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THE JEW
AND HUMAN
SACRIFICE
The Jew
'
AND
Human Sacrifice
[Human Blood and Jewish Rituai]
An Historical and Sociological Inquiry
BY,
y
HERMANN L. STRACK,
d.d., n.u.
(Rsgius Profeiior of Theology at Berlin University)
[Translatfd from thf %th edition With (orrfctiom, new Pre/act
and additions
b'f
the author\
NEW YORK
THE BLOCH PUBLISHING CO.
Loadon : Cope and Fciiwick
The English iramka'mi by Henry 'Blatuhamp, B.^., tx-icholar
of
Qhr'ut's
College, Cambridge
Entered at Stationers' Hall by Cope and Tenwic\
Qopyright in îmerica by the Block 'Publishing Qo.
CONTENTS
PAGE
From the Preface to the first Three editions
7
From the Preface to the Fourth edition
9
Preface to the Re-written Re-modelled work (5th-8th
editions)
12
Preface to the English Translation
17
I. IntroductionBibliography 18
II. Human Sacrifice
"Blood Ritual" 30
III. Human Blood Serves to Ratify the given word . . 43
IV. The Blood of other Persons used for Healing
Purposes
60
V. Human Blood Cures Leprosy 62
VI. Utilisation of One's own blood 66
VII. Blood of Executed Persons : Hangman's Rope . . 70
VIII. Corpses and Parts of Corpses 77
IX. Animal Blood
85
X. Waste and Evacuations of Human and Animal
Bodies
88
XT. The Blood Superstition as a Cause of Crime . . 89
XII. Blood Superstition Among Criminals and its
Consequences 105
XIII. Superstition among Dements : Crimes Owing to
Religious Mania 118
XIV. What does the Jewish Religious Law say about
the partaking of Blood and the utilisation of
portions of Corpses 123
vi Contents
PAGE
XV. Popular Therapeutics of Blood Superstition
within the Jewish people 132
XVI. Is the use of Christian Blood required or allowed
for any rite whatever of the Jewish I'eligion ? . . 147
XVII. The Austrian Professor and Canon Aug. Rohling . 155
XVIII. The Pretended Evidence of History for Jewish
Ritual Murder 169
XIX. Contradiction of the "Blood Accusation" by
pious Jews as well as Christians 236
XX. About the Origin of the "Blood Accusation" . . 275
INDEX
287
ABBREVIATIONS IN BOOK TITLES
Be
= Berlin Iv
=
Leipsic
FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST THREE
EDITIONS
Every year, especially about Easter-time, there is
a revival of the accusation that the Jews, or, if not all
the Jews, certain Jews, make use of the blood of
Christians for purposes of ritual. The charge is bound
to be often repeated, so long as the replies to it are
limited to the contradiction and exposure of the
falsity of the reasons brought forward
That
is why I discuss the accusation in connection with the
significance
of
blood as regards religious belief, and par-
ticularly as regards the superstitions
of
humanity at
large.
I expressed my opinion on the question, whether
the Jews use Christian blood for ritual purposes, as far
back as 1882, the year of the Tisza-Eszlar trial, in the
Evangelische
Kirchen-Zeitung
(12th August, No. 32).
Further
investigations
(apropos of the
Bernstein case, v.p. 144
sq.) convinced me more than
two years ago, that, whilst I was correct in my nega-
tive "answer to the charge, it was possible, and even
necessary, to base it upon a deeper foundation. I am
now compelled to publish the results of my fresh
researches by the renewal of the controversy about
ritual murder in consequence of the assassination of
an eight year old girl in Corfu during the night of the
12th to 13th April this year (v.p. S13 sq.) ... I have
made it my special business to let the facts speak for
themselves, and have
almost confined
viii Preface
myself to quoting, without alteration, the actual state-
ments in the sources of information I have utilised
:
so anybody who wishes can arrive at an unbiassed
judgment for himself.
The facts I have had to bring forward are, for the
greater part, of a very loathsome kind. But, in order
to cure the terrible disease of superstition, we must
first of all know the disease. . . . My exhortation to
our Christian priesthood, to our whole Christian
people is: Up and gird yourself for battle, not only
against unbelief, but also against superstition ! When
German Christendom, free from superstition, stands
firm in true belief in the crucified Saviour, risen from
the dead, the question, so far as concerns Germany,
whether Christian blood is ritually employed by
Jews, will be exploded and futile, for more reasons
than one.
2 July, 1891. H. L. Strack.
FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FOURTH
EDITION
I have occasion to be thankful for the success of
this volume. Most of the journals which used
formerly to talk about "Jewish blood-ritual" and
"Jewish ritual murder," have been for several
months gradually exchanging those phrases for
"Jewish blood-murder,"
"Jewish blood-supersti-
tion," avoiding direct reference to ritual. However,
they still try to prove to their readers, that blood-
murder and cases of blood-superstition are peculiar to
Judaism, and so they keep alive the idea that there
must be something ritual behind it all.
Still, the charge against the Jews of using human
blood is considerably less effective than it was up till
now. Accordingly, those persons who formerly em-
ployed it with great success as a means of getting up
an agitation, have abundantly emptied the vials of
their wrath over me, who, if I have not yet killed it,
have yet deadened its effect a great deal. In particu-
lar, O. Bachler (of the Staatsburger-Zeitung) ,
Balla (of
Das Volk), and E. Bauer (of the Neue Deutsche
Zeitung), have dared shamelessly to calumniate me as
a scholar, as a man and as a Christian, although they
knew the truth, or could have ascertained it without
any trouble. Nor did it suffice them to utter the
falsehood that Prof. Strack was hardly acquainted
with the elements of Hebrew grammar, and only
knew about the Talmud what the Rabbis had stuffed
him with; they had actually the effrontery to pre-
X
Preface
sume that I was receiving monej^ from Jewish
quarters for my writings. Attempts are even made
to alienate from me the trust of my students, to
influence whom, for the benefit of our Evangelical
Church and our German fatherland, is both a heart-
felt need and a consolation to me in a life full of cares.
Were I descended from Abraham on my father's or
my mother's side, I should not have to blush. How-
ever, as it has been tried to fasten suspicion on me in
that respect also, I here affirm that all my ancestors
were of pure "Christian-German" descent, the men
mostly clergymen or teachers
In order to render the calumniations of myself
and the continuance of the blood-accusation extremely
impressive, the three persons named (together with
Carl Paasch and Normann-Schumann), after exalting
the Osservatore Cattolico, a paper which appears in
Milan, to the dignity of a
"
universal organ of the
Vatican," sent the stuff that suited their purposes to
Milan, and transferred it thence into their papers!
As the statements had been published in such a
"highly esteemed foreign journal," readers must be
at once convinced of their truth ! . . . .
If, on the discovery of a crime, distinct external
indications do not point to the perpetrator, inquiries
must be made into the possible motive for the deed.
Avarice, lust, revenge, jealousy, are motives known
to every coroner, and about which, in any given case,
he inquires in due course. But he ought likewise not
to omit to ask whether the motive might not have
been a superstitious one. On
pp.
89 sq. I have given
numerous examples proving that
blood-superstition
has often been a cause of crime. An accurate know-
ledge of superstitions will not seldom lead to the
discovery of the criminal, and in other cases prevent
following up a false scent. I may therefore recom-
mend this work to the attention of lawyers.
Preface
xi
It is yet more requisite for clergymen and teachers
to pay heed to the truths propounded in this book.
He who has had the good fortune to grow up in a
God-fearing family, very often learns nothing about
either the ])arbarity and vices or the superstitions of
other social strata, and therefore readily believes it
to be all harmless or even denies its existence I
have now therefore pointed out, even more emphati-
cally than in the original edition, that superstition,
especially the
''
blood-superstition,'' is even nowadays
very wide-spread, and that it has had in the past, as it
has in the present, deplorable, yes and horrible, con-
sequences.
18th Oct., 1892.
H. L. Strack.
PREFACE TO THE RE-WRITTEN
RE-MODELLED
WORK (5th8th EDITIONS)
Untruth does not become truth by frequent
repetition. But as long as it is repeated, it is a duty
incumbent on him who claims to be a champion of
truth, knowledge, and justice, to be continually ex-
posing the falsehood of his opponents' assertions, and
to state the real truth of the matter. Silence cannot
be refuted, and the endeavour to kill the defender
of truth by its adoption is only too general. If then
the protagonist of truth were actually silent and did
not show his power at all, how much more would not
conclusions be drawn therefrom against the cause
championed by him ! For my part I shall not keep
silent, so long as I can still wield the sword of mind,
and I am also taking measures that my words may be
known to those whom they are intended to influence.
I had indeed hoped, after my exposure of the
"
blood-falsehood
"
in 1892, to be able to devote myself
entirely to different duties: what an enormous task
the last decades have imposed upon those investiga-
tors of the Old Testament who, rightly, consider the
essence of the old faith reconcilable with serious
scientific work 1 and how important it is to show that a
knowledge of Jewish literature can be acquired not
only by Jewish scholars, but also by at least a few
Christians ! And my hope seemed to be well-founded,
since Aug. Rohling thought it best to answer by
silence my crushing attack on him (ch. 17) !
Whilst
those who had till then calumniated me, viz., Bach-
PREij'ACE
xiii
ler, Balla, and 13auer, made, so far as I was aware, no
further attempt to besmirch my good name.
Albertario's Ossermtore Cattolico
{y.
pp.
170 seq.) had
whimperingly
appealed for help in the Neue Deutsche
Zeitung,^ and got none, because the few German
scholars, who had till then assumed the possibility of
ritual murders, recognised that they would put their
honour in the pillory if they attempted to give such
assistance. Bauer's Neue Deutsche Zeitung collapsed
in Leipsic, and the Volk, unfit for the struggle of life
in Berlin, fled into a corner. Abbe David Albertario
was condemned in 1898 to three years' loss of liberty
on account of revolutionary disturbances. Carl
Paasch, the author of
"
Eine jiidisch-deutsche Ges-
andtschaft und ihre Heifer," L. 1891
(965
pp.)
was
recognised, also by a Court of Law, as being no longer
responsible for his actions. Robert Normann-Schu-
mann, who tried to press himself upon me in 1885,
and who, later on, taking pay simultaneously both
from Anti-semites and Jews, deceived both of them,
thought it advisable, when he was prosecuted for
lese-majeste, and feared the discovery of other inci-
*
15 Oct. 1892, No. 241 :
"
The following appeal from tbe editor of
the Osservatore Cattolico in Milan reaches us, with the request to
publish it:'As soon as Prof. H. Strack shall have published the
brochure announced by him, we intend to reply to it by a compre-
hensive refutation. Thanks to the kindness of some readers and
the ardour which our co-workers have displayed in this campaign,
we already possess considerable material for proving the existence
of Jewish ritual murderin cases, which can be attested by wit-
nesses who are still Jiving (Alb. refers, e.g., to the Eisleben case!
y.p.
218). Nevertheless it would be very useful if readers
in foreign parts, by contributing fresh evidence, were to prove their
interest in these highly-important polemics. In all cases they may
certainly rely upon the strictest discretion
( !). We know that there
are still in private libraries and other collections important MSS.
on the subject, which should no longer be withheld from publicity.
Any contribution, any suggestion, any explanation is welcome. . . .
We also beg all Christian editors to make this appeal known.'
"
The Neue Deutsche Zeitung, the Staatshurger-Zeitung, Berlin, 16
Oct., No.
485, the Neue Preussische Zeitung (at that time still the
organ of the ill-reputed Freiherr v. Haminerstein), 18 Oct., No.
487, and other papers did their best to circulate the appeal.
xiv Preface
dents in his career, to go and live quietly in hiding
in free Switzerland. Paulus Meyer {v.'p. 1^8 and
yjp.
224 sq.) who was hired to traduce me, had to undergo
severe terms of imprisonment owing to libels and
insults he had uttered. 0. Bachler alone was in a
position publicly to continue to deviate consciously
from the truth {v.p. 218).
My hope, however, proved to be mistaken. The
"blood-accusation" appeared such an effective
means of exciting the populace that the anti-semites
were constantly tempted to make misuse of the word.
At the end of March, 1899, a favourable opportunity
was afforded by the murder of Agnes Hruza, at Polna
{v-jj]). 228 sq.). It did not matter to the un-Christian
people, who called themselves Christians, whether
the murderer were discovered or the suspicion
resting on Hilsner were seriously probed ; but
Dr. Baxa, who was nominally counsel for the
murdered girl's mother, was to assume and prove
ritual murder. But he only proved his disgraceful
ignorance. For example, according to an abstract of
the shorthand report, which reached me a few days
ago, he made, besides other falsehoods, the following
statement :
"
And I ask whether Dr. Auredni6ek
(Hilsner's counsel) knows the declaration of the
Rabbi Vital, that the coming of the Messiah will be
hastened by the blood of sacrificed Gentile virgins, or
whether he knows it is stated in the first book of the
Sohar, that the fourth, the best palace shall be in-
habited by those who have killed Akums, i.e.,
Christians; whether he knows the assertion of the
Rabbi Eliken (read: 'Elieser'), that all Gentile
nations are mere brute beasts."*
*
Baxa got this rubbish out of Rohliug's
"
Polemik u. Menschenop-
fer," Paderborn, 1883, 58, 72, 75; Cf. in my book
p. 157, pp. 161
sq. As to the description of Gentiles as beasts v. J. Kopp,
"
Zur
Judenfrage," 107-118; Bloch,
"
Acten
"
I., 253-263. That the
expression
"
Akum
"
is entirely an invention of the critics is shown
in my
"
Einleitung in den Talmud," 4th Edition, Leipsic 1908,
p.
51.
Preface xv
The unrest caused by this trial, especially in
Austria and South Germany, has compelled me to
postpone the revised edition of my
"
Einleitung in den
Talmud," which has been out of print for a long
time, and to expose anew the "blood-falsehood." My
book in its present form will be convincing to all who
have not, out of racial hatred, made up their minds
to maintain the truth of the "blood-accusation"
against the Jews, despite all refutation. It is in great
part a new book. Most of the contents of chapters
1820 have been re-w^ritten ; it was important to show
that history affords us no evidence of
"
Jewish ritual-
murder," and that the most eminent Popes and tem-
poral rulers have emphatically declared against the
"blood-charge," that no single Pope has counten-
anced it. The first part, too, has been considerably
augmented. I am certain that now, besides ecclesi-
astics, teachers, and state attorneys, even professional
Folklorists W'ill be able to learn and get stimulus from
it.
I have had to include in my purview very varied
domains of human knowledge, and the procuring of
the material has cost much time and labour; e.g., in
order to be in a position to make a trustworthy state-
ment with regard to J. E. Veith's oath
{py.
245 sq.), I
had to write some fifteen letters. I am the more
heartily grateful to Professors Dr. Ludwig Freytag,
Dr. Otto Hirschfeld, Dr. med. J. L. Pagel, who are all
in Berlin, and others, in that they have answered
several questions of mine, and have suggested many
improvements in this work. To this expression of
thanks I add the request that those who are in a
position to complete, to corroborate, or to confirm by
their own experience the statements here made
public, may not shrink from the trou])le of sending
me in that connection as precisely accurate a com-
munication as may be possible. Even a paragraph
xvi
Preface
that appears unimportant in itself may acquire value
by its context.
My publicly entering the lists on behalf of my
conviction, and particularly my refutation of the
calumnies against the Jewish religion,^ has procured
me not only abuse in the daily Press, but also serious
material damage. But I am none the less assured
that it is my duty to go on as before. During the last
months, I had to contend against the feelings of pain
and disgust occasioned by all the horrors and deeds
of horror, about which I had to write even more in the
fifth edition than in the preceding. But I then
reflected that the esteem in which both the Christian
religion and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ are
held among the Jews, had suffered severely, owing
to the aforesaid calumnies, and especially owing to
the "blood-accusation
"
against them. I knew it to
be my sacred duty as a Christian theologian to do
everything in my power to compass the conviction in
Israel that Jesus does not desire falsehood but truth,
not hatred but love : He makes them just who truly
believe in Him, and He is worthy that mankind
should bend their knees in His name.
May my fight against untruthfulness and super-
stition at any rate help towards the furthering of
peace and a purer knowledge of God upon earth
!
Gross-Lichterfelde, nr. Berlin, 18 Feb., 1900.
*
1 emphasise the word "religion," and refer to my brochure, "Die
Juden dtirfen sie 'Verbrecher von Religionswegen' genannt
werden?" L. 1893 (30
pp.)
J. C. Hiurichs. I add with satisfaction
that several German courts of justice later on gave decisions in
accord with my demand in the pamphlet, and above all, the spread-
ing of the "Talmud-campaign" in Bavaria has been made
punishable at law.
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
This translation, which is the worlv of Mr. H. F. E.
Blanchamp, is in many respects superior to the
German original. I have not only cancelled many
paragraphs of only temporary or local importance,
but carefully revised the whole, and added a good
deal of new material
vide especially chapters xviii

and XX. So I hope my book will make its way in
English-speaking lands, and help to discredit the pro-
pagation of the abominable blood-accusation. The
work of remodelling went greatly against the grain,
but "to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it
not, to him it is sin
"
(James iv,
17).
I am not a
"
Philo-semite
"
in the now generally
accepted sense of the word. I have even been
slandered as an
"
Anti-semite." As a Christian
theologian, I wish simply to serve the truth, for the
sake of my Lord, who is "the way, the truth, and the
life."
Hermann L. Strack.
Grosslichterfelde West, near Berlin,
March 7th, 1909.
I INTRODUCTION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The exceeding importance of blood in life has
doubtless been evident to mankind from remotest
times, seeing that it was inculcated by frequently
recurring experiences, e.g., in butchering and in hunt-
ing. Man himself has a feeling of weakness after
losing much blood, and if he loses more than a certain
quantity of blood, life itself ceases.
The knowledge of this high value of blood gave
rise, firstly, to bloody sacrifices (a living being is the
greatest sacrifice), especially human sacrifices (Ch.
2)
; secondly, to symbolical* acts (Ch.
3)
; thirdly, to
the conviction that extraordinary effects are procured
by blood, particularly the human, but also animal
blood (Chas. 4-7,
9).
Closely connected with this con-
viction is the other, that wonderful powers belong to
the human body, also to the corpse, and its parts
(Ch.
8)
; especially to the body of one who has died a
violent death, e.g. of an executed person and a suicide
(Ch.
7)
; and, further, to that of an innocent human
being, e.g., a little child, especially an unborn, and a
virgin (Chas. 11-12). Therewith is connected the use
of the bodies, bodily parts and evacuations of animals
for healing and other purposes (Ch. 10). Another first
element, especially when there is blood adhering, is
the fatal knife or sword.
To what results, often hideously outrageous to
*
Cf. J. B. Friedreich, "Die Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur,"
Wiirzburg, 1859, 676-684; P. Cassel, "Die Symbolik des Blutes
und Der arme Heinrich von Hartmann von Aue," Be. 1882 (265).
Bibliography
19
present-day reasoning and feelings of decorum, such
ideas have led, is shown in the
"
Curieuse, Neue . . .
iTauss-Apothec, Wie man durch seine eigne bey sich
habende Mittel, als dem Blut, dem Urin, Hinter-und
Ohren-Dreck, Speichel und andren natiirlichen
geringen Mitteln, seine Gesundheit erhalten, fast alle
selbst vor incurabel gehaltene Kranckheiten ....
heilen, und sein Leben, vermittelst Gottes Gnade . . .
conserviren moge und konne .... Von einem Lieb-
haber der Medicin. Frankfurth am Mayn,
1699"
(316), p.
33:
"
Der Mensch, das Ehenbild, ist Gott selbst angenehm,
Hat vierundzwanzig Stilck zu7' Arzenei hequem,
Bein,^ Mark,^ die HirnschaV' samt derselhen Moos'^ ist gut,
Das Fleisch^ und Fett,^ die Haut,'^ Haar,^ Harn,^ Hirn,'^^
Herz^^ und Blut,^^
Die Gall,^^ die Milch,^'^ der Kot,^^ der Schweiss^^ und auch
der Stein,^''
Das gelhe Schmalz,^^ so in den Ohren
'pflegt
zu sein,
Die 'Ndgel,^'^ Syeichel,'^^ audi die Nachgehurt^^ ist gut,
Der Uelm,^'^ der Samen^^ und menstruosisokes'^ Blut."*
Much of the contents of the book forms even now
matter for popular belief in most parts of Germany,
Cf. especially:
A. WuTTKE,
"
Der Deutsche Volksaherglaule der Gegen-
wart'' Third Edition, by E. H. Meyer. Be. 1900
(536).
E. L. RocHHOLz,
"
Deutscher Glaube und Branch im
Spiegel der heidnischen Vorzeit, I. (Deutscher Un-
sterblichkeit
s
glaube. y Be., 1867
(335).
*
Roughly translated as follows
:
"
Now man, God's likeness, pleasing to His sight.
Hath four and twenty items for med'cine suited quite.
Bone, marrow, skull, and eke its pulp are good,
The flesh and fat, the skin, hair, urine, brain, heart, blood,
The gall, the milk, the dung, the sweat, and eke the stone,
The yellow wax, which in the ears doth find a home,
The nails, the spittle, and the after-birth are good,
The caul, the semen, and the menstrual blood."
20 The Jew and Human Sacrifice
U. Jahn,
"
Zauber mit Menschenblut und anderen Teilen
des menschlichen Korpers
'
' (in
"
Verhandlungen der
Berliner anthropologischen Gesellschaft," 1888,
130-
UO).
M. R. Buck,
"
Medicinischer Volksglauben und Volksa-
hei'glauhen aus Schwaben." Ravensberg, 1865
(72).
Flugel,
"
Volksmedizin und Aberglaube im Franken-
walde." Munich, 1863
(81).
G. Lammert,
"
Volksmedizin und medizinischer A ber-
glaube in Bayem und den angrenzenden Bezirken."
Wilrzburg, 1869
(274).
M. HoFLER,
"
Volksmedizin und Aberglaube in Oberbay-
erns Gegenwart und Vergangenlieit." Munich, 1888.
A new edition in 18V3
(244).
"
I^cls Jahr im ober-
bayerischen Volksleben mit besonderer Berucksichti-
gung der Volksmedicin." Munich, 1899
(48),
4.
V. FossEL,
"
Volksmedicin und 7nedicinischer Aberglaube
in SteiermarkV Graz, 1886
(172).
J. GoLDSCHMiDT,
''
Skizzcn aus der Mappe eines Arztes.
Volksmedicin im Nordwestlichen Deutschland"
(Oldenburg). Bremen, 1854 (157).
L. Strackerjan, "Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Her-
zogthum Oldenburg.'' Two vols. Oldenburg, 1867
(422
and 366).
'{].
Jahn,
"
Hexenwesen und Zauberei in Pommern."
Breslau, 1886
(196).
W. J. A. V. Tettau and J. D. H. Temme,
"
Die Volkssagen
Ostpreussens, Litthauens und Westpreussens." Be.,
1837 (255-286:
"
Meinungen und Gebrduche.''
)
M. ToppEN,
"
Aberglauben aus Masuren.^'' Dantzig, 1867
(168).
H. Frischbier,
"
Hexenspruch und Zauberbann. Ein
Beitrag zur Geschichte des A berglaubens in der Pro-
vinzPreussen.'' Be.,
1870(167).
E. Lemke,
"
Volksthilmliches in Ostpreussen." Three
volumes. Mohrungen, 1884, 1887 (190 and 203).
Allenstein, 1899
(184).
Bibliography 21
W. Mannhardt,
"
Die "praktischen Folgen des Aherglau-
bens, mit hesonderer' Beriicksichtigung der Provinz
Preussenr Be., 1878
(88).
The following should not remain without men-
tion in this connection
:
Albertus Magnus
[ !],
"
Bewdhrte und ayyrobirte sym'pa-
thetische und natiirliche Geheimnisse filr
Menschen
und Vieh." Reutlingen, 1874.
(Cf.
Am Urds-
Brunnen //., 88-90, 96-8, 175-7, 222; III., 134-5,
141-3; Ur-Quell, 1893, 279).
"
Das 6 und 7. Buck Mosis, d. i. Mosis magische Gei-
sterkunst. . . . nacli einer alien Handschrift"
[!].
Often, e.g. Philadelfhia [f], 1888
(79).
*'Geheim- und Symimthiemittel des alien Schdfe^'
Thomas,''
14
jmris, Aliona,
1858-76.
'' Des alien
Schdfer Thomas enihilllie Geheim- und Sympaihiemii-
tel,''^ Reutlingen, 1875 (64). ' 91 Geheim- und
Sympathiemittel des alien Schdfe?'
Thomas,'' new, re-
vised edition. Magdeburg, 1867.
See for the period of the middle ages, H. B.
Schindler, "Der Aberglaube des Mittelalters. Ein
Beitrag zur Culturgeschichte." Breslau, 1858 (379).
Espcly. 163-193, 129, 130, 225;
pp.
xi. to xxii. contain
a detailed bibliography.
An abundance of relevant material taken from
different nations and periods is contained in Am
Ur-Quell. Monatschrift fur
Volkkunde, Hamburg,
1890-5; later Der Urquell, Leiden, 1897-8, published
by F. S. Krauss (during 1881-9 the title was Am Urds-
Brunnen).
The more im.portant articles in Votume III. (1892) : H. F.
Feilberg,
"
Toienfeiische im Glauben nordgerma-
nischer Volker " (blood-magic, blood
of
executed
persons as cure
for eijilepsy, love-magic, blood as a
remedy. Spittle, sweat, skulls, the thieves' candle.
Bones ; hearts, esjêcially
of
unborn children ;
human
skin. Human flesh, after-birth, etc.). B. W.
ScHiFFER,
"
Totenfetische hei den Polen
"
(healing
and magic "power
of
corpses,
of
their parts,
of
blood
as well as
of
animal bones; blood
of
living people,
blood
of
the Saviour and consecrated ivafers, thieves'
superstitions,
coffin
and other things pertaining to
corpses; cloth connected with corpse, rope
of
a hanged
person, straw connected with corpse ; snakes and other
animals).H. v. Wlislocki,
"
Menschenblut im
Glauben der Zigeuner'' (love-magic, thieves' super-
stitions, healing
of
diseases, Jews. There are also
described well-attested occurrences in the most recent
times). P. 93 :
"
The South-Hungarian gypsies believe
that Jews and Greek-Oriental priests smear their
beards ivith human blood, to make them long and
thick.'"
Th. Achelis,
"
IJeber den Zaubermit Blut u.
Korperteilen von Menschen und Tieren." J. Sem-
BRZYCKi,
''
Ostpreussische Haus- und Zaubermittel."
(Cf.
I., 136-8, and Altpreussische Monatsschrift,
1889,
491-501).
'K. Ed. Haase,
''
Volksmedizin"
(Mark
of
Brandenburg c. 1598).
0. Screll, "Ueber
den Zauber mit dem menschlichen Kmyer u. dessen
einzelnen Teilen im Bergischen."A. F. Dorfler,
"Das Blutim magyarischen Volksglauben."
Vol.iv.
(1893):
A. F. Chamberlain, ''Zauber mit mensch-
lichem Blut u. dessen Ceremonialgebrauch bei den
Jndianern Amerikas" ; v. also V.,
90-2.
0. Schell,
"
Volksmedizin im Bergischen." H. Volksmann,
"
Schleswig-Holsteinische Haus- u. Zaubermittel.
Vols. V. and VI. : A. Haas,

