Simon of Trent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Simon of Trent (Cult suppressed) |
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|---|---|---|
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| Youth, catalyst | ||
| Born | Early Fall 1472 | |
| Died | March 21(?), 1475 | |
| Venerated by | Roman Catholics (formerly) | |
| Feast | March 24 (no longer celebrated) | |
| Attributes | Youth, martyrdom | |
| Patron saint of | Children, kidnap victims, torture victims | |
Simon of Trent (Italian: Simonino di Trento; also known as Simeon; born late 15th century, died c. March 21, 1475) was a boy from the city of Trento, Italy whose disappearance was blamed on the leaders of the city's Jewish community based on their confessions under torture[1], causing a major blood libel in Europe with ramifications that lasted almost five centuries.
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[edit] Background
Shortly before Simon went missing, Bernardo da Feltre, an itinerant Franciscan preacher, had delivered a series of sermons in Trent in which he vilified the local Jewish community. When Simon went missing around Easter, 1475, his father thought that he must have been kidnapped and murdered by Jews. According to his story, the Jews had drained Simon of his blood for use in baking their Passover matzohs and for occult rituals secretly adhered to by them.
Giving a succinct background to the story, historian Ronnie Po-chia Hsia writes: "On Easter Sunday 1475, the dead body of a 2-year-old Christian boy named Simon was found in the cellar of a Jewish family's house in Trent, Italy. Town magistrates arrested 18 Jewish men and five Jewish women on the charge of ritual murder - the killing of a Christian child in order to use his blood in Jewish religious rites. In a series of interrogations that involved liberal use of judicial torture, the magistrates obtained the confessions of the Jewish men. Eight were executed in late June, and another committed suicide in jail" [1].
Another account contends that a child's body later identified as Simon was discovered "in the river" near a Jewish home, not inside a home. Also that three Jewish men discovered the body, and they immediately contacted the local authority, the Bishop. However these three men were later amongst those arrested.[2]
The leaders of the Jewish community were arrested, and seventeen of them confessed under torture. Fifteen of them, including Samuel, the head of the community, were sentenced to death and burned at the stake. Meanwhile Simon became the focus of veneration for the local Catholic Church. Local bishop, Hinderbach of Trent, tried to have Simon canonized, producing a large body of documentation of the event and its aftermath.[2] Over one hundred miracles were directly attributed to Saint Simon within a year of his disappearance, and his cult spread across Italy, Austria and Germany. Although initial skepticism existed and Pope Sixtus IV sent Bishop of Ventimiglia, a learned Dominican, to investigate, and his report was so damning that the Vatican prohibited the cult,[3]. But the veneration was restored in 1588 by the Franciscan Pope Sixtus V, who, in a naked example of religious order rivalry, suppressed the Dominican's report and allowed the restoration of the Franciscan sponsored devotion. The "saint" was eventually considered a martyr and a patron of kidnap and torture victims. Simonino was never canonized as a saint,[4], although the Franciscan pope approved a special Mass in honor of Simonino ("little Simon") to be said in the diocese of Trento, Italy.[5] The cult survived till 1965, when, in the wake of the Holocaust, it was abolished by the Pope. [6]
His entry in the old Roman Martyrology for March 24 [7] read:
- Tridénti pássio sancti Simeónis púeri, a Judǽis sævíssime trucidáti, qui multis póstea miráculis coruscávit.
(Translated) At Trent, the martyrdom of the boy St. Simeon, who was barbarously murdered by the Jews, but who was afterwards glorified by many miracles. He does not appear in the new Roman Martyrology of 2000, nor on any modern Catholic calendar.
 Simon of Trent's martyred body. Engraving, Nürnberg, around 1479. |
 Stone medallion with the purported martyrdom scene of Simonino di Trento. Palazzo Salvadori, Trent |
 A 17th century image of Simon of Trent |
[edit] Suppression of cult
In 1965, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church began to reinvestigate the story of "little Simon" and opened the trial records anew. Finally declaring the episode a fraud,[citation needed] the cult of Simon was suppressed by Pope Paul VI[citation needed] and the shrine erected to him was dismantled.[citation needed] He was removed from the calendar, and his future veneration was forbidden,[citation needed] but some traditionalist Catholics ignored this suppression and continue to venerate him. [3]
In 2001 the local authorities of the Autonomous Province of Trento promoted a common Catholic and Jewish prayer at the site where the ancient Jewish synagogue in Palazzo Salvadori was located, in a sort of reconciliation between the city and Jewish community.[citation needed]
In February 2007 the Italian-born Israeli historian Ariel Toaff published a book in Italy entitled Pasque di Sangue (Bloody Passovers) in which he connects conflicts between the settled, "Italian" Jews and the then newly immigrated "Ashkenazy" Jews from Germany inside the Jewish community of Trent with the substance of the persecution and with the medical practice of the time, in which human blood was considered a remedy. His claims raised a storm in Israel and Italy. Toaff's colleagues accused him of deeply flawed scholarship, of crediting Inquisition confession documents which had been obtained under torture. Ariel Toaff has withdrawn the book since and brought out a second, revised version.[8]
Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, author of a book on the Trent case, commented on the controversy.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Toaff Controversy
- ^ Paul Oskar Kristeller, The Alleged Ritual Murder of Simon of Trent (1475) and Its Literary Repercussions: A Bibliographical Study,Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 59. (1993), pp. 103-135
- ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
- ^ Biblioteca Sanctorum, vol. 11, p. 1186
- ^ A Blood Libel Cult:Anderl von Rinn, d.1462 (Medieval Sourcebook)
- ^ R. Po-Chia Hsia Trent 1475, Yale University Press, 135; (German)Marco Polo und Rustichello: „notre livre“ und die Unfaßbarkeit der Wunder
- ^ The Roman Martyrology, March 24, http://www.breviary.net/martyrology/mart03/mart0324.htm retrieved May 8, 2007
- ^ 'Blood libel' author halts press by Matthew Wagner and AP. Jerusalem Post. February 14, 2007
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Simon of Trent -- from the Catholic saints index
- Simon of Trent in the Jewish Encyclopedia.
- "Trent 1475: Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial" by R. po-Chia Hsia
- Toaff Controversy (Haaretz)
