be more than 7 years old”] (cfr. ibidem, p. 357).
572
"Quod omnes praedicti astantes posuerunt manum ad suffucandum illum, ponendo modo unus, modo alius manum, et quod omnes praedicti Judaei adjuverunt ad interficiensum, quia existimant omnes Hebraei quod ille multum promereatur apud Deum, qui adjuverat ad interficiendum aliquem puerum christianum" ["That all those present placed their hands on him to suffocate him, some of them placing one hand, some of them both hands, and that all the above mentioned Jews helped kill him, because they thought that all those Hebrews would be promoted before God who helped kill that Christian boy in any way”]. Deposition of Isacco da Gridel del 28 Novembre 1475. Cfr. [BonelIi],
573
On these funeral rites, proper to German Judaism, see
574
"Et dicit ipse Samuel se scire predicta et ea didicisse non quod legerit in scripturis suis, sed quia dici audivit et didicit a quodam preceptore Iudeo qui vocabatur magister David Sprinç, qui regebat scolas in Bamberg et in Nurremberg, sed quo preceptore ipse Samuel didicit iam .XXX. annis preteritis. Et dicit interrogatus, quod dictus magister David ivit postea in Poloniam et nescit an vivit vel sit mortuus" (cfr. Esposito and Quaglioni,