"
Das Kind im Glauben
u. Branch der Pommern."
Urquell /. (1897):
VuKASOVic u. Dragicevic,
"
Siidslavische Volks-
medizin."J. Bock,
"
Volksmedizin aus Niederos-
terreich."
"Melusine, Recueil de mythologie, litterature
populaire, traditions et usages, publie par H. Gaidoz
and E. Rolland," Paris
4.
I.
(1878);
II. (1884-5); III.
(1886-7), etc. Here may be mentioned the very long
Bibliography
23
essay, "La
fascination,"
by J.
Tuchmann,
vol.
II-IX.
F. S. Krauss,
"
Sitte unci Branch der Sudslaven,"
Vienna, 1885 (681);
"
Volksglaube und
religioser
Branch der Siklslaven,"
Miinster, 1890 (176).
H. V. Wlislocki,
"
Aus dem
inneren Leben der
Zigeuner," Be. 1892,
75-98 ;
"
Blutzauber."
(It would
be'lvorth the trouble closely
to compare what has been
testified in regard to the gypsies with what has been
deposed about the Jews.
^
There have
presumably
been
plagiarisms on the part of both classes of
"
globe-
trotters");
"Volksglaube u.
religioser
Branch der
Zigeuner,"
Miinster, 1892 (184).
"Aus dem
Volks-
leben der Magyaren,"
Munich, 1893 (183);
"Volks-
glaube u. relig. Branch der Magyaren,"
Munich, 1893
(171)
;
"
Volksglaube u.
Volksbrauch der
Siebenbtirger
Sachsen,"
Weimar-Be.,
1893
(212)
(Cf. Urqiiell, 1893,
69
sq.;
98-100).
/. Haltrich,
"
Zur Volkskunde der
Siebenbiirger
Sachsen." A new edition
revised by J.
Wolff, Vienna,
1885 (535).
Nicholas Leinery,
"
Traite
universel des drogues,"
Paris, 17U.~L. F. Sauye,
"Remedes
populaires et
superstitieux des
montagnards
vosgiens," in "Melu-
sine," III., 278 sq.
.4. de Cock,
"
Volksgeneeskunde
in Vlaanderen,"
Ghent, 1891.
M. Bartels, "Die Medizin der
Naturvolker,"
L.,
1893 (361).
A. Loicenstvmm,
"
Aberglaube und
Strafrecht.
Ein
Beitrag zur Erforschung des
Einflusses der Volksan-
schauungen auf die Veriibung von
Verbrechen,"
Be.,
1897 (232).
136-147:
"
Die
Volksmedizin."
(From the
Russian. The author brings forward a large
amount
of material,
especially for Chapters 11, 12 of the pre-
sent book, but does not quite
sufficiently
examine
into the causes of the phenomena.)
According to the reports of recent travellers, there
would be no difficulty in collecting,
particularly from
Africa, parallels and complements of the contents of
the first part of this work.
C, V. Hovorka and A. Kronfeld,
"
Vergleichende
Yolksmedizin.
Eine Darstellung
volksmedizinischer
Sitten und Gebrauche,
Anschauungen und Heilfak-
toren, des Aberglaubens und der
Zaubermedizin,"
Stuttgart, 1908. 2 vols.
The "popular medicine" notions enumerated in
these books and essays, and similar ones elsewhere,
go back to very ancient times. Cf. in the first place
the Ebers papyrus, which was written in the sixteenth
century b.c, but is far older in its contents.
"
Papyrus
Ebers. Das hermetische Buch iiber die Arzneimittel.
Published by G. Ebers
"
(L., 1875; done into German
by H. Joachim, Be., 1890). It names as ingredients
of Egyptian
medicaments: (a) blood; dried blood;
the blood of the ox, the ass, the dog, the pig, and of
other animals, but not of man. (b) Flesh; living
flesh ; fresh flesh
;
putrid flesh ; flesh of a living ox.
(c) Milk; human milk; women's milk; milk of a
woman who has borne a boy. (d) Semen ;
semen of
the 'm'm: and of the 'm'mt
(?),
88, 7. (e) Ordure;
ordure of man, crocodile, cat, dog, ass, gazelle, etc.
Menstrual blood was not used ; the same is probably
true of the urine (but Cf. Ermans
"Aegypten und
agypt. Leben im Altertum," Tubingen, 1887,
486).
Cf. as well A. Wiedemann,
"
Das Blut im Glauben der
alten Aegypter
"
(Ur-Quell, 1892, 113-6).
Cf. especially the commencement of Book 28 of
the important Natural History of C.
Plinius Secundus,
who perished in 79 a.d. at the eruption of Vesuvius.
A contemporary of his was the physician Xenocrates
of Aphrodisias, about whom the renowned Claudius
Galenus of Pergamos (131-200 a.d.) gives the follow-
Bibliography
25
ing account*
:"
He described, as from personal
experience, with much bokiness, what ills could be
cured by the use of human brain, flesh and liver; or,
again, the bones of the human skull, fibula, and
fingers, some burnt, some unburnt; or, lastly, by the
use of blood. ... He writes also what effect dung
may have, if it is smeared on wounds and into the
oesophagus, and is swallowed. He speaks also of the
internal use of ear-wax. . . . The most nauseous,
however, is the dung and the drinking of the menses.
. . . Less abominable is the outward application
of excrement or of sperma. Xenocrates distinguishes
with great nicety the potential effects of sperma by
itself, or of the sperma which flows out of the vagina
after coitus." Galen goes on to relate that doctors
employ the blood of pigeons, owls, cocks, lambs, and
goats, but declares that these and many other
remedies taken from the animal kingdom are partly
directly rejectable, partly superflous, since there are
numerous well-tested remedies.
I was at first of the opinion that the anonymous
"
Hauss-Apothec
"
was merely the expression of the
beliefs which at that time obtained in popular medi-
cine; but in 1892 I convinced myself that its contents
were believed in among wide circles
of
PHYSICIANS
even after the middle
of
the eighteenth century.
Take such a book as the
"
Neu-Vermehrte, Heil-
same Dreck-Apotheke, wie nemlich mit Koth und Urin
Fast alle, ja auch die schwerste gifftigste Kranck-
heiten, und bezauberte Schaden,vom Haupt bis zun
Ftissen, inn- und ausserlich, gliicklich curiret wor-
den; Durch und durch mit allerhand curieusen, so
ntitz- als ergetzlichen Historien und Anmerckungen,
*
"Ilcpt rwv aTrXwv (fiapfxaKOiv
(cpao-cw? koi Svi/a/iew?," xi, 1.
Opera ed.
C. G. Kilhn XII. (L. 1826), 249 sq. ;
done into German in L.
Ixraelso??,
"
Die 'materia medica
'
des Klaudios Galenos," Juryew
(Dorpat), 1894, 176.
auch andern Feinen Denckwiirdigkeiten, Abermals
bewahrt, und iim ein merckliches vermehrt,
und verbessert. Von Kristian Frantz Paullini.
Franckfurt ain Mayn, 1697
"
(420
and 207 pp.).*
This
work is now regarded almost exclusively as a
characteristic example of a dirty and ridiculous
superstition which died out two centuries ago. But
the assumption is wrong. For the author, who was
born 25th February, 1643, received, after prolonged
medical studies and much travelling, an honourable
invitation to a professorship at Pisa, which only
illness obliged him to decline. Later, after he had
practised in Hamburg and in Holstein, he became
body physician and historiographer to Bishop
Christoph Bernhard in Miinster, and remained in that
position till the death of his patron in 1678. He then
stayed in Wolfenbiittel and Hameln, till in 1689 he
was appointed physician to his native town, Eisen-
ach
;
he died as such on 10th June, 1712. As regards
his busy literary activity in the domains of poetic
art, natural science and medicine, and also historical
research, I refer to /. Moller,
"
Cimbria literata II.,"
(Copenhagen, 1744),
622-633, and K. F. H. Marx, "Zur
Beurtheilung cles Arztes Christian Franz Paullini,"
Gottingen, 1872
(39).
("
Abhandlungen der Got-
tinger Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, vol.
18.")
Among other things, the latter says :
"
Medicine takes
a different shape with almost ever^T- century; so the
remains of the past, however fantastic, should not
be regarded as contemptible," and P.'s name deserved
to be mentioned
"
as that of a thinking, learned, well-
meaning doctor, and one of the most industrious men
of his time."
Joh. Chr. Schroder (1600-1664, Cf. Poggendorf,
*
The first edition:
"
Heilsame Dreck-Apotheke
"
(Frankfort a.
M.
1696) is not within my reach. A third edition appeared in 1713.
Bibliography
27
"
Biographisch-litter.
Worterbuch zur Geschichte der
exakten
Wissenschaften," II., 843),
a physician of
"Westphalian origin, who practised in Frankfort a.
Main, compiled a thesaurus of drugs, which was
commented on by Friedr. Hoffmann, the elder, a
physician in Halle (d. 1675) :
"
Clavis pharmaceutica
Joh. Schroederi cum thesauro pharmaceutico (Halle,
1681)." A German translation first appeared in
Nuremberg,
1685. Its second edition consists of a folio
covering more than 1,500 pages:
"
Vollstandige und
Nutzreiche iVpotheke. Das ist: D. Johannis
Schroederi
treflich-versehener
Medicin-Chymischer hochstkost-
bahrer Artzney-Schatz Nebst D. Friderici Hoffmanni
darliber verfassete herrliche Anmerckungen als eine
Grund-Feste beybehalten: So nun aber . . .
aus
denen itziger Zeit Fiirtrefilichen und Berlihmtesten
Medicorum und anderer Gelahrtesten . . . Schriff-
ten ....
Zusammengetragen und vermehret.
. . . Auf vieles und unablassiges Verlangen Teut-
scher Nation zu sonderem Nutzen eroffnet von G. D.
Koschivitz, M.D.S.P.," Nuremberg, 1693 (Koschwitz is
presumably the Georg Daniel Koschwitz who died in
Halle, 1729, Professor of Medicine).Ch. 33 of Book
II.
(pp.
82 sq.), which treats of the chemist's shops,
is headed: "On the blood." The text observes: "In
the chemist's shops one certainly finds no blood; 3-et
it is customary at times to use them (bloods), especi-
ally when they are still fresh," and there follows an
enumeration of various bloods : of ducks, geese, asses,
dogs, pigeons, horses, goats, men, menstruating
women, hares, partridges, oxen and turtle-doves.
In Book v., the

"
iVnimal science," is a 20-page section
devoted to man. It begins
p.
31: "The natural
apothecary articles. These are taken either from the
still living body, and are : ^The hairs, Hhe nails, Hhe
spittle, Hhe ear-wax, Hhe sweat, Hhe milk, ^the
menstrual blood, Hhe after-birth, 'the urine, ^the
excrement, ^^the semen, ^^the blood,
^Hesticles,
iHvorms, Hhe lice, Hhe skin that surrounds the head
of the foetus. Or from parts of the dead body, such
are
:
^The whole corpse, Hhe skin, Hhe fat, Hhe bones,
^skulls, Hhe pulp of skulls, ^the brain, ^the gall, Hhe
lieart."P. 33: "If you then ask, whether one can
safely use inwardly the menstrual blood ?
This we can
answer with a Yes. Take a cloth, steep it well in the
menstrual blood, let it dry; when you wish to use it,
draw the same with squill vinegar out of the cloth
which one can fitly employ to promote the woman's
monthly flux. The linen cloth soaked in such blood
and dried is laid externally on erysipelas or also on
other swellings and pains
;
pre-eminently it quiets the
pains of Podagra. It has cured tertian fever when
such a cloth has been merely hung on the neck. The
maidens prepare their love-potions from it, after
which commonly ensues delirium or madness."
Even in D. W. Triller's
"Thesaurus
medicamen-
torum," which appeared in 1764 at Frankfort a. M.,
the following drugs are still mentioned:
Stercus
caninum album (album graecum), pavonum stercus,
vaccae stercus et urina, bufones
exsiccati, cervi
priapus, equi testes, etc.In respect of the prescrip-
tion book of the Ettenheim
municipal surgeon, Joh.
Conr. Machleid, which embraces the period from 1730
to 1790, Cf.
"Anzeiger des
Germanichen National-
museums"
(Nuremberg), 1895, 89 seq., and Ur-Quell,
1897,
167-9. "To cure colic: Take three living lice
from the patient; should he have none, from another
person. Give it him to eat in a bit of bread. A sure
and
approved medicine ; but you must not tell that
patient, else he won't take it."
Much that is relevant here can be found in a work
of the Leipsic zoologist, William Marshall, which was
first known to me in November, 1899 :
"
Neu eroffnetes,
wundersames
Arznei-Kastlein, darin allerei
griind-
Bibliography
29
liche Nachrichten, wie es unsere Voreltern mit den
Heilkraften der Thiere gehalten haben, zu finden
sind." L., 1894 (127;
11 pages of bibliography
at the end). I quote from it the follow-
ing details,
p.
84: "The Dresden taxation of
apothecaries in 1652 contains 51 animal fats,
amongst them human and monkey fat. Human fat
was said to strengthen, disperse, alleviate pains,
soften hardened scars, and dispel small-pox scars.
Monkey fat works similarly, chiefly as dissolvent;
lion fat strengthened and dispersed hardened glan-
dular swellings, and for dry scabs they would rub
in leopard fat with laurel oil." 89: "In the royal
Prussian taxation of 1749 . . . occurs a spirit of
human brains." 94 :
"
Even human after-birth and the
umbilical cord did not escape our ancestors' pharma-
cological art. The former was applied externally, and
given internally for epilepsy and for the endurance of
labour-pains. Secundinae occurred in German drug-
stores right up to the middle of last century." 80:
"
Even the great Friedrich Hoffmann recommended in
the previous century the following prescription for
epilepsy : The whole ashes of a young crow still in the
nest, and of a turtle dove, 2 lot (a lot is ôz.) of burnt
human skull, 2 lot lime-tree buds, 1 lot lion's excre-
ment; all these substances were separately digested
with brandy, after which the fluids were poured
together." Cf. also ibid. 74 sq.
II HUMAN SACRIFICE
"BLOOD RITUAL"
A. The high significance which human sacri-
fices have possessed in many heathen religions, or
still possess, is so well known that it need only be
named, not proved (Assyrians, Phoenicians, Aztecs,
etc.).It is equally well known that such sacrifices
were from the beginning most strictly forbidden to
the Israelites, the possessors of the revealed religion
of the Old Testament: Leviticus 18, 21; 20, 2 sq.;
Deuteronomy 12, 31; 18, 10. As, however, even
nowadays there are highly educated persons who
believe such sacrifices were quite alien to the Greeks
and Romans, as well as to the ancient Germans, I give
here a list, at any rate, of the more important books.
Human sacrifices among the Greeks: F. G.
Welcker,
"
Kleine Schriften," III. (Bonn, 1850),
160-4,
and "Griechische Gotterlehre
"
(Gottingen, 1858, sq.),
II., 769, sq. ; K. F. Hermann, "Die gottesdienstl. Alter-
thLimer2(der Griechen)," Heidelberg, 1857, 27;
G. F.
Schomann,
"
Griechische Alterthiimer,"^!!. (Be., 1873),
250 sq. ; J. Beckers,
"
De hostiis humanis apud
Graecos," Miinster, 1867
(69);
P. Stengel,'' Biq grie-
chischen Kultusaltertumer,"^
Munich, 1898,
114-8.
History, legends and first elements"
Rudimente
"
(vicarious sacrifices) afford proof that before sea-
voyages, at the beginning of a war, before battles,
and altogether, when the lives of many people were
in peril, human beings were sacrificed by the Greeks.
"
Blood Kitual
"
31
The Emperor Tiberius's severe ordinances certainly
almost put a stop to such sacrifices ; notwithstanding,
human sacrifices in honour of Zeus Lykaios occurred
in Arcadia even in the second centurj^ a.d. Among
the Greeks and Romans : E. v. Lasaulx, "Siihnopfer der
Griechen und Romer
"
(in
"
Studien des klassischen
Alterthums." Regensburg, 1854, 233 sq.); 0. Keller,
"Lateinische Volksetymologie und Verwandtes," L.,
1891,
331-349
("
Einiges iiber romische und griechische
Menschenopfer
"),
especially 340 sq.Among the
Romans : M. Landau,
"
Menschenopfer bei den
Romern," in Ur-Quell, 1892, 283-6; H. Diels,
"
Sibyl-
linische Blatter," Be., 1890, 86 sq*Further, Of.
V. Helm,
"
Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere," 5th
edition, Berlin, 1887, 438-44; U. Jahn,
"
Die deutschen
Opfergebrauche bei Ackerbau und Viehzucht,"
Breslau, 1884, 61-9; /. Lippert,
"
Kulturgeschichte,"
II. (L., 1885),
34. About human sacrifices (especially
pure virgins) in German fairy-tale and stories, v.
L. Freytag, Ur-Quell, 1890,
197-9.
B. The so-called
"
Bauopfer," building sacrifices
(the immuring of a human being, later also of an
animal or other
"
rudiments "), in order to assure the
foundation of a house, a dam, etc., are really only a
special kind of human sacrifice. Bibliography: F.
Liehrecht, "Zur Volkskunde," Heilbronn, 1879,
284-96
("Die vergrabenen Menschen"); 0. Keller, 331-4; K.
Miillenhoff,
"Sagen, Marchen und Lieder der Herzog-
thiimer Schleswig, Holstein u. Lauenburg," Kiel,
1845, 242, 299, 601, 602; G. Fr. Daumer,
"
Geheim-
nisse," I., 137-147; Grimm, "Deutsche Mythologie,"
1095, sq. ; Ad. Kuhn,
"
Sagen aus Westfalen," I. (L.,
*
The Roman Emperor Heliogabalus (218222 A.D.) still offered up
human sacrifices, v. Lampridius "Heliog."8. His contemporary,
the renowned jurist, Julius Paulus, prescribes in the "Sententiae
receptae" V. 23, 16: "Qui hominem immolaverint exve ejus
sanguine litaverint, fanum templumve polluerint, bestiis obiciuntur
vel, si honestiores sint, capite puniuntur."
1859), 115; Wuttke, 440;
Strackerjan, I., 107-9; P.
Cassel, 154-6; F. S. Krauss, "Das Bauopfer bei den
Siidslaven," Vienna, 1886; Ur-Quell, II., 25, 189 sq.,
110 ("rudiments," ibid. III., 164 sq.); P. Sartori,
"Ueber das Bauopfer," Zeitsclirift filr
Ethnologie, 1898,
1-54.The use of blood instead of chalk occurs
already in the legendary cjcIq of the Round Table, v.
"
La Tavola ritonda, I'istoria di Tristano, per cura di
F. L. Polidori," Bologna, 1864, 12Q.Pater Hieronymus
Saucken relates that in 1685 the inhabitants of Bruns-
biittel, when a dam burst, wanted to bury a child
alive, as he heard from its mother herself; it was,
however, rescued. At Delve, in Dithmarschen, as is
reported in the chronicles of the Pastor Neocorus, after
a dam burst in 1597, as the elders declared,
"
animam
quaeri
"
("a soul was required "), a dog was drowned
in the breach of the dam, v. Urds-Brunnen V. (1887-8),
165 sq.* In the Poschechon district of the Govern-
ment of Jaroslaw runs the saying that in former times
the millers in order to protect the mill-dam against
the rushing spring flood, used to drown any belated
pedestrian in the mill pond in propitiation of the
water-sprite (Lowenstimm 16).Immuring of a hen in
order to make a quarry secure, Salzburg, middle of
the nineteenth century, Ur-Quell, 1898, 230. In the
foundation of old houses in Schleswig-Holstein may
at times be found horse skulls, horse bones, or even
the leg of a wild fowl. Ur-Quell, 1894, 157 sq.In
order to lend stability to a building, a corpse-bone or
an animal skull is buried in the ground (Transyl-
vania, V. Ur-Quell, 1898, 98).
Among the Szeklers in Transylvania the ballad of
the wife of the builder Kelemen is widely known.
(Contents : The master builders are alarmed to observe
that their buildings are continually falling to ruins.
*
Cf. the legends according to which the soul, which first enters an
edifice, falls a victim to the devil, v. UrQuell, 1893,
206-8.
"Blood Ritual" 33
So they have taken an oath to sacrifice the wife of the
builder among them who should be the first to see his
wife, and they act accordingly.In the
''
Miirkisches
Museum" in Berlin are remains of building struc-
tures, in which the bones of human beings or animals
and birds' eggs are to be seen immured.
C.
G. F. Daumer, in a book, which though extra-
vagant in its conclusions, displays wide reading and
keen perception,
"
Geheimnisse des christlichen
Alterthums," Hamburg, 1847, 2 volumes, tried to
prove that the characteristics of the Christian religion
from its inception to the end of the middle ages con-
sisted in human sacrifices and cannibalism and the
use of human blood. I give here some of Daumer's
examples in attempted proof of his position. One
may gather from them what persons with vividly
excited imaginations thought they saw, and how
strongly realistic impressions were held admissible
as facts, especially in more remote times.
/., 83. Amphilochius in the
"Life
of
Basilius" (Herib.
Rosweidi Vitae patrum [Antwerp,
1615], I.,
156;
"
Leben der Vdter," Augsburg,
1704, 739):
When the holy
office
was celebrated, a Jew mingled
among the crowd, as
if
he ivere a Christian, because
he wanted to learn about the order
of
the
Officimn and
the
gift of
the Communion. He there beholds how a
little child is cut to pieces, limb by limb, in the hands
of
Basilius. He approached with the other communi-
cants, and flesh was actually given him. Then he
was also present at the handing
of
the cup, which was
fidl
of
blood, and took part in drinking
from it.
Keeping some remains
of
both, he goes home and
shows them to his
wife.
/., 85
(Life
of
the Martyr S.
George, ''Acta Sanctorum," S3 April). A Saracen
saw a priest kill and cut up a child, place the jneces
in the paten, pour the blood into the cup, and eat one
of
the ^pieces and drink
from the cwp.
/., 118 sq.y,

tells
of
the dissensions between the Dominicans and
Franciscans in Bern 1507, after the Bernese Chron-
icle
of
Calonius Grdnnei?'ics, 1585, 615 sq., and Hot-
tinger,
''
Helvetische Kirchengeschichte," Zurich,
1708 sq.. Vol. II., 553 sq., 556 sq. : The Dominicans
were alleged to have
offered a consecrated wafer
coloured with Chi'isfs blood to Jezer, a tailor who
had been received into their Order, whom they wanted
to make their Saint. They are also said to
"
have
handed him a drink composed
of
ointment, Easter-
baytismal-water, Easter-taper wax, consecrated salt
.... and the hair and blood
of
a child.''
In the
confession cited by Gronneirus 622 it is asserted the
Dominicans had made use
of
Jew blood, and the eye-
brows
of
a Jewish child.
There is more in Daumer-

I., 36 sq., 73, 85 sq.
In the middle ages, appearances of Christ at
Holy Communion in the form of a child or a lamb are
not infrequently mentioned,
vide e.g., Paschasius.
Radbertus,
"
De corpore et sanguine Christi," 14;
Germanus in Edm. Martene,
"
Thesaurus novus Anec-
dotorum," V. (Paris,
1717), 96, 95. In fa'ct, the
fantasy required a small body, which should find a
place at the table or altar. Berthold von Regensburg,
the great popular preacher of the 13th century, says.
in reply to the question. Why Christ, as he is present
at Holy Communion, does not let Himself be seen in it
:
"
Wer mochte einem kindelin sin houbetlin oder sinin
hendelin oder sinin fiiezelin abegebizen?" ("Who
would like a little child to have his little head, or his
little hands, or his little feet bitten off ?
") ("
Predig-
ten," published by F. Pfeiffer, II., Vienna, 1880, 270.)
D. Within the Church there has never been a blood-rite^
but there has been among several
of
the Gnostics.
"Blood Ritual" 35
Even Clemens Alexandrinus (d.c. 220 a.d.) found
in the Epistle of Judas a prediction concerning the
Karpocratians and related sects
("
Stromata," III.,
2).
He relates, among other things, that among the Kar-
pocratians, men and women, after the common meal,
after the lights are extinguished, have sexual com-
merce with each other. Irenaeus (d. 202 a.d.)
expressly testifies that the heathens were excited by
such actions to repugnance against Christianity (I.,
25, 3
=
Epiphanius, "Haer.," xxvii.,
3).
Epiphanius,
ch. 5,
describes the conduct of these people as that of
dogs and pigs. That the Karpocratians utilised blood
in their rites has indeed not been expressly handed
down, but is very probable on comparison with the
related Gnostics.Of the Cainites (they called them-
selves after Cain) Irenaeus says, I., 31, 2,
that their
doctrine was: The perfect knowledge was to proceed
without repugnance to actions which it is not decent
even to name.Epiphanius xxvi., 5, describes as
folloAvs the conduct of the so-called Gnostics: After
the common meal they turn to free concubitus. Next,
men and women take semen virile in their hands and
speak to the All-Father :
"
We bring Thee this gift as
the body of Christ." They eat thereof, and say,
"
This is the body of Christ and the Passover meal."
Likewise they take sanguinem menstruum :
"
This is
the blood of Christ." If a woman has become preg-
nant they triturate the embryo, mix the mass with
honey, pepper and herbs, and taste the dish at their
gathering with the finger, which dish is esteemed the
perfect Passover meal.
The contents of these documents are so revolting
that one would be glad to agree with //. Usener,
"
Das
Weihnachtsfest," Bonn, 1889, 110, and others, who
contest their credibility. Epiphanius, the chief wit-
ness, they say, lived too long after the occurrences
(he died, at the age of about 100, in 403 a.d.). But he
appeals, xxvi. 17, 18, to the oral information of
credible men, to original writings of the Gnostics, and
to personal intercourse which, as a quite young man,
he had with these
"
Gnostics."
Nevertheless, I hold with R. Seeberg it is very pro-
bable that the account of the use of the embryo, w^hich
is found only in Epiphanius, should be considered
unhistorical. After all, Epiphanius was credulous
enough to say about even the Montanists, that they
employed in their sacrifices the blood of a child,
whose body they had pierced with needles, xlviii.
14. The first part, however, of Epiphanius's last
description is not merely confirmed by the remarks of
Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus, but also by two
Gnostic writings which have only recently become
known. Firstly, the Gnostic writing which was
written in Egypt in Greek at the end of the third
century a.d., but preserved only in Coptic, ''Pistis
Sophia . . . Latine vertit M. G. Schwartze, edidit
J. H. Petermann
"
(Be., 1851, 53). The author, in the
course of it, makes Jesus show the infernal regions
to His disciples, and depict the punishments of wilful
sinners. On this occasion Thomas puts the question,
p.
386 sq. :
"
We have heard that there are men who
put semen virile and sanguinem menstruum in a dish
of lentils, and declare,
'
We believe in Esau* and
Jacob.' Is that proper or not?
"
Jesus answers that
this sin is greater than all sins and misdeeds, and that
such men shall be plunged into the outermost dark-
ness. The onery is only intelligible if the author,
who was himself a Gnostic, knew other Gnostics, and
wanted those to be condemned who acted in the
manner indicated by Thomas's question. Secondly,
*
The words
"
and Jacob
"
are beyond doubt an interpolation. The
mention of Esau calls to mind the Cainites who, from hostility to
the Jewish Deity, ascribed a higher power of light to Cain, Esau,
Korah, the Sodomites, Judas Iscariot, in fine, all the bad men who
occur in the Bible, and reverenced them as servants of the good God.
"Blood Ritual" 37
the second book of Jeu, also a Gnostic work, which,
however is much older than the
"
Pistis Sophia," v.
C. Schmidt,
"
Gnostische Schriften in koptischer
Sprache, aus dem Codex Brucianus herausgegeben,
iibersetzt u. bearbeitet," L. 1892, 194. We read in
it that Jesns is supposed to have told his disciples:
"
Keep these mysteries which I shall give you ; reveal
them to no man, unless he be wôrthy of them
Reveal them not to any man who believes in these 72
Archons or serves them ; reveal them not to those who
serve the eighth Dynamis of the great Archon, that
is to say, those who consume sanguinem menstruum
and semen virile, whilst saying:
*
We possess the true
knowledge and pray to the true God.' But their God
is bad."
The partaking of semen virile and sanguis men-
struus is ascribed also to the religious party of the
Manichaeans, which was allied to the Gnostics, v.
Cyrillus of Jerusalem's 6th Catechet. Discourse
(348 A.D.),

