Content area
Full Text
In his Bonum universale de apibus (On Bees); the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpré recorded several instances in which the corpse of a murder victim spontaneously effused blood in the presence of the murderer. In one of these stories, Thomas provided an account of a ritual murder (ca. 1260). In this article, I examine the relationship between this phenomenon of"cruentation" and the anti-Jewish exemplum. I also identify some of the distinctive features of the tale, including the claim that the Jews typically harvest the blood of their Christian victims in order to address certain defects in their own nature. Finally, I examine the unusual identification of the Christian victim as female in relation to another ritual murder account at Valreás in 1247.
The Dominican Thomas of Cantimpré recorded in his Bonum universale de apibus (On Bees),1 a work he began in the 1250s and expanded until 1263, several instances of cruentation, or the spontaneous effusion of blood from a corpse in the presence of the murderer (see figure 1). One of these accounts is of particular interest for its place in the history of anti-Jewish polemics and ritual murder narratives. According to Thomas, a murder occurred in Pforzheim, where Dominicans had only recently established their presence. Thomas reports that Jews purchased an unnamed seven year old girl, who they later murdered, from an old Christian woman who was friendly (familiaris) toward them. They gagged and beat the girl, cut her with knives, expressed her blood, and collected it on cloths. Then they threw her body into the river, weighed down with stones. Three or four days later fishermen found her corpse. Her body was carried to the town and placed before a horrified populace who cried out that the Jews had committed this crime. According to Thomas, as soon as the Margrave of Baden2 approached, the body sat upright and extended a hand to the prince as if to beg for mercy or perhaps for blood vengeance (vindictam sanguinis). After the noon hour, the body again lay in repose. However, when the Jews were led past the body, the wounds immediately burst forth and effused blood, as testimony to their guilt.3 Thomas concludes his account with the claim that both the widow and the nefarious...