Simon of Trent

Simon of Trent ( _de. Simon Unverdorben; _it. 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 [cite web|url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/827035.html|title=The real blood of Passover|last=Po-chia Hsia|first=Ronnie|date=02.20.2007|publisher=Hareetz|accessdate=2008-07-08] , causing a major blood libel in Europe with ramifications that lasted almost five centuries.

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" [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/827035.html Toaff Controversy] ] .

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. [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=803&letter=S]

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. [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] 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, [ [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=438&letter=P&search=popes Jewish Encyclopedia] ] . 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, [Biblioteca Sanctorum, vol. 11, p. 1186] , although the Franciscan pope approved a special Mass in honor of Simonino ("little Simon") to be said in the diocese of Trento, Italy. [ [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/rinn.html A Blood Libel Cult:Anderl von Rinn, d.1462] (Medieval Sourcebook)] The cult survived till 1965, when, in the wake of the Holocaust, it was abolished by the Pope. [R. Po-Chia Hsia Trent 1475, Yale University Press, 135; de icon [http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/2005/290/KapVI.pdf Marco Polo und Rustichello: „notre livre“ und die Unfaßbarkeit der Wunder] ]

His entry in the old Roman Martyrology for March 24 [The Roman Martyrology, March 24, [http://www.breviary.net/martyrology/mart03/mart0324.htm] retrieved May 8, 2007] 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.

Simon of Trent does not appear in the new Roman Martyrology of 2000, nor on any modern Catholic calendar.

uppression 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, Fact|date=May 2007 the cult of Simon was suppressed by Pope Paul VIFact|date=November 2007 and the shrine erected to him was dismantled.Fact|date=November 2007 He was removed from the calendar, and his future veneration was forbidden,Fact|date=November 2007 but some traditionalist Catholics ignored this suppression and continue to venerate him. [http://www.stsimonoftrent.com/]

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.Fact|date=April 2007

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. [ [http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1170359860024&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull 'Blood libel' author halts press] by Matthew Wagner and AP. "Jerusalem Post". February 14, 2007]

Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, author of a book on the Trent case, commented on the controversy. [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/827035.html Toaff Controversy] ]

References

See also

*Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, 1255.
*William of Norwich
*

External links

* [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saints0b.htm Simon of Trent] -- from the Catholic saints index
* [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=803&letter=S Simon of Trent] in the Jewish Encyclopedia.
*"Trent 1475: Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial" by R. po-Chia Hsia
* [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/827035.html Toaff Controversy] ("Haaretz")