33, and Augustine,
"
De Moribus Mani-
chaeorum," 18, 66, and "De haeresibus," 46.
The explanation of this action of many Gnostics
is probably only partially to be sought in their
dualistic conception of the world. The sparks of the
higher power of light, which exist in the bodies of
human beings, are gathered together by means of
semen virile and sanguis menstruus, and brought to
the Treasury of Light. In this way men earn reward
from the highest good God (from whom the Creator-
God has fallen away, with His angels and archons).
First steps of the libertine conduct, without which
rites like those described could hardly have arisen,
are already adverted to in the New Testament : Rev.
ii.,
6,
15. (the Nikolaites), and the Epistle of Judas,
especially vv. 7, 8, 10, 12.
E. Remarkal)le parallels are reported in Russian
sects. Sectarianism in Russia, the Raskol, falls into
two big groups: the Popowzy and the Bespopowzy
("
the priestless
").
The latter think the end of the
world is near, and the dominion of Antichrist has
already begun. Many of them made it their duty to
dispatch the innocent souls of the newly born to
heaven ; others believed they were doing their friends
and relations a service of love, if they kept them from
dying a natural death. It not infrequently happened
that whole families, even villages, united to offer
themselves to God as a living sacrifice. The peasant
Chodkin (under Alexander II.) persuaded some
twenty persons to die with him of hunger in the
forests of Perm. Others, especially in the 18th
century, chose the baptism of fire by burning them-
selves.
"
Even in the 19th century such horrible
scenes were not unusual in 1883 a peasant
called Jukow burnt himself to death, while singing
psalms. Baptism with blood is perhaps even
less rare ; in most cases there are parents who wish
thereby to preserve their children from the allure-
ments of the Prince of Darkness. For instance, in
1847 a moujik from the government of Perm had in-
tended to unlock the gates of heaven to his whole
family with one blow; but as the axe failed him
before he had finished his fearful work, he gave him-
self up to the law. Another peasant, from the
government of Wladimir, who was called to account
for the murder of his two sons, affirmed he wished in
that way to preserve them from sin, and, in order to
follow his victims, when in prison refused all nourish-
ment In 1870 a moujik tried to imitate the
sacrifice of Isaac. He bound his seven-year-old son
to a bench, and ripped his belly open, after which he
began to pray before the pictures of saints.
'
Do you
forgive me
?
' he asked the dying child.
'
I forgive
you, and God likewise,' answered the victim, whose
part in the scene had been rehearsed." In a single
"Blood Ritual"
39
year, 1879, the Odessa justices had to decide finally
in one or more cases of self-sacrifice,
crucifixion,
self-cremation, and mutilation "from motives of
piety." .1 . Leroy-Beaulieu,
"
Das Reich der Zaren und
die Russen," German edition, III. (Sondershausen,
1890),
351-4. There are further instances of fire-
baptism in A . V. Haxthausen,
"
Studien fiber die
inneren Zustande . . . Russlands," I. (Hanover,
1847),
339.Cf. inf., ch. 13.
The mystic sects of the Chlysty ("scourgers
") and
the Skopzy ("castrates "), which stand in close rela-
tions to one another, do not belong to the real Raskol.
The gatherings of the Chlysty, or, as they are called,
Ljudi Boshii ("God-men"), are outwardly compar-
able to those of the well-known
"
dancing dervishes
"
in Cairo and Stamboul. Whilst most Chlysty use
only water and black bread for the celebration of the
Holy Communion, some of them, according to more
than one witness {Leroij-Beaulieu, 450, cites Philaret's
"History of the Russian Church," Liwanow's "Ras-
kolniki i Ostroshniki," Renzki's "Ljudi Boshii i
Skopzy,") used the flesh and blood of a new-born
child, and particularly of the first boy, who might be
expected from a "holy virgin" chosen to be the
"mother of God," after the ecstatic and obscene
ceremonies following upon her selection. If a girl
was born, she in turn became a holy virgin; but if a
boy
"
Christosik
"
("little Christ
")
he was sacrificed
on the eighth day after his birth. The communion
bread was renewed by a mixture of his heart and
blood with flour and honey. That was called com-
municating with the blood of the lamb. Others, as is
conjectured, communicated with the yet warm blood
of the little Jesus.
Von Haxthausen, I., 349, mentions another way by
which the Skopzys and Chlystys produced the
materials for the solemnizing of their Communion : A
virgin of fifteen, who has been persuaded by great
promises, has her left breast severed, whilst she sits
in a tub with warm water. The breast is cut into
small pieces on a dish, which are consumed by all th(^
members of the congregation present. Then the girl
in the tub is lifted on to an altar standing near, and
the whole congregation dances wildly around it and
sings at the same time Mv above-mentioned
clerk made the acquaintance of several such girls,
who were then always worshipped like saints, and
says that at nineteen to twenty they looked as if they
were fifty to sixty; thes^ also usually died before
thirty. One, however, was married, and had two
children.
The Christian religion is not responsible foi such
abominations.
F. The following events are to be considered as
rela'pses into heathendom or as survivals from
heathen
times. About two hundred versts (kms.) from Kasan
is the village of Stary-Multan, whose inhabitants
belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, with a
church and a priest. Owing to bad harvests, famine
and typhus visited them in 1892, and there was a fear
of cholera. They began to doubt whether their way
of worshipping God was the right. They thought
they must appease the supernatural powers by sacri-
fice. Animal sacrifices helped nothing.
Whereupon
a sage of the village received the revelation that a
"two-legged" sacrifice (kurban) was required, that
is, a human sacrifice.
There lived in the village a
man from another district, so that he was without
relations and friends in the place itself. This unfor-
tunate man, on 4th (16th) May, 1892, was dragged into
the Town Hall, stripped there, and hung up by his
feet to the ceiling, and then fifteen persons with
knives began to stab at his naked body. The blood
streaming from the wounds was carefully caught in
"
Blood Ritual
"
41
vessels, cooked and drunk by the sacrificers. The
lunQS and heart were also consumed. The village
magistrate, the peasant-born policeman, and the chief
elder of the church took part in the ceremony. The
people were so convinced of the righteousness of their
action that they did not take the least pains to con-
ceal the murder. So it soon came to the knowledge
of the authorities. After two and a half years the
trial came to an end, and the perpetrators of the ritual
murder were condemned to many years' hard labour.
(UrqueU, 1897, 118 sq., after the Freies Blatt, Vienna,
13 Jan., 1895, No. 145).
Government of Minsk, district of Nowogrud. In
1831 the country people, during a cholera epidemic,
wanted to bury a priest alive ; he only saved himself
by begging his parishioners for a respite, in order to
prepare for death. In August, 1855, the inhabitants
of the village of Okopowitschi, in a similar epidemic,
on the advice of an army surgeon Kosakowitsch,
pushed an old woman, Lucia Manjkow, alive, as a
sacrifice, into a pit, in which there were already
corpses, and then quickly heaped earth upon it. In
August, 1871, the inhabitants of the village of Tor-
katschi wanted to inflict the same fate on an invalid
peasant woman; her husband and son-in-law came
only just in time to the rescue ; it is said that another
woman who was ill, and by herself, was then sacri-
ficed alive. The whole of the village authorities
shared the conviction that they could save them-
selves from the cholera by the burying of a living
person. In the Turuchan district, government
Jenissei, a peasant P., by descent a Russian, buried
alive, in 1861, a girl akin to him in order to save
himself and his family from a prevalent epidemic
disease by the sacrifice {Lowenstimm, 12-14).
A Samoyede, Jefrem Pyrerka, strangled in Nova
Zembla, duringr the famine of the winter of 1881, a
girl, Ssavanei, in order, as he openly stated, to bring
an offering to the devil, because God, in whom he
believed, did not help him in the time of the famine.
Later he fashioned a wooden idol and wanted to sacri-
fice to it his tent comrade, Andrei Tabarei; he threw
a noose round his neck, and only the entrance of P.'s
wife saved Andrei from death (Lowenstimm, 10).
First element: Burying of living animals.
District Nowogrud, in cholera time. District Grjas-
owez, government Wologda, after the peasant
women, perhaps on account of a cattle murrain, had
ploughed up a village (Low. 12, 22 sq.). Human
sacrifices, too, are said to have been offered on the
occasion of the ploughing-up (Low. 25).
G. The persons who took part in the following
episode were also certainly quite untouched by
Christian influence.
"
A woman, living in the Madras
Presidency, was said to be possessed of the devil, and
therefore barren. Her father accordingly asked
advice of an exorciser, who declared a human sacrifice
needful. So one evening the father, the exorcist, and
five or six other men met together, and after a reli-
gious ceremony sent for the victim determined on.
Without suspecting any evil, he came and was forth-
with given so much spirituous drink, that he became
unconscious. They then cut off his head and offered
his blood mingled with rice to the Deity as a sacrifice
;
the corpse they cut in pieces and threw in a reservoir.
The murderers, who were soon discovered, made a
frank confession." (L. Fuld, Neve Freie Presse,
Vienna, 4 May, 1888, No. 8510, reproduced from an
English medical journal).
As to human sacrifices after a case of death
{widow, bride, slaves), cf. /. Kohler, Ztschr.
f.
das
Privat- u. offentl.
Recht, Vienna, 1892, 586 sq. (India,
Central America, Ashanti, Fiji Islands, etc.)
III. HUMAN BLOOD SERVES TO RATIFY THE
GIVEN WORD*
The drinking of human blood, or of wine mixed
with such blood when friendship was sworn, and
alliances were concluded, was the custom of many
nations, in antiquity and in the middle ages.
Herodotus, IV., 70, narrates of the tScythians:
"They conclude agreements in the following manner
:
They pour wine into a large earthen vessel, and, after
the contracting parties have scratched themselves
with an awl or a knife, mix the wine with their blood,
and then dip sword and arrows and battle-axe and
javelin into the vessel. Whereupon both the con-
tracting parties themselves and the most distin-
guished of their following drink from it.t
F. Riihs,
"
Handbuch der Geschichte des Mittel-
alters," Berlin, 1816, 323 (following J. G. Stritter,
"Memoriae populorum," Petersburg, 1771 sq.),
observes of the Komani :
"
To increase the sanctity of
*
ff. a. TrumhuU, "The Blood Covenant2" Philadelphia 1893 (390).
/. GohI:iher, "Die Fiktion der Blutsverwandschaft bei oriental.
Volkern," in "Globus," 1893, p.
50 sq. In general cf. ./. Kohler,
"Studien iiber die kiinstliche Verwandschaft" in Zeitschrift fiir
rerghirhende Rechtswissenschaft. V. (Stuttgart 1884),
415
40,
especially 434 sq.
P. Wilutzky,
"
Vorgeschichte des Rechts," Be.
1903, in vol. 2 in the chapter, "Kiinstliche Verwandschaft und
Blutsbriiderschaft.
'
'
t The same testimony is afforded by Pomponius Mela, the geographer,
who probably lived in the time of the Emperor Claudius, "De situ
orbis," I, 2 (cf. Tz><chukke, on the passage). Cf. also Lucianus
Samosatensis (200 a.d. ; "Toxaris," ch. 37, and Athenaeus
(beginning of the third century a.d.), "Deipnosophisatae," II., 45 E.
covenants, they let blood run from their veins into a
goblet and drank it up on both sides, so as to be of
one blood ; also a dog was hacked to bits between the
two covenanting parties." When the Hungarian
magnates in the ninth century had chosen Almus, the
son of Ugek, for their ruler, they fortified the oath of
allegiance by letting some of their blood run into a
single vessel.*As regards the Mongols, cf. K.
ISleiimann, "Die Hellenen im Skythenlande," I. (Be.
1855),
268.
"The Medes and the Lj^dians," says Herodotus
I., 74,
"
scratch the skin of the arm and then lick off
one another's blood."The Iberians (Radamistus)
and Armenians (Mithridates) acted in precisely the
same way. Tacitus, "Annals" xii., 47: "Kings,
when they conclude a treaty, are wont to give each
other the right hand, and to knot their hands together.
They next produce blood by a slight prick and lick it
up on either side. Such a bond is held to be something
mysterious, as well as consecrated by the blood shed
on both sides
"
(cf. Lifsius on the passage).
Even the Greeks and Romans are found to be
doing similar things. The Greek and Carian mercen-
aries of Psammenitus butchered the children of
Phanes, drank their blood mixed with wine and
water, and thus bound themselves to fight bravely,
Herodotus iii., 11.
Diodorus Siculus, contemporary
with Augustus, relates how Apollodorus (in the first
third of the third century b.c.) won lordship over the
town of Cassandrea on the Macedonian promontory
of Pallene :
"
When Apollodorus was struggling for the
mastery, and wished to make sure of the conspiracy,
he called in a youthful friend under the pretext of a
sacrifice, killed him in honour of the gods, gave his
entrails to the conspirators to eat, and made them
*
/. G. Schvandtner, 'Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum" I. (Vienna
1746), 6; Mone, "Geschichte des Heidenthums" I. 108.
Human Blood
45
drink the blood
mixed with wine."*In the con-
spiracy, which the banished
Tarquinius
Superbus
arranged with sons of Brutus and others, a great and
terrible oath was sworn, in the course of which they
offered
up the blood of a slaughtered
man and touched
the entrails.!
Catiline and his
fellow
conspirators
are
supposed to have drunk
human blood mixed with wine.}Cf. again the words
of Festus,
the grammarian,
"The ancients
called
assiratum a composite drink of wine and blood, be-
cause the ancient Latins called blood assir."
"
When the Ireni
conclude treaties, the one drinks
the blood of the other, which is shed
voluntarily for
this
purpose"
{Gyraldus,
"
Topographia
Hiberno
."
Cap.
22, p. 743).
When the French
Prince Henry (from
1574,
Henry
III., King of France)
was selected King of
Poland in
1573, there came to meet him, on his
journey to his new kingdom,
30,000 horsemen
"
dont
un Seigneur
s'etant detache lui fit un compliment, qui
le surprit par Faction dont il Faccompagna.
File
ressentoit
un peu le genie des anciens
Sarmates ; mais
d'ailleurs elle dut lui plaire. En
s'approchant du
Roi, il tira son sabre, s'en piqua le bras, et recevant
son sang dans sa main il lui dit :
'
Seigneur, malheur
^
celui de nous, qui n'est pas pret a verser tout ce
qu'il a dans les veines pour votre service
; c'est pour
cela que je ne veux rien perdre du mien,' et en meme
tems il le but," v.
G. Daniel,
"
Histoire de France."
(Amsterdam
and L., 1755) xii., 316.
Among the South Slavs, when
reconciliation of a
blood feud takes place, elective
brotherhood is even
* "
Bibliotheca
Historica xxii, Excerpta de virtutibus et vitiis," ed.
P.
WesseUng
(Amsterdam
1746), II, 562 sq. Cf. Polyaenus,
"Strategematica"
vi,
7, 2.
t Plutarch,
"Publicola,"
Ch. 4.
X Sallust,
"
Catiline,"
Ch. 18. Similarly Dio Cassius xxxvii.
now concluded with actual blood-drinking. "The
representatives of the hostile clans cut open with a
needle the artery of the right hand, suck one another's
blood, exchange kisses and swear to each other un-
changeable loyalty till the grave/' (Ur-Quell, 1890,
196).About blood-brotherhood, Cf. further G.
Popovic, "Recht und Gericht in Montenegro,"
Agram, 1877
(91), pp.
39, 45; S. Gopcevic,
"
Oberal-
banien und seine Liga," L. 1881, 303.
Africa. Blood-brotherhood with drinking of
blood by both parties. Madagascar : Vinson,
"
Voyage
h M." 1865, 281 seq., 539; J. Sihree, "Madagascar," L.
1881, 249 seq. ; Ur-Quell, 1897, 32 sq. (after the experi-
ences of a merchant, T. Scluszanski).East Africa:
Die Katholischen Missionen, illustr. monthly, Freiburg,
i. B. 1883, 32 sq.-Zanzibar : v.
"
Melusine
"
iii., 402 sq.
Cameroons:
"
Mitteilungen aus den deutschen
Schutzgebieten
"
Y. (Be., 1892),
178 sq. ; E. Zintgraff,
"Nord-Kamerun," Be. 1895, 175, 202.
The Berlin paper Die Post, 11th July, 1891, No. 187,
gives
information about the "Infame Legge," a band of brigands
which was discovered in South Italy in 1891, after an existence
of three years. It was noticeable that, in the ritual of the
band, which was allied to that of the "Mala Vita" of Bari,
"the neophytes drank blood-brotherhood with the leader of the
band by sucking out and drinking the blood from a scratch
wound, which the leader himself made in the region of his own
heart."
RocHHOLZ I., 52 : "At Helmstiidt and Leipsic the "Hasen" (so-
called "Krassfiichse") used formerly to drink brotherhood by
letting some blood drip into a bowl from cuts in their arms,
and swallowing it kneeling."
C. The drinking of blood was foreign to the
ancient Germans,* J. Grimm, "Deutsche Rechtsal-
*
And not merely for the object here in question, but altogether. The
fighting heroes at the end of theNibelungenlied, 2051sq., decide upon
an unusual drink, the blood of dead foes, only to save themselves
in glowing heat from slow death. The following examples are
purely mythical.
(1)
The younger brother of Gunnar and Hogni is
supposed to be provoked to murder Sigurd by eating animal flesh.
Human Blood
47
terthumer"2
(Gott.
1854), 193:
"No German
tradition
makes mention of symbolical
blood-drinking,
the
mixing of blood into wine, or else, what is related in
'Gesta Roman.,' cap.
67, of a treaty
of friendship
would have to be referred to German custom.
'
Nun-
quid tibi placet unam conventionem
mecum ponere et
erit nobis utile
;
sanguinem
quilibet de brachio dextra
emittat,
ego tuum sanguinem
bibam et tu meum,
quod nullus alium dimittet nee in prosperitate nee in
adversitate
et quidquid unus lucratus fuerit alter di-
midietatem
habeat.' "
/. Grimm,
"
Geschichte
der
deutschen
Sprache,"
136 sq.
"
The ancient Northern
custom is attractive.
When two persons
concluded
brotherhood
between
themselves,
they cut a strip of
turf so that it remained hanging
with both ends on the
ground,
and a spear was placed under it in the
middle, which lifted up the turf. They next stepped
under the strip of turf* and each of them stabbed or
cut himself in the sole of the foot or the palm of the
hand, their flowing
blood running
together
blended
with the earth." This is the
explanation
of the pass-
age in the
Waltharius-Lied
(v. Simrock,
"
Kleines
Heldenbuch ")
:
V. "
Brot af
Brynhildarqvidhu
" 4; "Some roasted a wolf, some
cut up a snake, others laid before Gothorm
a dish of the ravenoua
one
"
(i.e., the wolf, or some other beast of prey). Similarly in
the prose
Volsunga-Saga,
ch. 30.
(2). In "Die altere und die
jungere
Edda nach den mythischen
Erzahlungen
der Skalda
"
translated by K. Simrock,
Stuttgart
1871, 200, it is told of Sigurd;
"
But when
Fafnir's
heart's-blood came upon his tongue he under-
stood the birds'
voice."Cf. again
"
Altdanische
Heldenlieder,
Balladen and
Marchen,"
translated by IF. Grimm,
Heidelberg
The original
significance
of this ceremony
probably was that the
persons thus concluding
brotherhood
wished to declare themselves
sons of the same mother, the Earth, cf. K. Maurer.
"
Bekehrung
des
norwegischen
Stammes zum
Christenthum
"
II (Munich
1856)
170, and in Germania,
ViertdjahrsschriH
fur chittsche AUerthum-
skunde
1874, 146 sq. and esply. M.
Pappenheim,
"Die-
altdanischen
Schutzgilden,"
Breslau
1885,
pp.
21-37
"
Wir wurden Bundeshrilder and mischten unse?' Blut,
"
Da gait uns diese Freundschaft wohl fiir das hochste
Gut."*
Herodotus III., 8,
speaking about the Arabians:
'*
When two persons wish to seal faith with one
another, a third party who has stepped between them,
makes a cut with a pointed stone in the palms of the
hands of both, then takes out of either of their cloaks
one thread, and smears with the blood seven stones
lying in the centre, calling upon Dionysus and
Urania." In the period historically known to us, as
early as the 6th and 7th centuries a.d., human blood
is scarcely still mentioned, but the Arabians dipped
their hands into a bowl filled with camel's blood and
next into a bowl full of fragrant perfumes. J. Well-
hausen,
"
Skizzen and Vorarbeiten," III.
("
Reste Ara-
bischen Fleidentumes," Be. 1887), 119 sq.
;
cf. also
W. Roh. Smith,
"Kinship and marriage in early
Arabia," Cambridge, 1886, 48 sq., 149 sq., 261, 284,
and
"
Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, First
Series,"^ Edinburgh, 314-8.
The Dyaks celebrate blood-union in adoption by
taking blood from both the parties, which is poured
on some chewing betel and then eaten by them
{J. Kohler in Zeitschr.
f.
das Privat- u. offentl.
Recht
der Gegenivart, Vienna, 1892, 569, in an article well
worth reading on "Recht, Glaube u. Sitte," 561-612.)
Mexican tribes form brotherhoods by smearing
themselves with the blood of one and the same person.
Similarly in the Dutch Indies. In the Society Islands
it occurs that the mothers of the bridal couple let their
blood flow together on a cloth (ibid. 565, 567).
D. In this connection might also be mentioned
'*
Roughly translatable
:
"
So we became bond-brothers, mingling together blood,
In sooth we deemed this friendship to be the highest good.'*
Human Blood 49
the use of personal blood in the signatures of agree-
ments, cf. Gotz, "De subscriptionibus sanguine
humano firmatis," Liibeck, 1724; Scheible, "Die Sage
vom Faust," Stuttgart, 1847.
Rochholz, I. 52, relates,
as an absolute custom of German University fresh-
men ("Burschen "), that the parties wrote '"mutually
with their own blood leaves in each other's albums."
"
The leaf is still said to be in existence on which, with
his own blood, Maximilian, the great Bavarian
Elector, dedicated himself to the Holy Virgin."
E. This is also the place for the
"
Bahrrecht," i.e.
ordeal of the bier, the belief that the wounds of a
murdered person begin to bleed again in the presence
of the murderer, cf. Wuttke 329;' Mannhardt
24; li^-
Quell 1893,275 sq. ; 1894, 284; 1895, 175 sq. 212-4;
Chr. V. Christensen,
"
Baareproven,
dens Historic og
Stilling i Fortidens Eets- og Naturopfattelse,"
Copen-
hagen,'l900
(289).
IV. THE BLOOD OF OTHER PERSONS USED
FOR HEALING PURPOSES*
A. I start with two quotations from Plin3^'s
"Natural History," XXVIIL, 1, 2. "Thus epileptics
even drink the blood of gladiators, and indeed out of
living goblets. . . . They consider it the most effective
method of cure to swallow down the blood, when it
is still warm, still bubbling, out of the man himself,
and thus simultaneously to swallow the very breath
of life from the mouth of the wound.
"t 4, 10 : "Human
blood, from whatever part it has come, is said to be
very efficacious according to Orpheus's and Arche-
laus's assertion, in inflammations of the throat, and
should be smeared on the mouth of the patients who
have become subject to epilepsy; for these are said
thereupon to stand up immediately."Scribonius
Largus, the author of
"
Medicamentorum Composi-
tiones," in the 1st century a.d. recommends in several
passages the use of human blood for epilepsy.
Physicians of the Byzantine epoch (3rd to 6th cen-
turies), such as Aetius and Alexander of Tralles, give
similar advice.
B. "Die Chronik des Abtes Regino von Priim"
*
About the utilisation of blood in the actual medical art of to-day,
of. L. Landois, "Die Transfusion des Blutes," L. 1875
(358),
"Bei-
trage zur Tr. des Bl." 1878
(58);
0. Hasse, "Lammbluttransfusion
beim Menschen," St. Petersburg 1874
(78);
F. Gesellius, Die
Transfusion des Blutes," St. Petersburg 1873
(187).
f
Cf. also Celsus,
"
De Medicina," III, 23, towards the end; Coelius
Aurelianus, "Tardarum s. chronicarum passionum," I,
4;
Tertullian, "Apolog.," 9.Cf. also inf. oh. 7.
Blood for Healing 51
(translated by E. Dummler,'^ L. 1890, 93)
writes about
the Hungarians in 889 a.d. :
"
They eat, as report goes
{'ut fama est
')
raw meat, drink blood, swallow as a
remedy the hearts of their captives cut into pieces."
Bishop Liudprand, of Cremona, "Antapodosis," II., 2
("Opera Omnia," recogn. E. Dummler,^ Hanover,
1877, 28) gives like information, after having told of
the death of Arnulf of Carinthia :
"
ut magis magisque
timeantur, interfectorum sese sanguine potant."
When in 1649 the Huron Mission Station at St.
Louis was captured by the Iroquois and the Jesuit,
Jean de Brebeuf was most horribly done to death, and
did not show a tremor when they scalped him ; the
savages came in crowds to drink the blood of so brave
a foe. A chieftain then tore his heart out and de-
voured it. {Parkman,
"
Jesuits in North America in
the 17th century," 389 sq.)
C. The medical folk-belief, or (relatively) the
superstition, respecting menstrual blood remained
and remains in rank fulness.
^~
For the middle ages
the best evidences are the numerous penance books
which for the most part arose in the period between
600 and 1000 a.d. Cf. H. J. Schmitz,
"
Die Bussbiicher
und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche," Mainz, 1883. The
so-called penance book of Theodore of Canterbury,
7,
3 (Schmitz,
p. 530),
"
Qui semen aut sanguinem biberit
III annos poeniteat." 14, 15
(536)
:
"
Sic et ilia, quae
semen viri sui in cibo miscens, ut inde plus amoris
accipiat, poeniteat (tres annos)." 14, 16
(536)
:
"
Uxor
quae sanguinem viri sui pro remedio gustaverit, XL.
dies vel LX. minusve jejunet."
" Poenitentiale Cum-

meani" I.. 17. 35. 36.
(617 sq.)=Theod. vii.
3;
xiv. 16, 15.
The three passages are repeated xxiii. 2 (668)"
"Poe-
* Cf. also //. Ph.ss, "Das Weib in der Natur- und Vblkerkunde,"
anthropological studies, 8th. ed. publd. by M. Bartels, 2 vols. L.
1904, 1905, in the chapters on "Menstrualblut als Arznei- und
Zaubermittel," and "Liebeszauber." For

C. and D. cf. v. Wlis-
locki, "Zigeuner," 75 sq.
52
The Jew and Human Sacrifice
nitentiale Parisiense
"
18
(683)
: "Qui sanguinem suum
aut semen causa amoris vel alterius rei bibere aliquem
vel aliquam facerit, tribus poeniteat annis," 91
(691)
==Theod xiv.,
16.
''Ordo
Poenitentiae, Codex Barbe-
rini"
(748)
: "Bibisti sanguinem vel manducasti ullius
pecudis vel hominis, tres annos poeniteas." Another
repetition in the Prague synodal decrees, v. C. H'dfler,
"Concilia Pragensia," Prague, 1862, XL, XII.That
the blood of female persons generally meant sanguis
menstruus, is apparent from Bishop Burchard of
Worms's (1000-1025) "Kanonensammlung," 19th
Book
("
Corrector et Medicus "),
39.
"
Fecisti quod
quaedam mulieres facere solent ? Tollunt menstruum
suum sanguinem et immiscent cibo vel potui et dant
viris suis ad manducandum, ut plus diligantur ab eis.
Si fecisti, quinque annos per legitimas ferias poe-
niteas
"
;
also from Abbot Eegino of Prlim's (ob. 915),
"De synodalibus causis," II., 359. 378 sq. (Edition of
Wasserschleben, L. 1840, 354. 359);
from Hrabanus
Maurus's (ob. 856) "Liber Poenitentium
"
("Opera,"
Cologne, 1627, Vol. VI.); from the "Regesta rerum
Boicarum," for 1421 a.d., etc.
Hildegai'de* Abbess of the convent on the
Rupertsberg, near Bingen, d. 1179, in her "Libri sub-
tilitatum diversarum natur. creatur " (Ed. Migne,
Paris, 1855), the oldest work of monastic medicine
composed in Germany, which also gives experiences
of popular therapeutics, praises baths of menstrual
blood for leprosy. Warm uterine blood of a virgin,
applied to gouty limbs, would alleviate the violent
pain.t A shirt stained with this blood would ensure
*
p. Kaiser,
"
Die naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften der Hildegard
von Bingen," Be. 1901
(24)
;
"
Hildegardis causae et curae," ed. P.
Kaiser, L. 1903 (254).
t
"Hauss-Apothec" 50: "The pains of podagra are alleviated by the
menstrual blood of a virgin, when it is smeared warm upon the
place."
Fossel,
"
Steiermark
"
166: "Linen rags steeped in mens-
trual blood are poultices against gout well known from of old."
Blood for Healing 53
against blow and stab,* and would quench outbreaks
of fire, when thrown into the flames.
In the "CosmooTaphy
"
of the Arabian, Zakarija
ben Muhammed al-Qazwmi (ob. 1283 a.d.), Edtn. of F.
Wiistenfeld, Gottingen 1848 sq., it is observed I. 366:
"
The blood of menstruation, if the bite of the mad dog
is smeared with it, cures it, and likewise tubercular
(knotig) leprosy and black scab (Kaude). (In regard
to these names of diseases, Cf. /. M. Honigherger,
"
Friichte aus dem Morgenlande," Vienna, 1853, 542
sq.) ; 367 : "The blood of the menstruation of a virgin
helps against the white spots on the pupil, if it is
applied as an eye-salve."
t
"
Birthmarks, red moles, and freckles vanish if
they are smeared with warm menstrual blood, the
placenta, or with blood from the umbilical cord. . . .
of a woman bearing her first child. (Unter- und Ober-
franken)," Lammert, 184 sq. (ibid, original documents).
"
Moles . . . are cured by smearing with the blood of
a fresh umbilical cord, by rubbing with a fresh after-
birth. . . . The red mole is covered with a linen
clout which is moistened with fresh menstrual blood
(Ennsthal)," Fossel 134. 56. "The freckles, especially
of women, are sought to be dispelled by smearing. . .
with warm menstrual blood (Oberland and neighbour-
hood of Graz)," Fossel
135.
"The smearing of warts

with fresh menstrual blood. ... is universal^ prac-
tised," Fossel 140. Slightly different is the practice in
Oldenburg:
"
To dispel warts, the}^ are smeared with
the blood of another person's warts ; the blood of one's
own warts generates more of them." Strackerjan I.
* 'Hauss-Apothec" 45: "How a man may alwaj'S conquer in tilting
or the lists. Take a piece of a virgin's shift, who has for the first
time had the menses. Wrap it in a new trousers belt, which a pure
virgin has made, and bind it on the naked skin beneath the right
arm, so wilt thou feel the effect. Staricius in the
'
Heldenschatz,'
page
97."
t
Cf. also W. Ji. Smith, "Religion of the Semites," 2nd ed., I. 133.
83.
" For itch, wear a shirt, in which a woman has

menstruated, during three days on the belly (Hief-
lau)," Fossel
135.
" Hauss-i^pothec," 45: "Above all,
the first virgin menses, preserved on the shift or a
piece of linen, is held in high esteem, and when
steeped in vinegar or rose-water, and, according to
the greatness of the disease, laid and repeatedly laid
on diseased glands, small-pox, apostemes, is prized as
an excellent remedy."
In the Franche-Comte a good table-spoon of a
woman's menstrual blood, or better still a young
virgin's, in a glass of hot wine with sugar, is recom-
mended for corrupt blood (sang gate). ("Melusine
"
I., C. 402).
Love-potion*.
"
In the Oberpfalz . . . sweat, a
few drops of menstrual blood . . . are mixed in the
drink of the person, whose liking it is desired to win,"
Lammert, 151 sq.
In 1885 in the assize circuit of Colmar, Dr. L.
Fuld of Mainz, a barrister, had to work up a divorce
case, in which, among other things it came out that
the wife, in order to keep the affection of her husband,
a farmer, had put a few drops of sanguis menstruus
in his coffee.An unmarried woman, B. (I intention-
ally indicate the name only with a letter) in Schleswig
in 1888 gave her sweetheart some drops of her sanguis
menstruus in his coffee.
"
He shall not run away
from me," she cried triumphantly; in spite of which
he was unfaithful to her. (Information from E.
Carstens,
Dahrenwurth, near Lunden, July, 1892).
The same thing was done by Leila d'Errico, in order to

chain to herself her lover, the Prince of Venosa.
About the proceedings taken against her in 1603, v.
Luigi Amabile, "II santo officio della Inquisizione in
Napoli," Cittadi Castello 1892, Cf. Ur-quell, 1895,
12.
*
Cf . sup. p. 9, line 13, and Herklots, "Cauoon e-Islam or the customs
of the Moosulmans of India," London 1832, p.
341 sq.
Blood
for Healing
55
The same is found in the Magyar
folk-belief, v. Ur-
Quell, 1892,
269. Likewise among the Gypsies. H.
V.
Wlislocki 77,
83-5. Cf. also J. W. Wolf,
"
Beitrage
zur
deutschen
Mythologie
"
I.
(Gottingen, 1852)
210.
In Oldenburg it is believed that a man too can win the
affection of his beloved by the help of his blood.
"
The
commonest
remedy is, that one should give the other
person
something of his own body, e.g.
three
drops of blood in a glass of wine or in coffee."
Strack-
erjan I., 96.In the
province of Prussia,
FrisMier
159
:
"
If one wishes a beloved
person to return one's
love, one must put secretly a drop of one's own blood
in that
person's food or drink."
"The wife
buries
the hairs of a dead person and her own menses at the
place where the husband is used to draw water in
order to assure his marital fidelity."
(Transylvania, v.
Ur-Quell, 1893, 98).
First Elements: "He who is unable to conceive any love for the
beautiful sex, should on Friday evening put on silently in
moonshine a girl's shift, and take it off again Sunday morning.
Love is awakened (Konow, District of Kammin)," U. Jahn,
No. 547.Tatjana
Timoschtschenkow, in 1880,
made her
judges, in order to bewitch their goodwill for herself, drink the
water in which she had washed herself,
Lowenstimm,
77.The
girl spits secretly in her sweetheart's beer-glass.
(Neighbour-
hood of Cofctbus).
(Cessation of the menses).
"
One should
drink
some of the water in which the blood of a first men-
struation has been dissolved or the girl's bloody shift
has been washed, or one should put on a shift moist-
ened with fresh menstrual
blood
(Franken)."
Lammert 148.
D.
Some examples of the
employment of
other
persons' blood.
Taken from mediaeval medicine. The
surgeon
Henri de Mondeville (about 1304 in
Montpellier;
about 1306 and following years in Paris), says in his
"Chirurgie,"
published by J. L. Pagel, Be. 1892, 555,
*'
Similiter dicit Thedericus, episcopus Lerviensis
[also a famous mediaeval surgeon] in libello secre-
torum suorum, quod nervi contracti, si fricando
humectentur cum aqua sanguinis humani septies dis-
tillati curabuntur," etc. He is followed by Guy de
Chauliac, the most eminent surgeon of the middle ages
(who practised in Montpellier, Bologna, Paris, ending
as Papal Physician-in-Ordinary in Home) in his great
"Chirurgie," written about 1363, or at any rate then
published, "Tract." VI. 1, 1 (Paris, 1891, 401)
in
respect of the treatment of indurations both after
fractures and in articular and nervous disorders, "et
aqua sanguinis humani septies distillati est ad hoc
per alchimistas et per Henricum laudata."
(Against hydrophobia.) /. Wellhausen,
"
Reste
arabischen Heidentumes," Be. 1887, 142: "Hydro-
phobia is cured by King's-blood
("
Kitab al-Aghani,"
ed. Bulaq XIIL, 36, 22 sq. XIV., 74, 28. "Arabb.
Prow." I. 488. "Hamasa," 372, 9. 725, v. 5. Versio
lat. II. 583 sq.). It can be seen from the quantity of
instances, how widely-spread this belief was among
the Arabs. It can hardly be explained otherwise than
by assuming King's blood to be divine blood. The
nobility is the centre of the stem, represents the
straight branch of genealogy, and is nearest con-
nected with the divine ancestor. King's blood, that
is, does not signify the reigning King's blood, but the
blood of the family from which the Kings or Princes
are taken, e.g., that of the Quraishites, to whom the
Khalifs belong. The poets flatter a Quraishite, by
saying :
"
Thy blood is a help against rabies."Cf. also
Caussin de Perceval, "Essai sur I'histoire de 1' Arabic."*
(Against children's convulsions).
"
The father
pricks himself in the finger, and puts into the child's
*
"Son sang (du roi Djodbayma) recu dans les vases, fut conserve
precieusement, car on croyait alors generalement que le sang des
rois etait un specifique centre la folic ou possession, Khabal."
Blood for Healing
57
mouth three drops of blood from the wound,"
Lammert, "Bayern," 125, Cf. sup. Ch. 4A.
"
Against distemper in little children : The father
should give the child three drops of blood out of the
first joint of his ring finger (Rackow, district of Neu-
stettin)," U. Jahn, No. 519.
"Hauss-Apothec," 40 sq. "The wondrous virtue of human blood is
this. If one distills into an alembic the blood of a young,
healthy person about thirty odd years old, it makes all poor
complexions again blooming, is good for all weakness of the
brain, memory and spirits, banishes all poison from the heart,
cures all manner of lung complaints, purifies the blood beyond
all other medicaments, and is good for diarrhoea and lumbago,
and increases the blood and semen," etc.
E. Human flesh. Fr. L. Walther, "Von Menschen-
fressenden Volkern and Menschenopfern," 1785.
R. Andree, "Die Anthropophagie," L., 1887

(105).
H. Gaidoz, "L'anthrophagie," in "Melusine," III.,
column 337-46, 361-3, 385-9, 409-11, 433-5, 457-60, 481-7,
505 sq. (385 sq. contain instances of the fact that there
is a belief in China and in Tonquin that he who has
eaten of the flesh, especially of the heart or the liver,
of a man has his courage communicated to him.
P.
Bergemann,
"
Die Verbreitung der Anthropophagie
iiber die Erde und Ermittelung einiger Wesensziige
dieses Branches," Bunzlau, 1893 (53).72. S. Stein-
metz,
"
Endokannibalismus," Vienna, 1896; H. Kern,
"
Menschenfleisch als Arznei," in Ethnographische
Beitrdge, Festgabe zur Feier des 70. Geburtstages
von Prof. Ad. Bastian (Leiden, 1896), 37-40. Corro-
borations of these four works from South Slav sources
are given by F. S. Kravss, "Menschenfleischessen,"
in Ur-Quell, 1897, 1-5, 117-9. If a brigand kills any-
body in the Masur district, he tastes a little of his
blood in the belief that the blood of the murdered man
will in that case not overtake him. When the Mon-
tenegrins cut a Turk's or Arnaut's head off they licked
the blood off the yataghan, with the notion that the
blood would not then descend into their feet^.e.,
they would not lose their presence of mind. If two
persons in the Mazur district want to seal brother-
hood they let blood on each other's fingers and suck
it out mutually
(p.
117).
347-350 (about the unrest in
Croatia,
1897).'
F. Incidentally may be mentioned here the
longing for human blood or flesh in lunatics and
pregnant women; v. regarding the former, C. Lom-
broso, '' Der Verbrecher," translated into German by
Frankel, II. (Hamburg, 1890), 89 (Verzeni), 111;
regarding both, v. R. Leubusche?^
"
Uber Wehrwolfe
und Thierverwandlungen im Mittelalter," Berl.,
1850,
57-63 (Bichel, the murderer of girls, Bertrand,
the mutilator and outrager of corpses, etc.). Cf. also
Daumer, I., 148-155 ("
Kannibalismus des christl.
Alt."), and inf. Ch. 13.
G. Blood of the Saints. Daumer, l.,l^\. When
St. Blasius (under Diocletian) was murdered, seven
Christian women smeared themselves with his blood,
V. Wicelius, "Chorus sanctorum omnium," Cologne,
1554, 39.
H. The Communion wine and the consecrated
wafers are referable here in so far as the partaking
of them was also believed to alTect a person's cor-
porality. In respect of Christ's blood shed in the
Holy Communion cf. (as early as about 348 a.d.), the
23rd "Catechesis" of Cyrillus of Jerusalem: "If a
drop remains on your lips, smear your eyes and fore-
head with it, and sanctify them." About the legends
regarding the blood of the Crucified Saviour, v. espe-
cially /. A^. Sepy, "Das Leben Jesu Christi," V.
(Regensburg, 1861). For Iceland, v. Feilberg, Ur-
Quell, 1892, 87 sq. ; for Poland, v. Schiffer,
ibid. 147
sq. A good many criminals think they can perjure
themselves with impunity if they have with them a
piece of consecrated wafer from Holy Communion.
Blood for Healing
59
The doctrine
of
transubstantiation,
which
was
brought
forward as early as the middle of the 9th
century a.d. by Paschasius
Radbertus, and ecclesias-
tically
established
in 1215 at the fourth Lateran
Synod, afforded the possibility
that
coarse-minded,
and therefore also
superstitious,
ideas might be con-
nected with the
consecrated
wafers. Cf. supr.,
p. 34,
Jezer at Berne.
From the end of the 13th century
the appearance
of the "bleeding holy wafers
"*
gave
frequently
rise to the charge that the Jews had pierced
or cut through the wafers, and thus outraged
them,
and the
accusation led to numerous
persecutions
of
the
Jews.t
It is the merit of the Berlin
naturalist
Ehrenlerg
to have shown the possibility of an explanation
for a
portion of these cases, v.
"
Verhandlungen,"
of the
Academy
of Sciences at Berlin, of 26th October,
1848,
349: "Herr
Ehrenberg
exhibited in fresh condition
the old-time
famous prodigy
of blood in bread and
food as a phenomenon
now appearing in Berlin,
and
explained
the same as conditioned
by a hitherto
unknown
nomadic
animalcula."
Ibid. 349-62,
E.
* Several
points about
"bleeding wafers and altar-cloths" in
Daumer II., 111-20.
t
Besides what has been dealt with by Ehrenberg,
cf. McCanI,
''Reasons for believing,
etc." 12 sq. ; Cuârivs von Heisferhaeh (first
half of the 13th century) in 9th Book of the
"DialogusMiraculorum'
(edition of J. Strange, Cologne,
1851); Johanv ron Winterthnr's
"Chronik,"
trltd. by B. Freuler,
Winterthur,
1866. 179 sq.
;
O. Sfobbe,
"Die Juden in Deutschland
wahrend des Mittelalters,
Brunswick
1866, 187 sq., 283; B. Bree.f,
"Das Wunderblut von
Wilsnack"
(13831522).
Authoritative
statement about the
'Wunderblut"
historical facts (in "Markische
Forschungeu"
(1881)
131-302); F. Hnltze,
"Das Strafverfahren
gegen die ^markischen
Judeu ini Jahre 1510"
("Schriften des Vereins fiir die Geschichte
Berlins," part 21). Be., 1884. 22, 28. 173; G. SHIo, in R. Koser's
"Forschuugen zur Brandenburg,
u. Preussichen
Geschichte," IV.,
L. 1891 (about the same proceedings); the names of the 36 Jews
burnt are given,
according to the day-book of Minden, by
D.
Kmtf111(11}
n.
in Magnzin
fiir die
Wissemêhaff de.^ J udenthum>^. Be
1891.
gives an abundant list of cases in which the visual
appearance of blood on the wafers and other objects
blood which was apparent and therefore held to be
realwas to be explained by the appearance of a
species of bacteria which was quite unknown till 1819
(Dr. Sette at Padua), and was only more intimately
investigated in 1848 by Ehrenberg himself. The
immediate conclusion is that the Jews were unjustly
reproached with desecration of the wafers on the
ground of that phenomenon. 362:
*'
I have been able
very easily to propagate the phenomena on conse-
crated wafers. It makes its most flourishing
appearance on boiled rice. It develops with striking
facility in warm air in covered vessels and plates.
What a capacity for production ! What a power

! '
'
Ehrenberg gave publicity, on 15th March, 1849, to
further
"
Mitteilungen liber Monas prodigiosa oder
die Purpurmonade,"
101-116.=^
Again Cf. C. Binz in
Verhandlungen des naturhistorischen Vereines der
freu-
ssischen Rheinlande u. Westphalens, Bonn, XXIX.
[1872];
Sitzungsherichte, 166-9,
210f;
/. Schroeter,
"Ueber einige durch Bakterien gebildete Pigmente" in
"
Beitrage zur Biologic der Pfianzen." Published by
Ferd. Cohn. 2nd part, 2nd impression, Breslau, 1881,
109-19; F. Cohn,
"
Untersuchungen liber Bacterien
"
(in Beitrage, etc., 153); Leunis, "Synopsis der Pflan-
zenkunde,"^ III., 634.
Schroeter:
"
Bacteridium prodigiosum." Cohu-. "Micrococcus
prodigiosus."
Fere B adds, after Rainald, "Anuales ecclesiastici," VI. 125
(Lucca 1750): "He (Benedict XII. in 1338) who was well instructed
about the fabrication of miracles that blossomed in his time,
answered the Duke of Austria's question about the
'
bleeding holy
wafers' at Passau, to the effect that the matter should first be
carefully examined into, as in that regard there had already been
deceptions proved. He also wrote to the Bishop, to carry on the
investigation, taking particular heed of the falsifications that had
already occurred, and canonically to visit severe punishment on
those who were guilty of them."
Blood for
Healing
61
How is it to be explained
that the charge of desce-
crating the
consecrated
wafers was so often
brought
against the Jews?
Precisely
the high
esteem'în
which the wafers were held by many
Christians
con-
duced for more reasons than one to exciting in Jews
the desire to get possession of such valuable
objects
e.g., as security
for loans.
Another
proof of the belief in the
efficaciousness
of the blood
(only
apparently
contradictory)
is the
widespread
repugnance
against
the
consumption
of
blood {Frazer,
"The
Golden Bough,"
2nd edition,
I.,
353), nay, even
against
the
beholding
of women's
blood (ibid.
p. 360, sq.).
V. HUMAN BLOOD CURES LEPROSY
The opinion was extraordinarily widespread,
pre-eminently in mediaeval times, that leprosy could
be healed only by human blood. The brothers Grimm
say ("Der Arme Heinrich von Hartmann von der
Aue." Published and elucidated, Berl., 1815, 172
sq.) :
"
Health, which has been shaken to its centre
and spoilt, can only be restored by the approach and
invigoration of the 'pure; ordinary aid by means of
herbs, juices, stones, which only operate for parti-
cular things, is futile ; a complete annihilation of the
evil and a new rejuvenated life are requisite. Leprosy
and blindness were regarded as such generally
incurable diseases which could only be removed by a
miracle. . . . The pure blood of a virgin or of a
child was, above all, thought to be the source of life
which would abolish those diseases and engender a
new flourishing life. . . . The patient had to
bathe in it or be sprinkled with it; whereupon he was
pure and fresh, like a maid or a child."
Doubtless the oldest evidence for the existence of
this belief occurs in Pliny's
"
Nat. Hist.," XXVL, 1, 5.
He says of elephantiasis :
"
This disease was chiefly
at home in Egypt, and when kings were attacked by
it, it was bad for the people
;
for then the seats in the
baths were warmed with human blood for the sake of
the cure." Herewith the old Jewish exegesis (called
the
"
Midrash Shemoth [Exodus] Rabba "), of Exodus
II., 23, is in striking agreement :
"
' The king of Egypt
died,'
i.e., he had become leprous, and a leprous

Human Blood Cures Leprosy 63
person (Numbers XII.
12) was considered dead.
'
And
the children of Israel sighed.' Why? Because the
hieroglyphic experts of Egypt had said to the king:
There is no cure for you, unless every evening 150 little
Israelite children are slaughtered, and every morning
150, and thou bathest twice daily in their blood.
When the Israelites learnt of this grievous doom they
began to sigh and complain." Cf. also the Para-
phrase usually termed "Pseudo-Jonathan
"
: "The
king of Egypt was eaten away. So he bade kill the
first-born of the children of Israel, in order to bathe
himself in their blood."
Constantine the Great, according to the legend,
when he was still a heathen, was, owing to his per-
secution of the Christians, punished with leprosy.
Neither native doctors nor Persian savants could
prevail against the fearful malady. The priests of
Jupiter Capitolinus thereupon declared he must bathe
in children's blood. Children were procured; but
the lamenting of the mothers moved the Emperor to
such an extent that he declared he would rather suffer
alone than make many suffer. Referred in a dream
to Pope Sylvester, he is converted, and is restored to
health after baptism. Cf. Simon Metaphrastes in the
Life of Sylvester, Michael Glykas, Nicephorus Callisti
and "Reali di Francia," cap. 1. So early a writer as
the Armenian Moses of Chorene (ob. a.d. 487) relates
that the advice was given by heathen priests.
Georgius Cedrenus's story that Jewish doctors had
counselled the bath in children's blood rests upon
prejudiced distortion of the older form of the legend.
"Pentamerone III., 9. The Great Turk (i.e., the witchmaster,
Giant, great Enemy) has the leprosy, and cannot be cured unless
he bathes in the blood of a great prince." He gets one caught,
but the captive runs away (Grimm, 1/8 sq.).

"Histoire de
sainct greaal (Paris, 1523, Fol. 225). When Galaad, Perceval,
and Boort travel together, and Perceval's sister is with them
they reach a castle. . . . and hear that the Lady of it has
been sick of leprosy for two years, and no physician has known
a cure for it. At length a wise man had said a basin, full of
a virgin's blood, was needed. . . . salved with it, the sick
woman would at once become clean
"'
(Grimm 180).
"Histoire
de Giglan de Galles et Geoffrey de Mayence, cap. 19. A giant
is leprous, and wants to bathe in children's blood in order to
cure himself. His servant has already kidnapped eight
children, slaughtered them, and gathered their blood in a bowl,
and is just on the point of kidnapping the ninth'' (Grimm, 181).
We may also allude here to the touching story of Amicus and
Amelius (Ludwig and Alexander,^' Engelhard and Engeltrut,
Oliver and Artus, the pilgrims of St. James de Compostella, v.
Grimm, 187-97. Cassel, 182-6), which has been disseminted in
several variations (just named) which, however, are secondary
to our purpose. One of the friends becomes leprous. When
the other learns that cure is only possible by children's blood,
he kills his own children, and brings their blood to his friend.
The friend is cured, but God rewards the other's loyalty by
raising the children to life again. Cf. also the fairy tale "Der
treue Johannes" (in the collection of the brothers Grimm,
No.
6).
"
Der arme Heinrich," by the Swabian poet, Hart-
mann von Aue, may here be assumed to be known.
The story of Hirlanda belongs to the same period. King Richard
of England (1189-99) suffering from leprosy, sent for a Jew
renowned for his skill, as no other doctor could help him. This
doctor did his best, but the illness grew quickly worse. At last
he spoke : I know of "a powerful remedy, if your Majesty had
heart enough to employ it. . . Know that you will recover
your health completely, if you can make up your mind to bathe
in the blood of a new-born child, since I can swear to your
Majesty by my Law, that nothing in the world works
so vigorously against the corruption that has settled on your
body, as the fresh blood of a new-born child. But because
this remedy is only external, it must be helped out by an addi-
tional recipe, which extirpates even the inward root of the
malady. Namely, the child's heart must be added, which your
Majesty must eat and consume quite warm and raw, just as it
* Tn "Die sieben weisen Meister," which story, e.g., E. Sinirock has
printed in "Die deutschen Volksbiicher," vol. XII. Frankfort (a.M.
1865) cf. esply.
p.
237 : "Then he (Emperor Ludwig) betook
himself into the chamber wherein the (his) five children lay, and
killed them all five together, and took a vessel and filled it with
the children's blood. Whereupon he went to King Alexander and
washed him all over with it. Now when King Alexander had been
washed with the blood, he suddenly became fresh and quite whole."
Human Blood Cures Leprosy
66
has beeu taken from the body." (Simrock, "Volksbucher,"
XII., 31 sq.)*
The story of the foundation of the Schongau Bad at the Lindenberg
relates how a libertine, having become leprous, wanted to bathe
in the blood of twelve virgins, so as to be healed, but, after he
had already killed eleven, he was despatched by the brother of
the twelfth, whom he had already chained up. E. L. Roch-
holz, "Schweizersagen aus dem Aargau," I. (Argau,
1856), 22
Bq.
Valerius Anshelm (from 1520 onward, municipal
physician at Berne) narrates of Louis XL, King of
France (146L83), in his "Berner Chronik," I. (Berne,
1825), 320:
"
Now, when he was very ill, he seeks for
and tries everything, especially much children's
blood because of his illness."
G. Daniel,
"
Histoire de
France," IX.
(1755),
413: "II avoit recours a tons les
remedes naturels et surnaturels; et pour le guerir,
dit un Historien contemporain, furent faites de ter-
ribles et merveilleuses medecines. Un autre dit plus
en particulier, qu'on luy fit boire du sang, qu'on avoit
tire a plusieurs enfans, dans I'esperance que cette
potion pourroit corriger I'acrete du sien, et retablir
son ancienne vigueur." (In the margin as authority
:
"Gaguin," who wrote about 1498.)
Two evidences for the attitude of medical science.
The celebrated physician, Theoyhrastus Paracelsus von
Hohenheim
(1493-1541), mentions as remedies for
leprosy: " Dosis sanguinis humani, semel in mense in
secunda die post oppositionem."
Even the Ziirich
professor and municipal physician, Joh. v. Muralt,
prescribes in the "Hippocrates
Helveticus," Basel,
1692, 645, human blood for hereditary scab.
The narrative is not based upon actual happenings. Richard did
not , suffer from leprosy; he died as the result of a wound he
received.
Accordingly the Jewish physician, together with his
advice, also belongs to fiction. Cf. besides, the report given in Ch.
15 on the death of Pope Innocent VIII.
VI. UTILISATION OF ONE'S OWN
BLOOD
Very common, too, is the use of personal blood
i.e., the blood of the person upon whom an effect is to
be produced. The blood is customarily either (A)
taken inwardly, or (B) disposed of in a special
manner, more rarely (C) applied externally.
A.
(Haemorrhages.) In violent uterine haemor-
rhages
"
the woman in labour is given one or more
spoonfuls of her own blood mixed with water,"
Lammert, "Bayern,"
167.
" In May or between the
two Lady-days catch two green frogs, dry and pound
them, and give some of it in red wine with some
pomegranate pods and human blood, and you will
stop all bleeding with this (Suabia)," {Lammert, 194).
Hofler, too,
"
Oberbayern," 210, alludes to
"
the drink-
ing of one's own blood in blood-letting" as an
ordinary remedy.
B. (Dropsy.)
"
A dropsical person should bleed
himself on the right arm, pour the blood into any
empty egg-shell, and bury this in the dung till it
grows rotten." Buck, "Schwaben," 44.(Ischiagra)
:
"
In Nuremberg, where they scratch the spot till it
bleeds, and plug some wool, soaked in blood, into the
tree." Lammert, 270.(Epilepsy) : He who is attacked
by epilepsy should have his blood let. This blood
should be poured into a hole, which is made in a free.
Thereupon one must close the hole with the bored-out
wood. Lammert, 272.(Fever) :
"
If owing to great
febrile heat the patient is bled, wet a clean rag some-
what with this blood, and lay it, without letting it get
otherwise wet, in a cool place, in the cellar, or in the
Utilisation of One's Own Blood 67
side of a well; then will the heat directly disappear
(Unterfranken)." Lammert, 198.The invalid goes
before sunrise to a small tree, scratches his left little
finger, smears the blood on the tree, and speaks: Go
away, fever; go away into the tree, etc., v. Wlislocki,
"Zigeuner," 82.
(Freckles.)
"
Go Friday morning before sunrise
into the wood, bore a hole in a tree, put some blood
from the nettlerash into the shavings that have been
bored out, put them back into the hole, and shut it
tightly (Unterfranken)." Lammert, 179.
(Malignant
skin-eruption) : The Transylvanian tent-gipsy lets
some drops of blood fall before sunrise from his left
ring-finger into running water; if a water-sprite
swallows this blood the evil is turned aside, v.
Wlislocki, 82.
(Toothache.) In Northern Lithuania the following
remedy is applied to toothache : You cut a chip from
a living tree, and bore a hole in the tree; you then
clean the teeth and the gums with the chip (usually
another person does it) till blood comes ; stick the chip
in the hole and set light to it. The sufferer turns his
back to the tree and goes off ; but he must never look
at the tree again.According to Pisanski {Wochent-
liche Konigshergische Frag-und Anzeigungs-Nachr'ichten,
1756, No. 22) it must be an elder-tree.* With the
splinter cut out of it, you worry the gums till they
bleed ; then
"
you must plug it again into its former
place, and let it grow together again." Frischbier,
102.
" If anyone has toothache, let him take a nail

when the moon is waning, bore with it into the tooth
so that blood comes, then let him knock it silently
into the north side of an oak, so that the sun does not
shine on it, and as long as the tree remains standing
he will never again have toothache." {Ad. Kuhn,
*
About this tree, Cf. Urch-Brnnnen I. (1881-2) part
9, p.
16.
"Markische Sagen und Marchen," Be., 1843, supple-
ment
p.
384.)In Bischofsheim, District of Molsheim,
you take a new nail, and after it has become blood-
stained you knock it
"
into a place which neither sun
nor moon reaches." Jah^huch fiir
Geschichte, Spj'acJie
u. Litteratur Elsass-Lothringens. VIII. (Strasburg,
1892),
13.
(Hemorrhages).
"
Burning of a linen rag, on
which three drops of blood of the bleeding person
have fallen,"
mfler2l^.
(Against gout and rheumatism). The South
Hungarian gipsy cuts himself in the left arm and lets
the pamful place be rubbed in, first with the blood,
then with the grains of hip and haw berries, v. Wlis-
locU^ 82.
"How to make a young married pair sterile.
Cut a strip out of the bride's shift which is stained
with the blood of her menses. When the young
couple are declared one in church, stick the rag into a
padlock and close it as soon as the Pastor says Amen.
Afterwards cast it in a well or else in a place where
nobody can find it. As long as the padlock lies un-
opened in its place, the pair will remain childless
(Hinterpommern)." Jahn, "Pommern," No. 546.
Quite similar is the method described in No. 521
from Liepe auf Usedom.*
C.
(Haemorrhages). Qazwini I., 366: "If anyone
has nose-bleeding, he writes his name with his blood
on a rag and lays it before his eyes ; the blood is then
stopped."
* Magic for the same object, but without blood. Kvhn, "Mark.
Sagen," supplement,
p.
358: "Sometimes there are, among those
present, envious opponents of the bridegroom, who, during the time
the blessing is pronounced, open and shut three times an heirloom
lock, in order that the married couple may remain barren." In
the palaest. Talmud "Sanhedrin" VII., fol. 25d, the sea is obliged,
at the command of R. Josua, to vomit forth again the magic knot
which has been cast into it.
Utilisation of One's Own Blood 69
(Against decline). A communication was sent
from Kreuzborg in Upper Silesia to the Koln. Zeitung
(15th July, 1892, No. 567): "Widow Skroka, of Guse-
nau, had acquired the reputation of a 'wise ' woman
through the cures to which she subjected children
suffering from decline. As she announced before the
Court, she had inherited a razor from her father, with
which she made cut-wounds behind both ears of the
sick children, so that blood flowed properly. She
next dipped the middle finger of the left hand in the
blood, made three crosses in the sick child's pit of the
heart, and spoke at the same time some words, which
she did not dare disclose. However, according to the
statement of witnesses before the sherilT's court at
Landsberg in Upper Silesia, three childrenone of
them as early as the second daydied after this
'treatment,' probably from blood poisoning. The
'
wise
'
woman Skroka escaped with 14 days' impri-
sonment."
VII. BLOOD OF EXECUTED PERSONS: HANG-
MAN'S ROPE
A . The blood of people who have died a violent
death, especially executed persons, is held to be even
more efficacious than menstrual blood. In fact every-
thing belonging to such individuals is considered
effective. Pliny, "Nat. Hist." XXVIIL, 1, 2:
"Treatises by Democritus are still in existence,
according to which, in one case, the head bones of a
criminal are more serviceable, in another, those of a
friend and guest. . . . Antaeus made out of a hanged
man's skull pills for mad dog bites."
"
The blood of executed criminals, drunk warm,
is good for epilepsy," Buck, "Schwaben," 44. The
same evidence in Lammert, "Bayern," 271.
G. F.
Most,
"
Die sympathetischen Mittel und Kurmetho-
den," Rostock, 1842, 150, tells how somebody, to get
rid of this complaint, drank the still warm blood of an
executed person, but fell down dead after he had run
a hundred paces.
Strackerjan I., 83 sq.

"
Blood of an
executed person, when drunk, helps against epilepsy
and (Ovelgonne) fever. One must if possible drink it
fresh, and then run as long as one can (Wildeshau-
sen)".For Denmark and Sweden Cf. Feilberg,
Ur-Quell III., 4. The celebrated fairy story-teller
Andersen describes in his autobiography an execution
which he witnessed at Skelskor in 1823 :
"
I saw a poor
sick man, whom his superstitious parents made drink
a cup of the blood of the executed person, that he
Executed Persons
71
might be healed of epilepsy ; after which they ran
with him in wild career till he sank to the ground."
Also according to the popular belief of the Tran-
sylvanians the blood of a hanged person is helpful in
epilepsy, v. Ur-Quell 1893, 99.
"On 6th June, 1755, K. G. Zeibig, who when
drunk had murdered a man, was beheaded on the
Eabenstein at Dresden. . . . Before the execution two
foremen of the tailor fraternity at Dresden l)egged the
Prime Minister, Count Heinr. v. Briihl, on behalf of
their brother member, Joh. Ge. Wiedemann, who suf-
fered severely from epilepsy, that the same be allowed
to drink the blood of the murderer for his restoration
to health. An entry in the register announces that
Briihl assented to the request, and also that Wiede-
mann, after drinking the blood of the individual
beheaded,
'
ran off.'
"
Th. Distel,
"
Neues Archiv fiir
Sachsische Geschichte u. Alterthumskunde,"
IX.
[Dresden, 1888] 160, rightly adds
:
''
It is remarkable in
this connection that even the highest official should
have granted the request for the drinking of such
human blood, and thus simply promoted crass super-
stition." For more about this superstition readers
are directed to
"
Breslauer
Sammlungen 1721 June;
^
Winterquartal
'
1721,
pp.
654-7, class IV., art 17: Cf.
also Oct. 1720, class IV. art.
9."
He also refers to the
article "Epilepsie," in Zedlers
"
Universallexikon."
Carl Lehmann,
"
Chronik der freien Bergstadt
Schneeberg" III. (Schneeberg, 1840),
299
describes
the execution at Zwickau of the murderer Karl Heinr.
Friedrich on 15th Dec, 1823 (Cf. inf. ch. 12).
He says
at the end
:
"
And with our own eyes we saw how a
pot full of the blood of the executed man was drunk
dry by various persons, and how these
persons,
mostly children, were driven with blows from w^hips
to run at utmost speed over the field."
When the murderer Carsten Hinrich Hinz had
been executed near Tonning on 16th April, 1844, the
epileptic son of a farmer, P. Ketels, of Gunsbiittel,
drank, by permission of the executioner, who came
from Oldenburg, some of the criminal's blood (com-
munication from H. Carstens, of Dahrenwurth).*
" I
was a pupil of the famous Prof. Herrmann at Gottin-
gen. At his suggestion, at the beginning of January,
1859, I attended the public execution of a female
poisoner at Gottingen. It was done with a sword.
When the head was severed from the body, and the
fountain of blood sprang up about
1^
feet high, the
populace broke through the square formed by the
Hanover Schiitzen, rushed upon the scaffold, and
possessed itself of the blood of the dead woman, col-
lecting it and dipping white cloths in it. It was
positively a gruesome impression. To my horrified
question I got answer that the blood was applied for
the cure of epilepsy." (Communication of the Attor-
ney-General
("
Oberstaatsanwalt
")
Woytasch, of Mari-
enwerder, August, 1892).
" A woman in an
Outer-Rhodes (Appenzell) almshouse suffered from
epilepsy, and received from the properly qualified
directorate of the institution permission to go on the
day after execution [of a butcher] to Trogen [in
Appenzell] and try the gruesome remedy. Three
draughts must be swallowed whilst the names of the
three Highest are invoked. She was already standing
at the scaffold, when a fresh access of her illness
occurred, and hindered the carrying out of the plan.
Aarqauer Nachrichten, of 26 July,
1862."
(Rochholz
I., 40).
"
Pommern,"t U. Jahn, No. 522 :
"
The value of the
*Such blood is also mentioned by H. Volhinatm, Ur-Qnell 1893, 279,
as a remedy against convulsions, believed in in Schleswig-Holstein.
tAbout the significance of the blood of an executed person, 0. Knoop
has collected further authentic documents from Pomerania in
"Blatter fiir Pommersche Volkskunde," I. (Stettin 1893),
62-4.
Executed Persons 73
blood of an executed person : When a criminal is
executed, some of his blood must be obtained in a
piece of linen. Bakers and brewers must dip such a
rag into their dough and their beer, merchants and
inkeepers into the broached brandy barrels, then
they get a large number of customers; horse-owners
must rub in their horses with it, that they may
become sleek and shiny. The power of the blood,
however, only extends to the third member (general)."
The story of "Der Slindenfinger," well known in
Stolp, in its essential point (v. Urds-Brunnen VI.
[1888-9],
76 sq.) amounts to this: A merchant
in Stolp had concealed in the spirit cask a
finger of an executed person. In consequence of
which customers flocked to him in crowds, and the
business flourished. The ostler denounced his
master, who was severely punished, and the finger
taken away from him. After fulfilling his term of
prison the merchant had no luck any more; the
customers remained away.
"Preussen," Frischhier 24: "Skinners' families
preserve the blood of executed people as a magic
remed}'." 106: "The finger or blood of an executed
person brings luck into house and into business
(Donhoffstadt). If such a finger be put in the stables,
the horses thrive well (Ermland).As is evident from
the Report on the Conitz witch-trial in 1623
("
Preus-
siche Provinzial-Blatter " II., 133 sq.), in former
times not only were the fingers and other limbs of
corpses hanging on the gallows lucky, but also
gallows-chains and gallows-nails ; they helped to
good beer-brewing and sale of beer, quickened
manual work, made horses indefatigable, etc." Cf.
also Tettau and Temme. 2Q5.Mannha?'dt 49 :
"
A good
many [executioners and skinners] keep the blood of
the executed as a magic specific."
"Masuren," Toppen 107: "The blood of the
executed brings luck, and they often go several miles
to get some of it (Neidenburg). Because, since a big
crowd of people meet at the execution (at any rate
they used to at the earlier public executions), buyers
stream into their shops (Willenberg)."
After Andreas Hofer had been executed in 1810,
some soldiers, among them Miiller, the subsequent
Director of Prisons in Vienna during the fifties,
banded together to get hold of a limb of his body,
because they regarded such as an amulet. They were,
however, caught and punished (communicated by
Prof. G. Wolf,
of Vienna).
"
Shanghai, 15 July. (East-As. Lloyd). In Foo-
chow at the beginning of the month, occurred the
execution of a pirate. After the criminal had been
made a head shorter, the executioner opened the
corpse with his sword, tore out the liver and distri-
buted it in pieces among his assistants. The fact is
that the liver of persons who have been hurried into
the bejônd by the executioner's sword is deemed a
radical cure for various illnesses, especially consump-
tion." (Voss. Zeitung, 26 Aug., 1892, No. 397).
B. Particular value is attached to the rope used
by a hangman and a suicide. Pliny "N. H." xxviii.
4, 12, alludes to the belief that the rope by which a
person has been hanged, wound round the temples,
alleviates headaches.LewM
"
Ostpreussen
"
I., 57:
"
It is considered a
' Gllickszwâng
'
(compeller of luck)
to appropriate secretly some of the property of the
fresh corpse. A suicide's rope and the blood of an
executed person have a quite special value." I., 115:
" '
When W. hung himself in Gerswalcl, the man, who,
people said, brought the rope home with him, came
into good luck. But those in whose house he had
hanged himself, and who had been deprived of the
rope, came to grief.'
"
"Poland," Schiffer,
Ur-Quell, 1892, 200: "He who
Executed Persons 75
wishes to have well-fed cattle, and that they should
consume all the fodder in the crib, let him rub the
crib with a rag which comes from a hanged person.
Certain articles of the dress of a hanged person are
needful to the efficacy of certain magic formulae."
P. 201 :
"
Udziela tells about a peasant, who buried the
rope of a hanged person in his garden, so that the
passing river might not overflow its banks and press
further into the field. He who carries with him a
piece of the rope, with which anybody has hanged
himself, has always luck. If a publican desires a
brisk demand for brandy, let him put into the
brandy barrel a thread from the dress of a hanged
person. Lukaszewicz relates that in 1559 in Posen a
certain Anna Maciejowa Sieczczyna was whipped
and hounded out of the town on account of dealings
in magic, amongst other things because she escorted
a female innkeeper to the gallows, in order to get the
rope with which a criminal had recently been hanged.
The peasants explain the powers of attraction wielded
over them by the brandy barrel by the circumstance
that the host has put in it the rope of a hanged
person."
"
The dying can be kept very long alive, if part of
a hangman's rope is laid in their beds. My grand-
father told me this about a widow, who was
kept alive in that way more than a year When
the rope was taken out of the bed, in order
'
to lighten
the woman's anguish,' she died even in the course of
the same day." "Transylvania," H. v. Wlislocki,
Ur-Quell 1893, 100.
The well-known soubrette Josefine Gallmeyer
(not of Jewish extraction) took with her on her pil-
grimage to Maria-Zell, a "Mesusa"*and a piece of
The
"
Mesusa
"
is a small metal box, attached to the doorposts of
Jewish dwellings, with a small parchment scroll on which are
written the Biblical words in Deuteronomy VI., 4-9, and XI., 13-21.
hangman's rope. (Communicated by Prof. G. Wolf,
of
Vienna, according to the narration of several persons
friendly with J. G.)
C. In place of the rope, a nail from a cross, gal-
lows, or bier, is also occasionally mentioned. Pliny,
"N. H." xxviii.,
4,
11: "Some, in cases of quartan
fever, bind round their necks a piece of a nail from a
cross wrapped in wool, or also a rope taken from a
cross, and, as soon as the invalid is free from fever,
they hide it in a hole where the sun cannot pene-
trate." Cf.
p. 73, and inf. Ch. 15 B 4.
VIII. CORPSES AND PARTS OF CORPSES
A. Stracherjan justly remarks I, 70 :
"
In the use
of
'
sympathy
'
for the cure of diseases, it is generally
a question of firstly establishing the necessary connec-
tion between the malady and another object, and
secondly in some way to set the object aside or com-
pletely to destroy it." I. 78:
"
Nothing can be more
certainly destined to destruction, to corruption than a
human corpse; wherefore there is scarcely a means
more powerful for destroying hostile influences than
when those influences are brought into connection
with a corpse. Tumours, eruptions, outgrowths,
warts, gout, etc., are dispelled, if one strokes the sick
part with the hand (with the left hand) of a corpse.
If one puts in a coffin any part of an injured limb, say
the scar of a wound, rags soaked in pus or blood,
clothes covered with sweat, or a piece of wood which
has been in contact with the suffering part, the illness
passes away."Hereditary lice can be got rid of, if a
few in a pen-tray be put with a corpse in the coffin,
Dithmarschen, v. Ur-Quell 1895, 217.Let him who
has a wound clean it with a cloth, lay this under the
corpse's head and speak at the same time : Take this
with you into the beyond ! Portugal, Ur-Quell 1898,
208.
B. But the idea of the majesty of death has also
had influence in another direction, namely to the
effect that in many cases the quality of directly curing
and protecting has been attributed, and is still, to
corpses and their -psnis.Rochholz I, 232 : "The Swedes
believed that on the possession of Frey's corpse de-
pended the fertility and peace of the land; he was
therefore not, according to custom, cremated, but
buried in the hill untouched; in like manner King
Halfdan Svarti was buried in four places in order to
give the country fourfold fertility, and his different
graves were pointed out (Grimm,
"
Kleine Schriften
"
II.
266."
"When the Northern Viking Ivar, son of
Ragnar Lodbrok, died in England, he commanded on
his death-bed that he wished to be buried there,
where the kingdom was most exposed to hostile
attacks." Likewise the Irish Prince Eoghan Bell
was
"
buried with his red javelin in his hand, his face
turned in the direction whence the foe were bound to
make inroads into the land," v. Feilberg, Ur-Quell
III, 118.Cf. also F. Liebrecht "Zur Volkskunde
"
(Heilbronn 1879) 289 sq., who quotes Jul. Braun,
"
Naturgeschichte der Sage" (Munich 1864) I, 225.
II, 407./. Grimm,
"
Geschichte der Deutschen
Sprache
"
149: "Those bones of Orestes or Theseus
had a tutelary force for the whole land. Out of
Pelops's bones Abaris is said to have constructed the
Palladium and given it the Trojans (Julius Firmicus
"Astronom."
p.
435; Clemens Alexandr. "Ad gen-
tes
"
p. 30). His shoulder blade was exhibited, and
regarded as powerful to cure: "quorundam partes
medicae sunt, sicuti cliximus de Pyrrhi regis pollice,
et Elide solebat ostendi Pelopis costa, quam ebur-
neam affirmabant," Pliny xxviii, 4, 4. But there was
not evolved from it so general, all-comprehensive a
worship as among the Christians."
"
They scarcely
liked to build a church in which mouldering bones
and old rags of clothes were not deposited; these
saints, whose altars rose up next that of the Deity,
whose festivals filled the whole year, were also lords
of justice and of diseases ; for all oaths were sworn on
their relics, all incurables besought cure on their
Corpses and Parts of Corpses 79
knees before their graves and relics."
Rochholz I,
230 :
"
The head of S. Malârius in the Marienkapelle
at Wiirzburg is laid ever}^ year
[2
January] on
believers; it is a security against headache.
("Bavaria" iv. [Munich
1866],
220)."
C. Drinking out
of
skulls. J. Grimm,
"
Geschichte
der Deutschen Sprache
"
144: "The monks at Treves
had S. Theodulf's skull set in silver and gave fever-
patients to drink out of it
("
Acta Sanctorum
"
May I,
99a). Leo von Rozmital came to Neuss in 1465 : There
we saw in the church a costly coffin ; therein lay the
dear holy Saint Quirinus, and we saw his skull, there-
from they gave us to drink."The author of a pil-
grimage undertaken about 570-80 a.d. ("Antonini
Placentini Itinerarium
"
cap. 22, Be. 1889, published
by Gildemeister) writes after describing the Church of
Sion at Jerusalem :
"
There is a nunnery there. I saw
there enclosed in a gold casket adorned with jewels a
human skull, of which they say, it is that of the
martyr Theodota. Many drank water out of it for a
blessing ('pro benedictione,') and I also drank."
Rochholz I, 230: "The Benedictine monastery

'
zum S.
Gumpertus
'
in Ansbach received its name originally
in 750 A.D., and is endowed with charters by Charle-
magne in 787 A.D. ; it suffered the neighbouring Wend
heathens to drink cures out of the wonder-working
skull of Gumpertus, grew in consequence to a place of
pilgrimage, and so gave the first occasion for the
foundation of the future city. When S. Anna of
Klingnau's corpse was dug up, a sick nun drank out
of her skull {Murer, "Helvetia Sacra" 334 b). 'As
long as S. Sebastian's skull set in silver is kept at
Ebersperg in Upper Bavaria, and the consecrated
wine is given those pilgrimaging thither to drink out
of the skull, the plague has never more dared to take
its seat in these parts.' ("Vierte Festpredigt zum hun-
dert-jahrigen Jubilaum der Sebastiansbruderschaft
zu Aichach." Augsburg 1757, 101.) Likewise in S.
Nantwein near Nandesbuch, S. Vitalis in Au am Inn,
S. Marinus in Rott am Inn, S. Alto in Altomiinster,
the skull as a drinking vessel has been assimilated
into the Christian religion, v. M.
Hofler,
"Wald- und
Baumkult in Beziehung zur Volksmedizin Oberbay-
erns," Munich 1894, 13. 46. 79.
87; Cf. also
"
Archiv
fiir Anthropologie, Correspondenzblatt,'' xiii
(1882),
p.
46. The skull or other relics of S. Valentine
(7
January) are said to cure epileptics. About skull-
worship Cf. further W. Powell,
"
Unter den Kanni-
balen von Neu-Britannien " (translated by F. M.
Schroter, L. 1884, 144 b); G. A. Wilken, "Het Animisme
bij de Volken van den Indischen Archipel," Leyden
1885, Ch. 4, and in:
"
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en
volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie" 1889, 89-130.
The superstition that pigeons which are made to
drink out of a dead person's skull always return to
their dovecot, is not infrequently testified to, v.
Rochholz
"
Schweizersagen
"
II, 160.
In order to com-
pel a thief to restore what he has stolen, it is
customary in Banzenheim, district of Miilhausen, to
lay a criminal's skull and a stone on a juniper bush,
or to take three nails from a bier smeared with some
melted fat of an executed personadding in both
cases a fixed formula of incantation, v. Jahrbuch fiir
Geschichte, S^rache u. Litteratur Elsass-Lothringens
VIII. (1892) 22.
D. The corpse-hand. Pliny, "N. H." xxviii.
4, 11
;
"
Stroking with the hand of a person who has died
early is supposed to cure goitre, glandular swellings
near the ear, and throat complaints; nevertheless, a
good many think this can be effected by any corpse's
hand, provided only the dead person be of the same
sex, and the thing is done with the left hand up-
turned."G^rmw, "Der arme Heinrich," 177:
"
Car-
pentier (v. miselli) quotes from an authentic
document of 1408 a passage in which a leper is stroked
with the hand of a still-born (therefore sinless) child,
in which was put some salve, and is healed. There
is even now a popular belief in parts of Austria, that
malignant tumour is cured by the laying-on of a dead
hand."Hauss-Apothec 48: "Other credible people
have affirmed that if the hand of a corpse is rubbed
against a goitre or other swellings, the same are said,
as the corpse rots away, to decrease and gradually
vanish, although quicker in summer, slower in
winter. If one rubs the swelling on a hand with a
dead hand, the swelling goes down."
" Oldenburg,"
Strackerjan I, 71 : They stroke
"
the painful part with
a dead hand what afterwards happens
to the dead hand, happens also to the disease." In
Pomerania the memory of this superstition has been
preserved, especially in numerous incantations or
benedictions, in which the "cold corpse-hand" is
mentioned: as protection against fire, U. Jahn,
no. 118-20. 140-3; against water and fire, no. 132;
against inflammatory swelling (Einschuss, lacteal
metastasis in the breast and udder), no. 228; against
"
Riickblut
"
(an internal illness of cows, in which the
urine is coloured red) no. 336; against warts, no. 387.
"Preussen," FrischUer 103: "The custom is uni-

versal, in toothache, to press with a corpse's finger
the gums or aching tooth. The right hand index
finger is the most efficacious. The same is also
applied for herpes, red moles, etc."
Lemke,
"
Ost-
preussen " I, 47: "It is recommended to lay
a corpse's hand on the red mole; one must not, how-
ever, omit to utter at the same time
:
' In the name of
God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ' !
"
55:
"
The sufferer from toothache is moreover advised to
stroke the gums with a corpse's finger.
'
It cured
my daughter in Gerswald immediately, when she
went to her little dead godchild and rubbed her gums
82
with one of his fingers.' "Ur-Quell, 1890, 137: "The
most infallible remedy for toothache is to press the
tooth three times with a corpse's finger, saying: 'To
thee, dead one, I bewail my distress. Take away my
toothache, and take it with thee into the grave. In
the name of the Father, etc. Amen.' (Neighbour-
hood of Insterburg).""Masuren," Tofpen 54 sq.
:
"Apophyses on the human body, which are called
'
Knochel
' (little bones) are cured in the following
fashion :
(1)
One goes into a house in which is a corpse,
takes the hand of the corpse without uttering a word,
and thrice presses the apophysis with the corpse's
finger."107: "Toothache is cured by pressing the
corpse's index finger on the aching tooth (Konigslerger
Hartung'sche Zeitung, 1866, No. 9)."Birthmarks,
freckles, and apophyses disappear, as soon as they are
touched with a dead hand (Natangen), Ur-Quell, 1892,
247.
"Steiermark," Fossel 134: "Birthmarks are
cured by contact with a dead hand, especially
the hand of a child's corpse." 140 : For the banishing
of warts
"
contact with a dead hand is. . . .
generally
practised."In Dithmarschen, burns and carbuncles
too are stroked with a dead hand, v. Urds-Brunnen V.
127. "The herpes is stroked with a dead hand,"
Sehestadt in Schleswig-Holstein, Ur-Quell 1893,
278.
Also among the Transylvanians
(Henndorf): "A
tumour or warts are cured by stroking them oneself
with a dead hand." Ur-Quell 1893,
70.To get rid of
a goitre let it be stroked thrice with a dead hand, with
the words : Even as this hand is decayed so too may
the goitre subside. (Bosnia), Urquell 1892,
303.After
Russian popular belief a dead hand protects from
bullets, L'dwenstimm 113.
E. Fossel,
"
Steiermark
"
172 :
"
The belief in the
use of a corpse as a drug, which is a mania prevailing
over the whole country, reaches strange expression,
as follows: The Brothers of Mercy at Graz are sup-
\
posed to enjoy the privilege of being allowed every
year to exploit one human life for curative purposes.
With that object a young man, who goes into the
hospital of the Order for toothache or other slight
complaint, is seized, hung up by the feet, and tickled
to death! The honourable brethren thereupon boil
the corpse to a paste and utilise the latter as well as
the fat and the burnt bones in their drug store. About
Easter, the people say, a youth annually disappears
in the hospital in this way."
F. This mania serves to explain the disturbances
that have so frequently broken out during three cen-
turies in China against Europeans, especially the
Roman Catholic Missionary Establishments (houses
for sick persons, foundling-hospitals, educational in-
stitutions, etc.) The riots, as I know directly
from persons who have lived long in China, almost
always begin by the
"
litterati
"
issuing appeals to the
people, in which it is said :
"
Down with the foreign-
ers ! Kill the missionaries ! They steal or buy our
children and slaughter them, in order to prepare
magic remedies and medicines out of their eyes,
hearts, and other portions of their bodies." Baron
Hiibner narrates, following the best authorities, in
his "Promenade autour du monde
"
II. (Paris,
1873),
385-455, the story of the massacre at Tientsin on 21
June, 1870. From his description which, in more
than one respect, is rich in lessons, a few sentences at
least may be cited here.
392 : "Vers la mi-mai .... des bruits alarmants furent mis
en circulation : des enfants avaient disparus. lis avaient ete
voles par des gens a la solde des missionaires. Les soeurs les
avaient tues. Elles leur avaient arrache les yeux et le coeur
pour preparer des charmes et des remedes. Ce n'etait pas la
premiere fois que se disaient de pareilles absurdites. 393 : Les
accusations se multiplierent. On cita des faits et on
y
crut
Le hasard semblait conspirer avec les auteurs de ces
bruits sinistres. Une epidemie se declara a Torphelinat des
soeurs. Plusieurs enfants moururent .... 397 (June):
Deux chinois etrangers portaient un sac sur les
epaules et conduisaient par la main deux petits enfants .
On les arreta. Dans leurs sacs furent trouves des dollars mexi-
cains . . . . et quelques paquets de drogues. Mis a la
torture, ils declarereut avoir effectivement ensorcele les enfants
au moyen de ces drogues. Les dollars leur avaient ete donnes
par les soeurs en paiement du crime. Les deux hommes,
convaincus sur leur propre aveu d'un crime commis a I'instiga-
tion des soeurs, furent condamues a mort et executes. C'etait
implicitemeut condamuer les soeurs et rendre un arret de mort
coutre les Europeens. 399: Plusieurs cadavres furent exhumes
et examines. A quelques-uns les yeux manquaient : cet effet
naturel de la decomposition fut interprete comme une preuve
convaincante de la culpabilite des soeurs et des missionaires.
400-3 : The lying statements of Wu-lan-tchen about the magic
means by which the missionaries attract people (retracted after
the massacre, v. 437). On 21 June occurred the butchery.
426 sq. : Une femme fut jetee dans la riviere et retiree apres
qu'elle eut promis de deposer contre les soeurs (deja massacrees
!)
et de declarer avoir ete ensorcelee par elles.
Everybody knows that in 1891, and in later years
persecutions, due to the same cause, of Europeans
living in China, especially of missionaries, have taken
place.
Towards the end of 1891 a charge was brought in Madagascar
against the foreigners, particularly the French, that they
devoured human hearts, and for this purpose bought and killed
children. Hence a decree of the Malagasy Government, which
states amongst other things:
"
(1)
Aucun etranger, ni Anglais,
ni Fran9ais, ni d'aucune autre nation, ne cherche a acheter des
coeurs humains. Si des gens mal intentionnes repandent ce
bruit et disent que les etrangers achetent des coeurs humains,
saisissez-les, attachez-les et faites les monter a Tananarive pour
y
etre juges.
(2)
Si on repand des bruits quels qu'ils soient, il
est de votre devoir, gouverneurs, de reuuir le peuple,
de I'avertir et de lui prouver le faussete de ces bruits,
qui sont formellement interdits dans le royaume ; c'est un crime
de les propager," v. the Paris paper Le Temps, 1 Feb., and
25 March, 1892.
IX. ANIMAL BLOOD
A . The blood of sacrificed victims has a special
position to itself. Attention may in the first place be
draAvn to the well-known necromantic episode in
Odyssey, Bk. XL According to ancient and wide-
spread belief, inspiration is produced by sucking the
fresh blood of a sacrificed victim, v. Frazer, "The
Golden Bough," 2nd Ed., L, 133-5. As regards Egypt
V. sup.
p.
5.
B. In the middle ages, I refer to the collection of
the learned Dominican, Vincentius cle Beauvais (born
1194), "Speculum naturale," xxiii. 66.
Iln Baitar's
great medical and naturalist work prescribes, in the
article "blood" (Ed. Bulak I., 96; French by Leclerc
in "Notices et Extraits," xxv.
[1881], 93)
difTerent
kinds of animal blood as materia medica; human
blood, however, is not mentioned.
Qazwini,
"
Kos-
mographie," L, 293: "If you desire that the vine be
not fallen upon by worms, cut of its shoot with a
pruning knife, which is smeared with bear's or frog's
blood." (Instead of îw55"bear "read, with Dr.
G. Jacob, â6&" lizard.")
C. Daumer IL, 194:
"
Even in the last quarter of
last century it was customary in some parts of Ger-
many on St. James's Day (25th July) to throw from a
church tower or even from the Guildhall, amid
strains of music, a he-goat adorned with gilded horns
and ribbons, and to draw off its blood as it lay below,
which when dried was esteemed a powerful remedy
in many illnesses* Something similar used to
happen in Ypres, where cats were thrown from the
tower on the Wednesday of the second week of fast-
ing; so that that day is even now called in Ypres
'cat-Wednesday,' or the
'
cat-day.' "t
D. In the most recent times. The following
summary by Buck (used by Lammert 264, 221, 226),
applies to Suabia, 44 sq.
:"
Cat's blood is useful against
fever. A hole must be cut in the ear of a black cat,
three drops of blood must be let fall on bread and the
bread eaten {Birlinger,
"
Volksthlimliches aus Schwa-
ben
"
[Freiburg i. B. 1861] I. 488). Ox-blood is a vio-
lent poison. An ache or pain which is not outwardly
manifested is cured by letting warm water flow over
the place. Whoever bathes in warm blood becomes
very beautiful. Hare-sweat helps against erysipelas.
But the hare must be shot on Good Friday before
sunrise ; it must be at once gutted, and its sweat col-
lected in an unbleached cloth (two ells), so that it
becomes quite wet, and this must be wrapped round
the inflamed limb. The cloth may afterwards be
used pretty frequently.Blood from a jenny-ass, and
in particular three drops from the ear, if mixed in a
strawberry drink and a
'
vogle
'
(the eighth part of a
Wiirtemberg beer measure) drunk two days running,
restores speech which has been lost through an
apoplectic stroke. Ass's blood extracted from behind
the ear, soaked up with a cloth and steeped in well-
water, if this be afterwards drunk, gives courage and
banishes fear of ghosts.If the eyes are smeared with
bat's blood, a person can see as well by night as by
day Dry pigeon blood, mixed with snufl is
*Kosche,
"
Charakter, Sitteu und Religion aller bekannten Volker
"
IV. (L. 1791), 481 : and latei", Soinmer, 'Sagen, Marchen u.
Gebrauche aus Sachsen und Thiiringen
"
(Halle 1846) I., 179.
fCoreninnn,
"
L'annee de I'ancienne Belgique
"
53; Sommer I., 180.
i
Cf. besides, Schroder's
"
Arzneischatz," v. sup.
p.
8.
Animal Blood
87
helpful for nose-bleeding."
(Bavaria).
I extract from
Lammert the following
further details. In the Pfalz,
in cases of pimples on the eye, fresh
he-goat'sor
sparrow's
blood is trickled in
(228),
in jaundice or
other diseases
she-goat's
blood is drunk in wine
(249).
"
In Suabia it is believed that weasel-blood
is useful to
strumous
patients. ... For the same
purpose a band
dipped in the warm blood of a shrewmouse
is wound
round the neck
"
(239).
(Pomerania).
"If a man has lost his manhood:
If thou art
bewitched by a woman, so that thou dost
not wish to have to do with any other, take
he-goat's
blood, and smear the testicles
therewith,
then wilt
thou be right again."
Jahn,
No. 604 (after
"
Albertus
Magnus
.... Geheimnisse,"
cf. sup.
p. 3, a book
very
widely
disseminated
in
Pomerania)."
That
people may love one: Carry
bat's blood about
you
(Swinemiinde),"
Jahn, No. 612 (after A. Kuhn
and W. Schwartz,
"
Norddeutsche
Sagen, Marchen u.
Gebrauche,"
L., 1848, No.
448).
(Prussia).
FrischUer,
22: "In Lithuania
such
[ill-behaved]
children
are given three drops of blood,
which has been taken from the left ear of a black
sheep or lamb." 73
:
"
In Samland a remedy for convul-
sions consists of drinking
three drops of blood from a
young sow which has littered for the first time, and a
portion is given in the name of God the Father, etc."
94
:
"
If wârts are thrice pressed with a bleeding pike's
head which has just been cut off, and the head is then
buried
beneath the eaves, the warts vanish as soon as
the pike's
head rots
(Donhoffstadt)."
ZmA;^.
"Ostpreussen,"
II., 278: "For all manner of convul-
sions,
but not for
epileptic
a potion is
recommended,
composed
of Hungarian wine and
(raw) hare's blood.
(The hare's
blood is collected and
kept for a long time with this object in view.")
X. WASTE AND EVACUATIONS OF HUMAN
AND ANIMAL BODIES
The waste and evacuations of the human and
animal body are variously used. If from one's own
body, they are often laid apart for curing purposes,
even like one's own blood; if belonging to another
person's body, they usually serve some object of
magic (conjuring away of thieves, etc.). There are
numerous examples in the works mentioned,
pp.
2-5.
Here it may be merely observed that the
"
Areolae
"
of
Johannes de Sancto Amando, Bishop of Tournay, at the
beginning of the 13th century (published by /. L.
Pagel, Be., 1893),
was in the middle ages a much
esteemed compendium of the science of drugs : in the
present book the different stercora are often specified.
XI. THE BLOOD SUPERSTITION AS A CAUSE
OF CRIME
The blood superstition has often led to crime, in
proof of which I have collected a large number of
authentic documents. They are intended to show
legal officials, ecclesiastics, and teachers that this
superstition has not remained merely theoretical, and
alien to our common life. And that it cannot be
described as a peculiarity characteristic only of by-
gone times, but that it is a frequent cause of crimes
perpetrated for therapeutic or magical purposes.
A. Murders. Michael Wagener,
"
Beitrage zur
philosophischen Anthropologic, Psychologic," etc.,
II. (Vienna, 1796), 268, asserts that desire for beauty
has been a source of inhuman cruelty, and goes on to
relate :
"
A story of a Hungarian lady, which is very
noteworthy in this respect, can be found in some
Hungarian historiographers, e.g., in Ladislaus
Thurotz, Istwanfy, etc. I detail the circumstances
which are relevant here, both according to the afore-
said historiographers and (mainly) according to the
existing legal documents. Elizabeth (Bathori)* was
*
The name, which W. omits, I have filled iu from Meyer's
'
Kouver-
sations-Lexikon3" II., 668: "E. B. (d. 1614), wife of the Hun-
garian Count Nadasdy, is notorious for the unparalleled cruelty with
which, after enticing young girls into her castle, she had their blood
extracted from them, which px'esumably was used for the
beautifying of her skin, and in which she bathed herself ....
The Count Palatine Georg Thurzo surprised the Countess red-
handed in 1610. The result of the examination showed that 650
girls had been the victims of this thirst for blood. A man-servant,
who was an accomplice, was beheaded ; two female servants were
burnt alive. The Countess was condemned to life-long confine-
ment."
excessively fond of making herself up to please her
husband, and spent as much as the half of a day at her
toilette. It happened, as Thurotz relates, that one
day one of her chamber-maids once made some
mistake in her coiffure, and received for it such a vio-
lent box on the ears, that the blood spurted on her
mistress's face. When the latter washed the drops
of blood off her face, the skin on the place appeared to
her to be much more beautiful, whiter and more deli-
cate. She at once came to the inhuman decision to
bathe her face, nay her whole body, in human blood,
so as thereby to increase her beauty and attractions.
With this horrible intention, she took counsel of two
old women, who accorded her their entire sympathy,
and promised to assist her in the ghastly project. A
certain Fitzko, a pupil of Elizabeth, was also made a
member of this bloodthirsty society. This madman
usually killed the unfortunate victims, and the old
women collected the blood, in which that monster of
a woman was wont to bathe in a trough about four
o'clock in the morning. She appeared to herself
always more beautiful after the bath. She therefore
continued her operations even after her husband's
death in 1604, in order to win new worshippers and
lovers. The wretched girls who were allured into
Elizabeth's house by the old women under the pre-
tence of going into service, were taken into the cellar
on various pretexts. Here they were seized and
beaten until their bodies swelled. Not
infrequently
Elizabeth tortured them herself, and very often she
changed her blood-dripping clothes and then began
her cruelties anew. The swollen bodies of the poor
girls were then cut open with a razor. It was not
uncommon
for this monster to have the girls burnt
and then flayed ; most of them were beaten to death.
She herself beat her accomplices when they did not
wish to help her in her torturings; whilst, on the
The Blood Superstition 91
other hand, she abundantly rewarded the women who
brought the girls to her and let themselves be used
as tools for the execution of her cruelties. She was
also given to supposed magic, and had a peculiar
magic mirror in the shape of a cracknel, before which
she used to pray for hours at a time. Finally her
cruelty reached such a pitch that she pinched her
servants and stuck pins into them, especially the girls
who drove with her in her carriage. She had one of
her serving-maids stripped naked and smeared with
honey, in order that she might be eaten up by flies.
When she became ill and could not practise her usual
cruelties, she had a person come to her sick bed, and
bit her like a wild cat. About 650 girls lost their lives
through her in the way described, partly in Cseita (in
the County of Neutrau, in Hungary), where she had a
cellar specially arranged for the purpose, partly in
other places ; for murder and bloodshed had become a
necessity to her. When so many girls from the neigh-
bourhood, who were brought into the castle on the
pretext of entering service or of receiving further
education, disappeared, and the parents never
received satisfactory, but generally ambiguous,
answers to their enquiries, the matter became
suspicious. . . . At last, by bribing the servants,
it was discovered that the missing girls went hale
and hearty into the cellar, and never made their
appearance any more. A denunciation followed both
at Court and to the then Count Palatine Thurzo. The
Count had the castle of Cseita surprised, commenced
the strictest investigations, and discovered the
horrible murders. The monster was condemned to
life long incarceration for the terrible crimes, but her
accomplices were executed."*
*
[A Viennese pamphlet, communicated by Grimm,
"
Armer
Heinrich," 181 sq. probably refers to the same episode, although
the number of girls tortured to death is given as only 29, and the
From Daumer, "Geheimnisse," II., 266, I extract the
following
: "There may also be mentioned here a well-known
story by E. T. A. Hoffmann (ob. 1822) which, as far as I know,
is based upon a cinminal case authenticated by documents.
There lives in Naples an old doctor ; he has, by several women,
children, whom he inhumanly slaughters amid special prepara-
tions and solemnities; he cuts open their breasts, takes out
their hearts, and prepares from the heart's blood precious drops
that afford resistance to any disease." Hoffmann's "Nacht-
stiicke," 1817 (Be.) "Ignaz Denner," I., 47 sq.
Nurgalei Achmetow, of the village of Stary
Ssalman, Govt. Kasan, had an apoplectic stroke, and
suffered in consequence from paralysis of the right
arm, and constant trembling of the head. When he
heard he would recover if he ate a human heart, he
murdered a six year old girl with his father's help, cut
her heart out of her body, and devoured it.
Lowenstimm, 145.
Rochholz, I., 39 :
"
The murderer Bellenot, a native
of the Bernese Jura, who was executed in 1861,
con-
fessed, at his trial, he had killed the woman, who was
nicknamed the Doktorfraueli
(doctor-woman)
because
she used to sell medicinal herbs which she gathered
herself, in order to drink her blood, and so get rid of
the epilepsy to which he was said to have been subject
(Aargauer Zeitnncj , 19th May,
1861)."
B.
Desecrations
of
graves.
"
Next appeared [on
15th February, 1890, before the Court at Hagen, in
Westphalia] a servant, 70 years of age, named A.
S(ander), of Wengern, on the serious charge of
robbery of dead bodies, and desecration of graves.
The accused has already been punished with
ten years' imprisonment for a similar crime in 1873;
according to the new legislation the maximum
punish-
ment is two years' imprisonment. The accused
confesses that on the night of 6th December last year
"
beautiful and distinguished lady in Hungary" is alleged to have
been
"
burnt alive in the public market-place
"
with the old woman
who shared her guilt.]
he went to the cemetery of the parish of Wengern,
looked at the fresh graves, and dug up with a spade
lying on the spot a child's grave, from which he then
raised the little coffin, took it under his arm, and
wandered off to his dwelling. He then hid the coffin
under the hay on the house floor, and next day, after
opening the coffin with a screw-driver, cut out of the
thigh of the corpse a piece of flesh, which he laid on
a wound he had had many years on his body. The
deed of the accused is therefore, like the former one
for which he was condemned, the result of a fearful
superstition. S. says he got the recipe many jêars
ago from an old doctor as a remedy for his wound.
He even imagines, at least he said so in to-day's
hearing of the case, that the remedy has done good.
The little coffin was accidentally noticed by the
employer of the accused on the ground beneath the
hay, and thus the affair came to light The
accused was condemned to two years' imprisonment."
(Hagener Zeitung, 18 Feb., 1890,' No. 41).
In 1865, a peasant in the neighbourhood of Mari-
ensee (West Prussia) injured himself whilst carrying
to the cemetery the coffin of an old woman he knew.
A
"wise-woman"
declared the man could only be
saved, if he burnt a piece of the dead person's coffin
and of her shift, and swallowed the ashes. His wife,
together with a friend of the watchman's,
were
arrested, when she tried one
night to extract from
the grave the articles
mentioned to her.
Mannhardt,
18.
In April, 1871, the
churchwarden,
Peter Woro-
shenzow, of the village of Bobinskoje,
District of
Wjatka, Russia, took out of a fresh grave a
little
child's liver and
coagulated
blood, in order to cure
himself with them from an illness.
He drank
the
blood, after mixing it with wine.
Loivenstimm, 109 sq.
In 1862 four
shepherds of the borough
of Janow,
Govt. Radom, opened two graves, cut portions from
the corpses, boiled the portions, and sprinkled sheep
with the brew. This treatment was supposed to pro-
tect the animals from infection. Lowenstimm, 110.
In 1890 the "magician" Wawrzek Marut was
condemned to five months' close arrest by the judicial
court at Rzeszow (Galicia), because he had taken two
children's corpses from the Jewish cemetery at Roz-
wadow, in order to fumigate typhus from a peasant's
hut. The accused asserted there were two kinds of
typhus; one, the "Catholic," which could be banished
by the Lord's Prayer, and the other the "Jewish,"
which could only be banished by Jews' bones. Marut
had already been condemned for similar proceedings
in 1881. {Ur-Quell, 1891, 179 sq.)Cf. Vr-Quell, 1892,
126 sq., for a similar crime committed in January,
1892, at Razniow.
"
In Kjelce (Russia) two Christian peasants were
recently condemned to six months'
imprisonment
each, who stole the bodies of two Israelites from their
graves, and cut them in pieces, in order to use the
latter for the
'
cure of diseases
'."
(Oesterreich. Wochen-
schrift, 1886, 452.)
W. Mannhardt, "Preussen," 19 sq. :
"The notion
is widespread that if parts of a corpse are put in con-
nection with a living person, the latter will pine away
and decline in the same period and degree as the
corpse putrefies. Now this may happen in two ways,
either by
suspending one of the limbs of the dead
person in the chimney of the dwelling of the person
who is to be injured, or by putting with the corpse in
the coffin some article of clothing or any other pro-
perty of the intended victim [Cf. sup. Ch. 8A]. 'Double
does not tear,' thought the gardener's widow, Alber-
tine Majewska . . . when she resolved in May,
1875, to revenge herself on her former lover, the father
of an illegitimate child who had been buried three
months before. Soon after the gendarmes received
information that the corpse of Majewska's child was
damaged. By order of the Public Prosecutor the
little body was dug up, and found in a mutilated con-
dition. The sexual organs and all the fingers of the
left hand had been torn off, and the stump of the hand
and the face strewed with gunpowder. ... It
transpired that she [Majewska] had removed the
above-mentioned parts of the body in order to hang
them in the chimney of her erstwhile lover, so that his
hand, with which he had perjured himself, and, at
the same time, the source of his manhood might dry
up and wither away; and also that the gunpowder
strewed in the coffin was taken from the man's
belongings to ensure that he should gradually pine
away and disappear together with the powder and the
corpse."
A village shepherd, Casimir K., in the Rajew
district of the Government of Warsaw, in May, 1865,
cut, with the help of two comrades, the liver out of a
woman's corpse, in order to bury it in a spot over
which the herd must pass, in the expectation that all
the sheep belonging to the peasants would then rot
away. He had wanted a corpse's tooth, in order to
pulverise it and sprinkle it in his brother-in-law's
snuff; but the person to be poisoned was a man, and
in the opened coffin lay a woman. Lowenstimm, 111.
C. Outrages on virgins. The unhappily not
uncommon cases of rape of innubile girls are not
ordinary crimes against morality, but find their
explanation in the maniacal idea that contact with a
virgin (a rudimentary element in the sacrifice! v.p. 1,
28 sq., 37 sq.) is requisite for the cure of sexual disease
in men. Cf. Wuttke, 532;
A. Vogel,
"
Lehrbuch
der Kinderkrankheiten,"^ Stuttgart, 1876, 426; "A
wretched superstition prevails among the populace
that gonorrhoea of the male organ vanishes if the organ
is brought in contact with a hymen, and many an
enticement to immorality is yielded to because of this
belief." Henoch, "Vorlesungen liber Kinderkrank-
heiten," Be., 1881, 548: "I can refer to a whole series
of cases of children between 4 and 10 years old who
fell victims to savagery, demoralisation, or a certain
superstition." Casfev
-Liman,
"
Handbuch der
gerichtlichen Medizin^" Be., 1889, 122 sq. :
"
But it is
well known that among the common people, and not
alone in our country, the absurd and dreadful prepos-
session rules that a venereal evil can be most surely
and quickly cured by coitus with a pure maiden, and
most certainly with a child."Hirt relates an instance
in J. L. Friedrich's
"
Blatter fiir gerichtliche Anthro-
pologie," V. (1854),
4. The punishment of a youth,
who in 1862 outraged a
girl of eight in Berlin, is
related by Mannhardt, 10.On 27th July, 1881, a child
of eleven, Christine Hammelmann, was murdered and
outraged at Rellinghausen, in the Essen district. The
murderer was, unfortunately, not discovered.
The
state of the district, however, had made it likely that
the poor child "fell a victim to this morbid, mad
idea," v. Das Tribunal, Zeitschrift fiir frakt.
Stra-
frechtsjyflege,
I. [Hamburg, 1885],
621-3.Persian
soldiers, according to Polak, have commerce with
horses for the same purpose {Wiener Medizinische
Wochenschrift, 1861, p.
629, in Lowenstimm, 147).
D. Vampires (a widespread superstition, especi-
ally in the province of Prussia).* Mannhardt, 13:
"
Those who have fallen ill through a vampire's bite
are healed by having mixed with their drink some of
the blood {i.e., the thickish product of decomposition
so described by the populace) of its head when cut
*
About the vampire, cf. especially W. Hertz, "Der Wehrwolf, Bei-
trag zur Sagengescliichtc," Stuttgart, 1862, 122-8. Also C . Gander,
Ur-Qvell 1892, 288-90 (after Joh. Pilichius, "Drey predigten zum
eingang des newen Jahrs," Wittenberg, 1585).
off." 17 sq. :
"
Only a few months ago (March, 1877),
at Heidenmiihl, in the Schloehau district, the body of
a recentlj^-deceased child . . . was mutilated in
its grave, and a small bit of the corpse-flesh was given
internally to a sick child as a cure [for a vampire's
bite]."Cf. Tettau and Temme, 275-7 (especially about
a case that happened about the middle of the 18th
century in the family of Wollschlager, at Jacobsdorf
,
in West Prussia).
Graves are not seldom desecrated in Russia,
because the people believe the dead person is going
about sucking their blobd, or causing epidemics, or
producing drought by milking the clouds. Lowen-
stinim, 95-103.In the Greek island of Andros
(Cyclades) a countryman suffered from a swelling
in the face. He attributed it to a dead enemy, opened
his grave, stabbed the heart of the corpse, and also
mutilated the bones. An old man knew about it and
told everybody; he also intended to denounce it to
the authorities, but stopped on learning that his own
son had done a similar thing. For he had desecrated
his mother's body in the same way, had even dis-
membered it and scattered the portions, in order to
dispel his wife's puerperal fever. Freisinnige Zeitung
(Berlin), 1893, No. 86 (after the Kolnische Zeitung).
E. Witches. Mannhar'dt,
'
Preussen," 59 seq. :
"
The test of witchcraft [swimming ordeal*, fumi-
gation with "devil's dung"] is generally not
carried out; but when there is an urgent con-
jecture of witchcraft, the person suspected is seized
and beaten till her blood flows, in order to
give it the sick man to swallow or to wash
him with it, or until she promises to with-
draw the spell. . . . That takes place in our Kas-
"Schwemme" : the person suspected is thrown into the water and is
made to swim (must try to swim), and if she cannot, she is drowned.
98
subian villages as it were daily, and only a few cases
come to the knowledge of the courts and to publicity.
Nevertheless, the number of them is not inconsider-
able. ... In 1874 we again see a
country-school-
master in the Strasburg
district an accomplice in a
deed of the kind. He and his wife, on the advice of a
somnambulist
woman, beat their own aunt with a
pair of tongs till blood flowed, with which they
sprinkled their child, whom they supposed bewitched
by their victim.57 :
"
A peasant in Jaschhiitte had
. . . his leg broken. He did not seek any profes-
sional help . . . and was taken ill, in addition,
with typhus. Neighbours who visited him persuaded
him he was bewitched by a woman in the village, who
had sent to plague him her twenty-fifth devil, called
Peter. The witch, a young relative of 26,
living
opposite, is made to enter the house of the possessed
man, and asked by those present to give him some of
her blood to drink, because only then would the devil
Peter quit him. . . . [She is] forced by blows of
the fist from two of those present to let the salving
blood be drawn from her nose. The attempt is a
failure. . . . One of the two men goes to the court-
yard, dirties his hands with manure, whilst at the
same time he makes three crosses with it on them.
Flesh blows of the fist on the nose with the blessed
hands had the desired effect. The witch was now
obliged to lay herself on the bed of the possessed man,
and to let the blood trickle into his opened mouth.
The devil then, indeed, seemed to give way, for soon
after the patient was able to utter the words:
'
Nu
wart mi beeter' [I'm better now
!]
The still-flowing
blood was then collected in a cup for possible relapses.
. . . The two exorcists were condemned to three
months'
imprisonment by the District Court at Berent
on 16th October,
1868."
"The wife of a farmer G., in Niederhutte (Kas-
subei) was suddenly taken ill. The neighbours
arrived ... at last at the conclusion that it was
not entirely owing to natural causes, but there was
also witchcraft in the business. Very soon, too, a
scape-goat was found in farmer K., a relative of the
invalid. He unsuspectingly approached the sick-bed,
when he was suddenly surrounded by all his male
and female cousins, who violently demanded blood
from him, red, warm blood; for the Kassubians, in
their therapeutical anxiety, had recognised the
wîzard's blood to be the only effectual remedy. In
order to avoid violent attacks on the part of the
fanatical crowd, K. wounded himself in the little
finger. But ... an
'
expert ' affirmed the blood
must come from the middle finger, and the wretched
victim of this superstition had also to cut himself in
the middle finger." {Ur-Quell, III., 46.)
According to Joh. Scherr,
"
Deutsche Kultur-und
Sittengeschichte^" 1879, 585 sq., the following hap-
pened in Steiermark in 1867: "The son of a peasant
was suffering from a leg injury. Instead of calling in
a doctor, the father went to a
'
wise-woman
'
for
advice. She declared the boy was bewitched, and
would not recover till the witch, whose name and
abode were given, had named the necessary
remedies. The peasant went to the 'witch,' and by
brutal intimidation forced from the poor woman the
recipe of a potion, the use of which, however, did not
cure the boy's sick leg. The peasant thereupon went
again to the 'wise-woman,' who gave him the advice
to use force, and in the following way. He must
bind the witch fast hand and foot, then tear out a tuft
of the hair of her head ; dip this in the blood coming
from a deep transverse wound in the sole of the right
foot, and mix it with her excrement, and use the
result as a fumigation cure for the leg. No sooner
said than punctually and earnestly done and exe-
cuted; only in regard to the excrement the torturer
had to content himself with remains that were in a
pot, because the poor wretch could not immediately
satisfy his desire. By a coincidence the healing of
the leg-injury began after the fumigation had taken
place. At the trial of the case of the woman, who had
been crippled by the cut-wound, the accused, who
was convicted, stood all the more upon the justice of
his act because the cure of the leg had begun."
A village elder's wife fell ill in the Ranenburg
district, and declared her old aunt had bewitched
her. The peasants dragged the old woman to the
invalid, knocked her down with a thrust with a
hedge-pole, made cuts in her fingers, and collected
the flowing blood in a vessel. Loivenstimm, 58, after
the Eussian periodical Ssewerny Wjestnik, 1892, No. 9.
In Tubingen, at the beginning of October, 1896,
George Speidel was condemned for perjur}^ It came
out in the case that he had once, at the request of a
peasant, performed a piece of magic, so as to kill a
witch. The peasant had to pull the coffin-boards out
of a fresh grave; on these Speidel stuck a figure of
clay, and then told the peasant he need not now fear
the witch any more. (Lbwenstimm, 73 sq., after Vos-
siche Zeitung, 10th October, 1896, No. 478.)
F. Hidden treasures. About a crime perpetrated
in Hamburg in 1783, I have had placed at my disposal
tAvo printed documents from the Commerz-Biblio-
thek :
(1)
"
Richtige Ausziige aus den Akten der Inqui-
sition Namens Borchers, gewesenen Biirgers in
Hamburg, Anna Catharina Neumanns, seiner Stief-
Tochter, und Anna Lliders, Borchers Dienstin, wegen
Ermordung eines Juden-Burschen in Hamburg.
Frankfurt,
1785"
(45),
and
(2)
an extract, marked
with the page numbers 187-192, from a journal printed
outside Hamburg in 1785, in small quarto, whose
name I unfortunately cannot ascertain. According
to them, the facts were these. A band of swindlers,
consisting of an Altona Jew, Meyer Siidheim, a cer-
tain Freudentheil, a one-eyed fellow who went by
the name of Pater Fliigge, and a certain Montfort or
Musupert, whose tool was Liiders, a woman of 65 who
was fooled by them, persuaded the uneducated
simpleton Neumann, a woman of 36, to disburse con-
siderable amounts of money on the pretext that
money was needed in order to dig up the treasure of a
Count von Schaumburg, which was buried in Otten-
sen. Neumann had several times given money
directly
; she then found notes in her house, mysteri-
ously thrown in, in which she was asked to place
ready in the parlour, at punctually fixed times, cer-
tain definitely named sums of money, and frequently
meals also. What she handed over vanished in a
most extraordinary way. When, impelled by curio-
sit}^, she once played the spy, she suddenly received
so severe a box on the ears that she was deafened. It
was repeatedly demanded in the notes "that a girl
should be produced and killed as a sacrifice to the
treasure, and particularly a Jewish girl, or, what
would be better, a Catholic girl ; for if this were not
done, fifteen persons would lose their lives in this
affair, and old Liiders and the Master [Borchers]
would be smashed to pieces." An attempt to kill a
Catholic girl, Maria Johanna Sardach ("Ausziige,"
p. 32),
failed. Then came a note saying "that the
treasure could not be dug up otherwise than with
blood
; because it was sealed with blood. A Jewish
youth must also be killed, who was possessed of as
much as 83 marks in value, and these 83 marks would
also have to be brought to the sacrifice." ("Ausziige,"
37, 41). In consequence of which Johann Jiirgen
Borchers, who had already for some time been told
about the buried treasure, his stepdaughter, and
Liiders murdered, on 13th October, 1783, a young
Jewish pedlar called Renner, with whom Liiders had
made an appointment at the house of Borchers. Of
110 marks received for pawning the things, 83 were,
in accordance with the instructions contained in the
note, placed in the ante-room, and vanished like the
amounts previously demanded. A few days after
the murder there was a demand in a new note, firstly
for the Jew's clothes, secondly that
"
the breast-cloth
[probably the so-called small prayer-cloak or Tallith],
which the Jew wore on his naked body, should be
burnt as a sacrifice
"
("
Auszlige
"
3'4).
These com-
mands were likewise executed. Borchers wounded
himself mortally by cutting his throat immediately
after his arrest; the two women, of whom Liiders was
indubitably the most guilty, were broken on the wheel
from top to toe, their heads stuck on posts.The
thieves were only concerned with mone}^ and money-
values. They would hardly have brought their sacri-
fice to the point of robbery and murder, solely for such
a purpose. They therefore played upon Neumann's
proved superstitiousness. Neumann was a Protes-
tant; so she might consider a Jew's blood to have a
special virtue, and still more the blood of a Catholic;
for there was at that time in Hamburg only quite a
small number of Catholics. Cf. Ch. 20.
On the morning of 14 April, 1892, the body of a
corporal in the artillery, Ilija Konslantinowitsch, was
found on the banks of the Danube not far from the ram-
part of Fort Semendria. It lay stretched out on a bed-
covering perfectly nude, the larynx had been cut out,
the heart torn from the pectoral cavity. The murderer
soon came forward of his own accord ; he was a friend
of the murdered man, an artillerist called Vasilje
Radulowitsch. He said Ilija had come to him in the
night and told him he had already dreamt five nights
running there was a big treasure to be dug up at a
fixed spot outside the walls of the fort, but he would
have to sacrifice his life for a short period of time.
Ilija begged him to accompany him, and took his bed-
covering also with him, and when they reached the
place, he asked his friend to kill him by stabbing with
a knife, to cut out his larynx, to take his heart out of
his breast, and then to besprinkle a certain spot with
the blood of those parts of the body ; Vasilje was then
to dig quickly, whereupon he would find a small iron
rod and a bottle of brandyhe was to stroke the
whole body twice with the small rod, replace the
heart and larynx, and pour the brandy on the raw
places. Thereupon he (Ilija) would again come to
life, and have the power to dig up the treasure which
would make them among the richest people in the
world. After Ilija had given these instructions, he
stripped and lay down on the bed-clothes. After some
hesitation, Vasilje killed Ilija by a stab in the neck;
Ilija made no resistance, and only gnashed his teeth
through pain. Vasilje next cut out Ilija's throat and
heart with difficulty; he then dug till day-dawn, but
found neither the bottle nor the rod. When he
despaired of success, he returned the throat and heart
into the murdered man's body, and betook himself
secretkf back to the barracks without anybody having
seen him. The investigations showed Vasilje had
spoken the truth. Ilija had spoken to several com-
rades about his dream, and his intention to get the
treasure by sacrificing himself, and there was not the
least trace of resistance on the corpse. (Vossische
Zeitung, 24 April, 1892, No. 191).
Ilija's sacrifice was intended as a propitiatory
sacrifice to the Earth Spirit, the guardian of the
treasure. Cf. Milan Vesnic's work,
"
Praznoverice i
zlocini s narocitim pogledom na praznovericu o zako-
panom blagu " ["bigoted faith and crime, with
special reference to beliefs concerning buried
treasure"], Belgrade, 1894
(62). Ur-Quell, 1895,
137-40, contains an account according to V. of two
other crimes perpetrated in Servia which arose from
the same superstition.
XII. BLOOD-SUPERSTITION AMONG
CRIMINALS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
A. "Pommern," Jahn, No. 524: "To prepare
thieves'-tapers : Take the entrails of an unborn child
and mould tapers out of them. The same can only be
extinguished with milk, and as long as the}^ burn,
nobody in the house is able to wake up."
(Meesow, Regenwalde District). 526: "If a thief
gets the fat of a pregnant woman, makes a candle
of it, and lights it, he can steal where he likes, with-
out anxiety. No one will see him, no sleeper can
awaken (Konow, Kammin district.)" 576 :
"
If a thief
dries an unborn child, lays it in a wooden casket, and
then carries it about with him, he is invisible to every-
body, so he can steal to the top of his bent(Konow,
Kammin district.)"Cf. E. M. Arndt,
"
Marchen und
Jugenderinnerungen," II. (Be., 1843), 348 sq.
("
Der
Rabenstein," ad init.)
"
Oldenburg," Strackerjan, I., 100:
"
The finger of
an unborn child is useful to thieves by keeping the
dwellers asleep in a house into which they have pene-
trated; it is simply laid on the table (Vechta).The
saying goes in Wardenburg that robbers and mur-
derers cut open the bellies of pregnant women, and
make candles of the fingers of the unicorn children.
When these candles are lit, they allow no sleeper to
wake up as long as they burn. The candles can only
be extinguished by dipping them in sweet milk."
"Bayern," Lammert, 84: "According to a wild
delusion circulating in the Pfalz, the finger of a child
that has diedunbaptized renders invisible, so that even
40 or 50 years ago, the churchyard at Speyer had to be
watched
("
Bavaria, Landes-und Volkskunde des
Konigreichs Bayern," IV., 2 [Rheinpfalz], Munich,
1867, 347). A similar superstition dangerous to public
safety prevailed in Mittelfranken among thieves,
namely, that the blood, which is collected with three
wooden sticks from the genitals of an innocent boy,
and carried about on the person, renders invisible in
thieving."
According to a popular belief obtaining in Ice-
land and Jutland, inextinguishable lamps can be
made of liuman fat, as well as of the finger of an
executed person, v. Feilberg, Ur-Quell, III., 60 sq.
Feilberg relates, 89 sq., that there is still in existence
"
in Denmark and Norway the notion of the magical
power of an unborn child's heart." Also in Sweden,
the last-named article of magic was well-known, v.
Harsdorffer, "Der grosse Schauplatz jammerlicher
Mordsgeschichten,"^ Frankfort, 1693, No. 182.
"Preussen," Lemke (East Prussia), I., 114:
" *
Human fat ' yields a light which is useful to thieves.
'
Many a one murders a man simply for the purpose of
making a candle out of his fat
'
at least so everybody
sayswhether it's true, it is impossible for me to tell.
Such a candle is supposed to be the best thing a thief
can have. But when they've lit it, they must hold it
under the soles and under the noses of the sleepers;
then the sleepers don't wake till the thieves are away.
Such light can be put out neither in water nor in
brandy, nor b}^ kicks; such light can only go out
in m\\\i.''T'6fpen, 57: "A candle of human tallow
puts all in the deepest sleep with its light. Such an
article has therefore quite a special value for a thief
(Gilgenburg.)"
Poland, especially Ukraine. Scliiffer,
Ur-Quell,
Among Criminals 107
III., 148: "The first vein met with in a corpse, when
dried and set light to, renders a thief invisible. A
taper of corpse-fat has the effect that sleepers do not
wâke up, and the thief can steal quietly. The sleeper,
on whom the shine of such a taper falls, abides in a
heavy, invincible sleep. The hand of a five-year-old
child's corpse opens all locks."
People in Little Russia believe (Papirnia, near
Trembowla) corpse-fat candles have the faculty of
sending everyone, except the persons holding them,
into a swoon. With these candles in their hands,
thieves need not fear to be caught. TJr-Quell, 1894,
163.
In Russia thieves attribute a narcotic effect also to
the hand of a corpse. Ldiue7istimm, 116, says: "The
proverb, 'The people slept, as if a dead hand had
travelled about them,' has not sprung up without
cause." From a Russian folk-song, which in truth
sounds like a survival of cannibalism, Lowenstimm,
120 sq., quotes the following passage:
"
I bake pastry
out of the hands, out of the feet, I forge a drinking-cup
out of the mad head, I pour drinking-glasses out of
his eyes, out of his blood I brew intoxicating beer, and
out of his fat I mould candles."
H. V. Wlislocki, "Zigeuner," 94 sq. : A cloth, on
which are some drops of blood of a hanged person,
preserves a thief from discovery. Parts of the limbs
and shreds of the clothes of a hanged person have the
same result. He who drinks of the blood of a hanged
person can go in the darkest night as wêll as in the
brisfhtest daylight. When the robber-murderer
Marlin was hanged at Hermannstadt in 1885, a gipsy,
Roska Lajos, got some of the blood and drank it, after
mixing it with a strong decoction of hempseed flowers.
He who consumes the little finger of the left hand of
a still-born child, can by his breath bring it to pass
that people who are already asleep will not be
awakened by he loudest noise. The nomadic gipsies
of Servia and Turkey therefore stick a needle through
the above-mentioned finger of such children so that no
one may consume the finger after digging up the
corpse. Thieves who possess a taper made of a white
dog's fat, and the blood
[95]
of still-born twins can be
seen by no one. He who eats some of a paste com-
posed of that material, can see hidden treasures on S.
John's Eve and New Year's Eve. The South Hun-
garian gipsies rub such salve into their soles, in order
to make their footsteps inaudible whilst stealing. A
nomad gipsy, in November, 1890,
paid a peasant
woman, Lina Varga, of Vorosmart, four kreutzers for
every drop of blood yielded by her still-born twins.
Further authentic documents
proving the wide
currency of the belief in the magical properties of the
fingers of children who were unborn or died unbap-
tised. Grimm, "Deutsche Mythologie,"
p.
1027,
quotes
:
Schamberg, "De jure digitorum,"
p.
61 sq. ;
Prae-
torius,
"
Vom Diebsdaumen," 1677 ;
"
the
'
coutume de
Bordeaux,"
'
46. R. K'dhler, in the treatise immediate-
ly to be named, cites : Philo (Bartholomaus
Anhorn),
"Magiologia, Augustae Raurac." 1675, 768 sq.
;
H. L. Fischer,
"
Buch vom Aberglauben," I. (L., 1791),
155; F. Wolf, "Proben portugiesischer und catalon-
ischer Volksromanzen," Vienna, 1856, 146;
Rochholz,
"
Alemannisches Kinderlied und Kinderspiel aus der
Schweiz," L., 1857, 344.Here may also be added,
"Das Lied von der verkauften Miillerin," v. R.
Kohlers careful homonymous essay in the Zeitschiîft
fiir
deutsclie Mythologie und Sittenkunde, IV. (Gottingen,
1859),
180-5. There are also supplements by
L.
Parisius, "Deutsche Volkslieder in der Alt-
mark und im Magdeburgischen," Part I. (Magdeburg,
1879),
45-9. In Lower Saxony the song is shown to be
in existence by H. Sohnrey, v. Urds-Brunnen, I., Part I.,
16 sq., ; a variation from Dithmarschen, Part III., 16.
Among Criminals 109
L. Strackerjan has found in a j3rosaic form this story,
which indeed testifies to the existence of a popular
superstition, in the Oldenburg region, II. (1867),
127:
"A good fifty years ago a hired-man in Schwege,
parish of Dinklage, sold his pregnant wife to a Jew
at Vechta for 400 rx., who wanted to use the foetus for
purposes of magic. The children listened and told
their mother, who repeated it to her three brothers.
The latter gave the Jew a thorough hiding on the
night when the woman was to have been taken away,
but the man went to prison." Direktor K. Stracker-
jan, of Oldenburg, wrote me on May 1st, 1889,
in
answer to my question as to the source of the informa-
tion, which appeared to me to lack historical value
:
"
In the papers my brother left behind there is nothing
that could serve as an elucidation I judge the
story in this way. The fifty years mentioned are an
arbitrary artifice, which goes back far enough to
thrust aside at once the hearer's critical faculty, but
not so far that it exceeds his circle of experience
through traditions of living persons
(grandparents,
etc.), and so weakens the interest.
Formerly there
were no Jews anywhere in the Oldenburg
Miinsterland
except in Vechta ... so that if the story were to be
brought closer home to the hearer, the buyer had to be
a Jew of Vechta. Poetic justice required the imprison-
ment of the Jew. The district prison is at Vechta
:
I do
not doubt that the story also assumed the man 'came to
Vechta,' as readily occurs in popular tales in such
cases. If the basis of the story were in the main
historical I am old enough myself, as well as the law-
yers among my acquaintances .... to recollect the
circumstances not exactly directly, but in any case
indirectly I consider the story
altogether to
have come from outside An
examination into
the public documents of the courts of justice would be
futile; for the departmental
conditions in our
Miinsterland have so altered during the last 60 or 70
years, that no documents can be now in existence,
even supposing any ever existed at all."
B. Montanns,
"
Die deutschen Yolksfeste, Volks-
bniuche und deutscher Volksglaube," Iserlohn, 1858,
130 sq. :
"
This peculiar superstition of illumination
with a child's limbs seems to hang together with folk-
beliefs about will-o'-the-wisps. Thieves are said to
have also wrought very powerful magic results, perti-
nent to their night wôrk, with the hearts of new-born
or innocent children as well as with their blood, and
even with children cut out of their mothers' wombs,
which superstition has then demonstrably had as a
consequence several murders of innocent children
and of wives about to become mothers.The follow-
ing incident* put together from the documents of
investigation may serve for the explanation and sig-
nificance of a superstition even now prevailing among
the masses After the Thirtj^ Years' War had
very much decivilised human beings, crowds of
thieves roamed about the lower Rhine. On 7 October,
1645, Heinr. Erkelenz, a poor rural worker, who was
hardly a year married, went from his lonely dwelling
towards Angermund, to buy oil and other trifles there,
when he was knocked dowm by two robbers in the
forest. 'I am poor,' he says, 'and my wife is near
her confinement; I have to buy what is necessary for
her.' Whereupon the robbers
'
Your gold you
shall have back and 100 gulden in gold in addition;
but you must bring your wife here to us in return
'
. .
. . . After some deliberation, the barbarous man,
seduced by filthy lucre, agrees to the bargain." He
tells his wife he has sold their little house for 100
gulden in gold, and when she talks against it, entices
* [The author, v. Zuccalmaglio (Montanus is a pseudonym), has been
dead for some time. For that reason I could not ascertain the
sources of information he used.]
Among Criminals 111
her into the forest on the pretext he intends to cancel
the transaction there. The wife becomes afraid, but
starts on the road, after secretly praying her brother
to follow her.
"
Erlêlenz approaches her with one of
the robbers, while the other leans on a tree. The
robber holds up a heavy money-bag; her husband
seizes it and runs aside with it, and the poor victim
is dragged away by the robber's strong arm. She
screams, she struggles, but all resistance is useless.
She is gagged and ])ound to a tree, she is stripped
naked, and the elder robber pulls out a big sharp knife,
in order to slit up her bellythen comes the crash
of a bullet, and one of the robbers, hit in the heart,
lies in his own blood." The other robber is knocked
down by the woman's brother, gagged, and dragged
to Angermund.
"
The robber was, according to the
judicial sentence, on 12th October, before the Ratinger
Thor, at Diisseldorf, first pinched with red hot tongs,
and then broken alive on the wheel from toe to
top. Erkelenz was hanged. The reason why the
robber was visited with the severer penalty was the
confession that he and his accomplice, among many
other outrages committed by them, had cut two
unborn children from their mothers' wombs, and ex-
tracted their little hearts. Had they got the third
heart as well, they would have become masters of
magic powers w^hich no one could have withstood;
they would thereby have been able to make them-
selves invisible, and to perform a number of devil's
tricks."
Lammert, 84 :
"
A horrible example of superstition
about the magic power of unborn children is aiforded
in more recent times by Hundssattler, who was exe-
cuted in the middle of last century at Bayreuth. He
was under the delusion that a man could fly if he ate
nine hearts of new-born children. With this object
he had already butchered, cut up, and eaten the still-
throbbing, warm hearts of eight pregnant women
(Meissner,
"
Skizz." xiii., 107). The Nuremberg
reports* of 1577 and 1601 are lamentable for a similar
reason."
Tettau and Temme, 266 :
"
The hearts of unborn
children were held by robbers and thieves to be a
means of protection; in a raw state, even as they are
torn from the mother's womb, and from the child's
body, they were cut into as many pieces as there were
partakers, and a piece was eaten by each of them. He
who had thus partaken of nine hearts could not be
caught, whatever thievery or other crime he might
commit, and, even if he accidentally fell into his
opponents' power he could make himself invisible,
and so again escape his bonds. The children, how-
ever, had to be of the male sex ; female were no good
for the purpose. The band of the robber captain. King
Daniel as he was called by his men,
"
Kix Teufel aus
der Holle
"
("King Devil from Hell") as he was
called by the populace, which terrorised Ermeland in
the middle of the 17th century, admitted after their
capture, that they had already killed 14 pregnant
wives with that object, but had only found male child-
ren in very few of them." 267 :
"
Moreover, there were
not only means of insurance against earthly punish-
ment, but there were also means for quieting the
conscience. For he who had killed a man had only to
cut a piece out of the man's body, to roast and eat it,
and he never thought again about his evil deed."
* The Nuremberg executioner, Meister Frank, broke on the wheel in
1577, at Bamberg, a murderer who had cut open three pregnant
women; in 1601 he executed a monster at Nuremberg, who had slain
20 persons, among them also several pregnant women,
"
whom he
afterwards cut open, cut the children's hands oflf, and made little
candles of them for burglary." Cf. "Meister Franken, Nachrich-
ters allhier in Niirnberg all sein Richten am Leben, sowohl seine
Leibsstraffen, so er verricht, alles hierin ordentlich beschrieben, aus
seinem seibst eigenen Buch abgeschrieben worden. Genau nach
dem Manuscript abgedruckt und herausgegeben von /. M. F. v.
Endter," Nuremberg, 1801.
Among Criminals
113
In the defile behind Wiemes-Ilof, near Siichteln,
stands, amid the underwood of ferns and briars, an
old cross with the inscription :
"
Anno 1791 den 14.
Merz ist Anno Margaretho Terporten alt 9 biss 10 Johr
durch eines Morders Hand grausamlich umgebrocht
wôrden" (On 14 March, 1791, Anna Margareta Ter-
porten, aged 9 to 10, was cruelly killed by a
murderer's hand).
R. Freudenherg, in his book,
"Soitelsch Plott,'' Viersen,
1888, attaches the follow-
ing note to the poem,
"
Et Kriiz an den Hoalwag":
"
The cross is in memory of a little Siichteln girl who
was murdered towards the end of the last century. . .
The murderer committed the crime because he had
been told that anybody possessing the heart of an
innocent child, might steal without being discovered.
Shortly after the finding of the body he was convicted,
beheaded in Jiilich, and his corpse broken on the
wheel on the so-called Galgenhaide
("
gallows-
common ")
outside Diilken." I also take the follow-
ing details, which rest upon the statements of the
oldest inhabitants, from the Crefelder Zeitung, 1892,
No. 197
:
"
It was alleged the child had been seen to go
into the forest with a strange Jew. For that cause,
and because the heart was extracted, people gave
credence to a
'
ritual murder ' . . . . The Jews in the
neighbourhood were persecuted for three months, till
the real criminal was found. A child of the murderer
wore a hairpin and a little ring belonging to the
murdered girl.
So the murderer was found in a
mason and day labourer of Anrath, who had also fre-
quently worked here in Siichteln
He confessed
he had committed the murder of his own accord, in
the belief that he could steal without being caught, if
he possessed the heart of an innocent child."
A. F. Thiele, "Die Jiidischen
Gauner in Deutsch-
land2," Be., 1848, 7: "The handsome Karl made the
wives and concubines belonging to his band swear by
the prince of darkness, and by everything evil, to
deliver up unhesitatingly for that ghastly purpose
[thieves' candles] the fruit of their wombs, if they
were required so to do by himself or any other gradu-
ate of the band. The foetus was then, before it had
reached maturity, expelled and roasted!"* Theodor
linger (that was
'
handsome Karl's
'
real name), who
was executed at Mageburg in 1810, was not a Jew,
and there is no proof discoverable that the Jews
concerned in the robbery disorders of that period had
the superstition here under notice.
On 12th December, 1815, Claus Dau was executed
on the Galgenberg, near Heide, district of North
Dithmarschen, for killing three children, and devour-
ing their hearts. He fancied he could make himself
invisible by eating seven hearts.
t
Lehmann,
"
Chronik der Stadt Schneeberg," III.,
299, says under date 15th Dec, 1823: "We have still
to mention a horrible custom, whose existence could
scarcely be still thought possible in the 19th century.
Friedrich's place of execution was close by the road
from Zwickau to Werdau. Already early the next
morning the two thumbs of the corpse were cut off,
and a portion of the criminal's clothes stripped off.
*
"
The notorious concubine of Horst, Luise BeUtz, has uttered re-
markable revelations I'egarding these and similar facts."
-}
"
Rede nacii der Hinrichtung des Morders Claus Dau am 12 Dez.
1815, vor der Richtstatte an das Volk gehalten, von Karl Schetelig,
erstem Prediger zu Heide," Heide 1816. The well-known
poet Cknis Grof/i. a native of H., says about Dau in the "Quick-
born" ("Hans Schander beim Rugenbarg")
:
He wehr sin Tid en argen Siinner,
He driissel dre unschtilli Kinner,
Mit saben Hartenas he swahn
Kunn he bi Dag unsichtbar gahn."
Roughly translatable
:
"
He was in's time a sinner bad,
Three harmless bairns he strangled had,
With seven heartsfor he thought so
He could by daylight unseen go."

Among Criminals 115
Within a week, however, the corpse lay on the wheel,
deprived of all its toes and fingers as well as all its
clothes, and caused an unparalleled scandal, so that
the authorities saw themselves compelled to order
its burial at once. And whence came the aforesaid
despoiling and mutilation of the body ? In order by
means of the various single items to obtain safety
whilst thieving, and so forth." (Then follows the
passage quoted supr.
p. 71).
Mannhardt, 21 sq. :
"
On New Year's Eve, 1864, a
fearful murder with robbery was perpetrated at Eller-
wald, near Elbing, on Elizabeth Zernickel, 23 years
old A piece of flesh, nine inches long, and the
same in breadth, had been cut out of her belly. For
a considerable time there wâs no trace of the criminal,
till on the evening of 16th February, 1865, during the
committal of a thief. ... a working man, Gottfried
Dallian, of Neukirch, in the Niederung, was caught,
and there was found on him a strange candle, consist-
ing of a tolerably firm mass of fat, poured round a
wick, and contained in a leaden cylinder. . . . The
murderer made a frank confession at the trial. He
had intended merely thieving on 31st December, but
Z.'s loud screams for help had caused him to strike
her senseless by blows on the head with his knotty
stick After he had packed everything together
.... he cut out of the body. ... a piece of belly-
flesh, which he roasted at home. He had made the
thieves' candle out of the roasted human fat by the
addition of beef tallow, but had eaten the residuum.
At the Elbing Assizes he was condemned to death on
23rd June, 1865. The motive of the . . . deed was the
delusion instilled into Dallian by hearsay, that a
candle or small lamp prepared from the fat of a
murdered person would not be extinguished by any
draught, and the flame could only be put out with
milk; the person who carried it would be invisible.
whilst all living people round about would be held in
a deep slumber. In that way the thief was ensured
against any interference in his business. And if the
murderer cut a piece out of his victim's belly, roasted
and consumed it, he would have peace in his con-
science, he would never again think of the crime."
TJ. Jaim reports on
"
the murder-trial of the work-
ing man Bliefernicht, of Sage, heard at the Assizes at
Oldenburg," in the spring of 1888, in the
"
Proceedings
of the Berlin Anthropological Society," 7th April,
1888, 135: "As the statements of two witnesses
informs us, B. was of the opinion that he who ate the
flesh of young innocent girls, could do anything in the
world, without anj^body being able to make him
answerable. He killed two girls of six and seven
years old respectively, and one of the two corpses not
only had its throat cut from ear to ear, but had also
its stomach ripped up, so that the entrails, lungs, and
liver were exposed. A large piece of flesh had been
artistically cut out of the rectal region, and could not
be found in spite of search being made, for the reason
that the monster had eaten it."
In March, 1895, a man-servant, called Sier, of
Heumaden, dug up in the cemetery at Moosbach, in
the Bayrischer Wald, the body of a child recently
dead, knocked out one of its eyes, and likewise appro-
priated the little shroud. By getting its eye he
imagined he could make himself invisible, so that he
might then follow unseen his bent towards stealing.
Ur-Quell, 1895, 200.
In the night of 27th February, 1873, three Russian
soldiers in the village of Sheljesnjaki, District of
Grodno, opened the grave of a comrade recently
dead, and took the entrails out, because they had
heard that they could steal without danger by the
light of a candle composed of human fat. In 1884, in
the town of Perejaslawl, Govt, of Poltava, three
Among Criminals 117
youths were arrested as they were opening a fat man's
coffin, in order to use his fat for the preparation of a
thieves' candle. Ldwenstimm, 114 sq.In 1872 three
horse thieves in the district of Kanew, Govt, of Kijeff,
took out of a girl's grave one of her hands and her
waxen cross. They thought it was enough to put the
dead hand into the window, and set light to a taper
made of the wax of the little cross, to cast the inhabit-
ants of a house into deepest sleep. L'dicenstimm, 115.
Russian criminals are not frightened even to
commit murder in order to get thieves' candles.
Ldwenstimm, 117-20 quotes four cases. In April, 1869,
Kyrill Dshuss murdered a boy and flayed the skin off
his stomach in the Wuikowitsch forest, district of
Wladimir-Wolynsk
; but the rustling of the leaves dis-
turbed him and drove him out of the forest.In 1881
two youths of 18 or 19 killed a peasant with the same
object in the Tschembarsch district. Govt, of Pensa.
In 1887, Jefim Semljanin, after he and his two accom-
plics had failed in three other attempts, strangled a
girl in a wood in the Bjelgorod district, Govt. Kursk,
and made a candle of her fat. The criminal was only
discovered more than seven months later, when his
house was searched on account of a theft, and a bundle
with cooked flesh was found ; the cloth in which the
flesh was wrapped had belonged to the murdered girl.
In 1896, two men of the Korotojak district, Govt.
Woronesh, throttled a boy of twelve in order to mould
a candle from his fat.
A weakened form of this superstition occurs in
the Govt, of Nishnij-Nowgorod: he who wants to
become a magician must cut off the toe of a married
woman's right foot. That was done at the beginning
of the eighties by an inhabitant of the village of Fokin.
Ldwenstimm, 126.
XIII. SUPERSTITION AMONG DEMENTS
CRIMES OWING TO RELIGIOUS MANIA
The dividing-line between superstition and
dementia is often only recognisable with difficulty or
not at all, particularly as both may occur combined in
the same individual. Yet it may be said in general
:
Superstitious ideas arise in single instances chiefly
through conditions of up-bringing, society, hearsay,
reading, more rarely through influences from facts;
madness, on the other hand, is mainly based either on
hereditary derangement, or on a terrible shock either
to the body or to the mind (to the body, e.g. a fall,
wound, debauched life ; to the mind, accumulation of
misfortunes).Lively religious feeling, when clean of
every impure alloy, shows us man from the side of his
similitude to God ; otherwise it may, ifwhat we have
solely here to considersuperstition or madness be
superadded, lead to horrible deeds.
In referring to the "Bernstein case" (Ch.
15),
I
here collect a few facts, which may be characterised
partly as "superstition among dements," partly as
"
crimes due to religious mania."
A. "A tradesman's assistant, 27 years old,
suffered from persecution mania, was confined in the
lunatic asylum at Cadillac, quieted down, and
engaged in useful occupation. One day he met in a
dark corridor an old, weak invalid, split his skull
open with an iron stick, extracted his brain, ate a por-
tion of it at once, and saved the rest in his cell, tie
Among
Dements
119
confessed, when asked, what he had done, and a 'so
that he wanted still to eat the remainder. Five whole
years afterwards he remained quiet, till he one day
found himself with the doctors in the mortuary of the
institute, and in an unguarded moment seized hold of
a brain, and began greedily to devour it. He was put
back again among the
'
dangerous
'
patients, and he
was more than once surprised eating the brains of
birds he caught in the yard.The
persecution mania
had altered in him. As he noticed he was ill in his
mind, he fancied he could help himself and increase
his understanding by
swallowing the brains of
others." (C. Lombroso,
"
Der Verbrecher," done into
German by Frilnkel, 11. [Hamburg, 1890], 154).
B.
Margarete Peter, daughter of a peasant, who
was born in 1794, at Wildisbuch, was disposed from
youth upwards to morbid religious enthusiasm ;
and,
the remainder of her understanding having been
ruined by the confused mystic, Jakob Ganz, she
fought, together with her family, on 13th March, 1823,
with such vigour against Satan with axes, wedges,
and rakes, that the floor of the house partially gave
way. On 15th March she declared: "If Christ is to
conquer and Satan to be completely overthrown,
blood must flow!" She then seized an iron wedge,
pulled her brother Kaspar to her with the words:
"Behold, Kaspar, the Evil Enemy wants your soul,"
and planted several blows on his head and breast, so
that he began to bleed in both places. Kaspar is led
away by his father; some others, too, go away.
She now says to those who have remained behind:
"
Blood must be shed. I see my mother's spirit, which
requires of me to quit my life for Christ. And you,
will you also surrender your life for Christ?"
"
Yes,"
they all replied. Her sister Elizabeth cries out :
"
I
shall gladly die for the salvation of my father's and
my brother's souls. Kill me dead, kill me !
"
and she
beats herself on the head with a wooden
mallet. Mar-
garete attacks her sister with an iron hammer, wounds
her brother-in-law, Johannes Moser, and his intimate
friend, Ursula Kiindig, and then orders those present
to kill Elizabeth
downright. Without
uttering a
single cry of pain, the latter passes away with the
words: "I quit my life for Christ!"
Margareter
"
Some more blood must be spilt. Christ in me has
given his Father a pledge for many thousands of souls.
I must die. You shall crucify me." And she strikes
herself with the hammer on the left temple, so that it
begins to bleed. Johannes and Ursula are obliged to
deal her further blows, and make a circular cut
round her neck with a razor, and a cross cut on her
forehead.
"
Now I want to be nailed to the cross, and
you, Ursula, must do it. You go, Zasi [her sister
Susanna], and bring up the nails, and you others
meanwhile get ready the cross." The victim's hands
and feet are nailed to the cross. The strength of the
crucifying woman is again about to fail her.
"
Go on,
go on! May God strengthen your arm! I shall
awaken Elisabeth, and within three days shall myself
arise again." Continuance of the hammer blows; a
nail is driven through both of the victim's breasts,
likewise through the left elbow-joint, then by
Susanna also through the right one.
"
I feel no pain.
Only be you strong, that Christ may conquer." In a
firm voice she further commands a nail or a knife to
be driven through her head into her heart. In raving
desperation Ursula and Konrad Moser rush upon her
and smash her head to pieces, the former by
means
of the hammer, the latter with a
two-bevelled chisel.
On Sunday,
23rd March, there was a pilgrimage of
Margaret's adherents to W. One of them scraped
blood from the place where the bed was, broke a
blood-stained piece of chalk out of the wall of the
room, and carefully wrapped up these relics.
(/.
Among Dements
121
Scherr, "Die Gekreuzigte, oder das Passionsspiel von
Wildisbuch," S. Gallen, 1860 [219].Precisely accord-
ing to the public documents preserved at Zurich.
Unfortunately the author has distorted his book by
blasphemous attacks on the Bible, especially the Old
Testament, and on the Christian religion).
Scherr has the audacity, reminding one of Daumer and Rohling, to
remark: "'Even in our days we have lived to find a pietist,
emulous of Abraham and Jephthah, slaughtering his five
children as a sacrifice to the El-Schaddai : Georg Hiller at Ober-
jettingen, in Suabia, in March,
1844."
Prof. Eb. Nestle,
now at Maulbronn, has at my request read through the news-
paper reports : "No mention of religious motives, either in the
first conjectures or in the professional opinion of the medical
faculty, nor in the proceedings at Court.
Schwaebischer
Merkur, 1844, 10th March: 'Great poverty and drunkenness
are supposed to have been the causes.'
11th March: 'probably

in desperation owing to financial ruin and disaster.'
11th
November : consigned to Tiibingen for observation by the
medical faculty. 1845 19th June, a short report, 23rd June, a
detailed report
(6
columns) about the judicial proceedings.
Speech of the public prosecutor : death penalty because of
wilful murder : speech of defending counsel : emotional man-
slaughter : lessened responsibility owing to passing emotional
disturbances : verdict of 18 years' imprisonment for man-
slaug-hter. Accordins: to the rea.sons for this decision some
of the judges were for murder, others for emotional
manslaughter, some adopted full responsibility, othersthe
majoritydiminished responsibility. (The man had no more
money, sent for brandy and rolls of white bread for the
evening meal, and as the children went to sleep through it, he
used the occasion to free them by death from the misery of the
world. He had not determination enough to kill himself. I
found it nowhere mentioned in the Merkur that the man was
a pietist)."
"
The
'
heiligen Manner
'
(holy men) at Chemnitz,
in Saxony, whose society had been founded by a
religious enthusiast shoemaker called Voigt [carried
on their life in 1865] with truly Molochistical piety, by
persuading two mothers in the sect to slaughter their
sick children, because the same were
'
possessed of the
devil.'"
(/.
Scherr, "Deutsche Kultur-und Sitten-
geschichte,"^ L., 1879, 585).
"
Two sisters from Briancon, the one 45, the other
47 years old, were rich, and had no other occupation
but going to church. One morning the elder sister
informed the younger, God had appeared to her in a
dream, and had asked that she (the younger sister)
should sacrifice herself as a sign of love for him. The
other finds it all right, agrees to offer herself as a sacri-
fice to God, lets her hands and feet be cut off with a
razor, and dies crying: ' Jesus and Maria!' whilst the
sister collects her blood as a relic, then carefully
adorns the corpse, goes to the notary, to whom she
announces her dream and her sister's murder, and
deposits a will, by which all her papers of money-
value are to be burnt." (Loinbroso, II., 146 sq.)
"
A certain Kursin, a very pious man . . . killed
his seven-year-old boy, convinced he was offering up
a sacrifice pleasing to the Lord. . . .
'
The thought
that the whole of mankind must perish, had disturbed
me so that I could not sleep. I got up, lit all the lamps
before the eikon, and prayed God to save me and my
family. . . . Then the idea came to me to save my
finest and best son from eternal damnation.'
When brought to prison (after he had killed the child),
Kursin refused all nutriment, and died of starvation."
{Lomhroso, II., 152 sq.)
The awful crimes committed in the last centuries
of the middle ages, and yet later on even in the 17th
century, and connected with alchemy, magic, Satan-
ism ("black masses!") and sorcery of all kinds,
cannot be gone into here. Only one example: Gilles
de Rais, Marshal of France, a contemporary, and for
a time, a companion of Jeanne d'Arc, murdered about
200 children between 1432 and 1440 for purposes of
magic.
XIV. WHAT DOES THE JEWISH RELIGIOUS
LAW SAY ABOUT THE PAUTAKING OF BLOOD
AND THE UTILISATION OF PORTIONS OF
CORPSES?
A.
The Jews have always, and also since their
"dispersal among the people of the earth,'' been
strongly influenced by their environment (e.g. in
dress, food, language, etc.), likewise in the matter of
superstition.^*^ Superstitions, too, of Jewish origin
are not wanting. t For both reasons it is not permis-
sible to assert a priori, that such views and customs as
*
M. Lichbamki,
"
Jiidische Sagen aus Russlaud u. Polen," in Urds-
Bninnen IV., 55-61, is also of the opinion that the Jews had taken
over with the German language several of the German popular be-
liefs.
t
Cf. D. Joil,
"
Der Aberglaube und die Stellung des Judentums zu
demselben," 2 parts, Breslau 1881 (116). 1883
(65);
M. Gildemann,
"Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der abendlandi-
schen Juden wahrend des Mittelalters and der ueueren Zeit."
Vienna I.
(1880),
especially 212 sq. ; II.
(1884),
especially 219 sq.,
333 sq., 255 sq. ; III.
(1888),
especially 128 sq. ; G. Wolf, "Die
Juden" [part of the compilation, "Die Volker Oesterreich-
Ungarns"], 113 sq. ; (S'. liuhin, "Geschichte des Aberglaubens," L.
1888 (159. From the Hebrew). In the Tosephta (a very ancient
Halakhish work running parallel to the Mishna) in the Treatise on
the Sabbath, ch. 7, 8 (edition of Zuckermandel 117-9) several matters
of superstition are collected, in many cases with the remark that it
is heathen (belongs "to the ways of the Amorites"). //. Levy has
translated both chapters and explained them in the ZeiUchrift des
VereiuK
fur
Volkskiiude, 1893, 23-40, 130-43.Cf. also: G. Brecher,
"
Das Transcendentale, Magie und magische Heilarten im Talmud."
Vienna 1850 (233). /. Bergel,
"
Die Medizin der Talmudisten.
'
L. 1885
(88).
L. Blait,
"
Das altjiidische Zauberwesen," Budapesth
1898 (167). J . Hamhuryer,
"
Boser Blick
"
in the
"
Real-Encyclo-
padie fiir Bibel u. Talmud" II.
(1883),
117 sq.
we have learnt about in the first main portion of this
work never occur among Jews, because they are
impossible among them. Assuredly, however, not
only a Jew, but also an unbiassed Christian inquiring
into the matter may point out, that several precepts
of Judaism are bound to form a great obstacle at any
rate to the wide dissemination of the thoughts and
acts described or alluded to in the preceding chapters.
B. The most important of these precepts is the
prohibition
of
the consumption
of
blood and
of
meat with
blood in it, which several times occurs in the Pen-
tateuch.
Genesis ix. 4 : "But flesh, with the life thereof, which is the blood
thereof, shall ye not eat." Leviticus xvii. 10 : "And whatsoever
man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that
sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood
;
I will
even set my face against that soul that eateth of blood, and
will cut him off from among his people. 11: For the life of
the flesh is in the blood : and I have given it to you upon the
altar to make an atonement for your souls : for it is the blood
that maketh an atonement for the soul. 12: Therefore I said
unto the children of Israel : No soul of you shall eat blood,
neither shall any sti'anger that sojourneth among you eat blood.
13 : And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or
of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and
catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten
;
ye shall even
pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. 14 : For
it is the life of all flesh ; the blood of it is for the life thereof
:
therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the
blood of no manner of flesh : for the life of all flesh is the blood
thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off."Leviticus vii.
26 : "Moreover, ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be
of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. 27 : Whatsoever
soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall
be cut off from his people."Cf. Lev. iii. 17, xix. 26 ; Deut. xii.
16, 23, XV. 23, besides I. Samuel xiv. 32-4; Ezekiel xxiii. 25;
Acts XV. 29.
The first quotation gives at the same time an im-
portant reason why the Israelites must abstain from
partaking of blood. God has fixed
upon blood as the
means
of
atonement
;
therefore it must serve no other
aim.
Jewish Religious Law 125
C.
The later Jewish legislation goes even further
than the Old Testament. In the
"
Schulhan Arukh,"
written by Joseph Qaro (1488-1575), whose work in
combination with its acknowledged commentaries is
considered the chief authority in Jewish Law matters
for those who are either not in a position or have not
the time to refer back to the original authorities (Tal-
mud, the oldest decrees of the Law, etc.), we read in
"Jore De/a," LXV., 1: "There are veins, the con-
sumption of which is forbidden because of the blood
contained in them, e.g. the veins of the fore-arm, the
shoulder and the lower jaw." LXVL, 1 :
"
The blood
of cattle, of beasts of the field, and of birds, no matter
whether these animals be clean or not, must not be
partaken of." LXVL, 3 :
"
If a drop of blood is found
in an
Qgg,
the blood should be removed and the rest
eaten ; but only if the blood was in the white. If it
was, however, in the yolk, the whole egg is forbid-
den." The gloss of the Cracow Rabbi Moses Isserles
(ob.
1572/3),
which is held in equal esteem with the
text, especially among the East European Jews, re-
marks on this passage :
"
In these countries it is
customary to declare without distinction every egg
forbidden, in which there is a drop of blood."
LXVL, 9:
'*
Fish blood, although [because not forbid-
den in the Pentateuch] allowed of itself, must
nevertheless not be partaken of, if it has been collected
in a vessel, because it might be thought to be a differ-
ent kind of blood. It may, however, be consumed if
it is easily recognisable as fish blood, e.g. if there are
scales in it."
The watering and salting, that have to be carried
out in the case of meat intended for eating, for the
sake of thoroughly getting rid of the blood, are treated
of by e.g. Eleazar of Worms (beginning of 13th
century) in his work entitled "Roqeah," Ascher ben
Jehiel (ob.
1327) ; Jakob ben Ascher (ob. c. 1340) in
126
The Jew and Human
Sacrifice
"Arbaâ
Turim;
"
Joseph
Qaro;
Naphthali
Benedict
Sepher
B^rith
Melah,"
Prague, 1816 sq.
D.
The practice
of
the j^resent time,
corresponding
to the traditional Law, is related b}^
Ludw. Stern,
"
Die
Vorschriften der Thora,"
Frankfort a. M., 1882, 118:
"After
all forbidden
parts have been sejMrated from
the
animal, the flesh,
which is intended for
cooking,"^
must, before
the lapse
of
72 hours after
the butchering
of
the animal, be laid in a vessel
specially used for
the purpose for
half-an-hour
in water, so that it is
quite covered with water (''soaking in water").
Next, the meat is thoroughly washed in this water and
cleajised
of
blood sticking to it, then laid on a slanting
board also used
for
the purpose, or on a perforated
vessel, so that the water may run
off
properly (''water-
ing
off
"
). When that has been done, every piece is
singly sprinkled with fine-grained
salt so
abundantly
on all sides and in all crevices that it looks as
if
it
were covered with hoar-frost
("
salting
"
).The meat
remains lying with the salt
for
an hour, as after
the
watering
off
on the slanting board or on the perforated
vessel, so that the blood drawn out by the salt can
trickle down; then every piece is so abundantly
watered on all sides that all the salt is washed away
("moistening with water"). Only after
this treat-
ment may the flesh be cooked. . . .
If
the flesh
was frozen before
the treatment, or
if
it is frozen
during it, the whole treatment must be again per-
formed when the flesh has again been thawed.
4-
. . . [the liver which is rich in blood'], after
being
cleansed by thorough washing from
the blood attached
to it, must, sprinkled with some salt, be roasted directly
by the
fire,
but not lying on paper or on the leaves
of
plants; but on a spit, on a gridiron, or freely
on the
*
[The salting-out of blood is not needed in meat which is roasted, v.
"Jore De'â" LXXVI., 1, because the fire is held to suck up the
blood; about blood, which remains in the limbs, v. LXVII.,
1.]
Jewish Keligious Law 127
coals. It must remain at the fire
till the Mood has
been extracted and it is jêrfectly
well-cooked
for
immediate eating. After being taken away from
the
fire it must he thrice watered abundantly on all sides.
5. . . . In the case
of
the heart, milt, lungs,
head, feet
with claws, as well as birds, there are yet
especial prescrijjtions to be observed.
More detailed
instructions about it in . . . (the suq^flement to)
'Amirdfi Ibeth Ja'aqob,' by Rabbi S. B. Bamberger
[Snd edition, Fiirth,
1864].''
E. The prohibition of the consumption of blood,
according to its phrasing, certainly holds good only
of animal blood, or, more accurately, the blood of
warm-blooded animals (quadrupeds and birds). The
consumption of human blood is not expressly forbid-
den in the 0. T.
;
it does not follow, however, that it
was allowed. The lack of an express pronouncement
may be explained very simply, if the following is
taken into consideration. Firstly: It is altogether
beyond the imagination of Israelites as such to con-
ceive that anyone could have the idea of partaking of
human blood. Secondly: The Pentateuchical
Law forbids the partaking of animal blood
particularly because it ordains animal sacri-
fices; whilst human sacrifices are strictly
prohibited, v. Leviticus xviii., 21;
xx., 2 sq. ; Deuter-
onomy xii., 31.
In the whole of the literature con-
cerned with the Jewish religious law there is no pass-
age whence it could be concluded that the Jews are, or
were, permitted to eat human blood. Moses Maimo-
nides (1135-1204) writes in his great ritual code,
"Laws about forbidden foods," Ch. 6 (Venice,
1524, No. 361 b):
"
1.
Whoever eats blood to the
amount of an olive, if he does it intentionally, incurs
the punishment of extirpation ; if it happened unin-
tentionally, he brings the usual sin-offering. But the
guiltiness is only imputable in regard to the blood of
cattle, game, and birds, no matter whether they are
clean or unclean; v. Leviticus vii., 26; Deuteronomy
xiv., 5. But there is no guiltiness because of the
prohibition of blood* with the blood of fishes and
locusts and creeping and swarming animals or with
human blood. It is accordingly explicitly allowed to
eat the blood of clean fish, and also to drink it after it
has been collected in a vessel; but the partaking of
the blood of unclean fish and beasts is, like the milk
of unclean cattle, forbidden solely because it is a com-
ponent part of their bodies; the blood of reptiles, as
well as their flesh, is likewise forbidden [because those
animals are unclean].
2. Human blood is rabbini-

cally prohibited, w^hen it is separated from the body,
and the transgression is punished with disciplinary
scourging. Blood from the gums may be swallowed
[because it is still in the mouth, not separated from
the body]. But whoever has bitten into bread and
then finds blood on it, scrapes the blood of^ and only
eats the bread, because the blood was separated from
the body."Already in- the first unrevised edition of
the
"
Schulhan Arukh," Venice, 1565, it is stated,
"
Jore De^," Ixvi, 1, without mention of human blood
:
"
Blood of cattle, game and birds, be they clean or
unclean, is forbidden, likewise the blood of a foetus;
but the blood of fishes and locusts is allowed.' Cf.
again ibid.
10 :
"
Human blood when separated from
the body, is forbidden on account of its appearance
[because it might be regarded as Biblically-forbidden
animal blood]. Therefore, whoever eats bread must
scrape off the blood which has perhaps come on the
* [Because the Bible, when forbidding the eating of blood, does not
expressly mention these two kinds of blood. The Mishna,
"Bikkurim" ii, 7, states on similar lines : The blood of human beings
and the blood of creeping animals are in so far alike, that their con-
sumption is not visited with the penalty of extirpation.]
bread from his gums ; if, however, it is still between
his teeth, he may swallow it."
"
Talmud, Makkoth," 16 b: "Rab Bibi bar Abaje
has said : Whoever drinks from the horn of an
'
Ader-
lasser ' (a kind of cupping-glass) transgresses the pro-
hibition in Leviticus xx.,
25."
It is true that in circumcision the Mohel sucks the blood from the
wound (usually with the mouth ; during some years in Germany
also by means of a glass tube, in whose middle is sterilised
wadding) ; but that is only ordained with the object that the
wound may heal more easily, and because, according to the
"Talmud," the wound, if not sucked out, would be dangerous
to the child's life (Cf. "Sabbath," 133 b), and he immediately
spits out the blood, Cf. M, Baum, "Der theoretisch-praktische
Mohel," Frankfort a. M., 1884, 35 sq. ; Jakob Molln Ha-Levi,
"Minhagim," Cremona, 1558, No. 89 b.

According to the
"Zohar" to Leviticus xiv. and xix., the blood of the circum-
cision is preserved by God for the healing of the child (in case
it should be necessary), and in order that it may not be injured
by the female demon Lilith. Concerning the covering of the
blood of circumcision with earth Cf. Pirqe de Rabbi Eli'ezer 29
(in the notes to Josh, v., 2 sq., and Numb, xxiii. 10).
AII 'partaking
of
human hlood (because the swallow-
ing of a few drops of one's own blood, when the gums
are bleeding, cannot be taken into account) is accord-
ingly forbidden the Jews unconditionally hy their
religious law.
F. Yet another precept of the Jewish religious
law puts obstacles in the way of the superstitious
utilisation of other men's blood and altogether of all
parts of corpses, viz., the sentence:
"
Utilisation
of
a
dead person is prohibited,"
"
meth 'assur bah^na'a*^
"
(Talmud, "Aboda zara," 29 b). Maimonides,
"Laws about mourning," xiv. 21: "Utilisation of a
dead person is prohibited, with the exception of his
hair,* because this does not belong to his body."
Schulhan Arukh, Jore De'a 349, 1: "Utilisation of a
*
"Jore De'^d" 349, 2, says more precisely: The utilisation is only al-
lowed when it is false hair and when the deceased before death has
expressly determined, that son or daughter should get it.
dead person, be he
'
Goj
'
(non-Jew*) or Israelite, is
prohibited." Cf., too, Talmud, "Arakhin" 7ab,
"Sanhedrin" 47 b. sq., "Hullin" 122a, "Nidda"
55a; Salomo ben Adreth (Rabbi at Barcelona, ob.
1310), "Legal Opinions," No. STS.f
On this are
based the following ordinances referring to burial
(after J. Rabbinowicz,
"
Der Totenkultus bei den
Juden," Frankfort a. M., 1889, 21-3): "No employ-
ment must be made either of the corpse itself or of its
clothes. . . . The clothes must be intended for
the deceased, and have already come in contact with
him. ... In this case the objects in question, if
for any cause whatever they have failed in their pur-
pose, must be buried or burnt. If, however, they had
not yet come into any contact with the deceased, they
may assuredly be used for something else, but . . .
not just as they now are . . . but the coffin must
be knocked to pieces and the clothes must be torn
asunder. . . . Even if anyone had testified in his
will that his hair shall be used after death and for a
certain purpose, it is not permitted to derive benefit
from it. But if he wore false hair, it may be utilised
*
The famous Jakob Emden, in the collection of technical opinions,
"She'ilath Ja'be9," I., No.
70b
gq. (Altona 1739) forbids a Jewish
doctor the dissecting of corpses, and declares all prohibitions of utili-
sation expressly as also holding good of the corpses of non-Jews
(Cf. D. Hoffmann, "Der Schulchan-Aruch2," Be. 1894, 83 sq.). Even
now orthodox Jews are averse from the dissection of corpses, and
allow it only in consideration of the saving of human life possibilised
thereby.

Respecting dissection of corpses in Talmudic times, v.
"
Bekhoroth
"
A^^, and /. Hamburger,
"
Real-Encyclopadie fiir
Bibel und Talmud" II. (Strelitz 1883)', 685-7.
t
On the Talmud treatise "Ta'anith" ("fasting")
15b:
"They scat-
tered ashes on the holy ark," the commentary
"
Tosaphoth
"
(12th
and 13th century) says :
"
These ashes were of human bones; because
these ashes were to recall the "Âqeda [binding of Isaac and the fol-
lowing sacrifice by Abraham, Genesis XXII.], in which instance also
bones were burnt." According to this passage parts of corpses were
even used ritually. But there were no ashes of human bones among
the Jews, since corpses were not allowed to be burnt ! The text is
corrupt"; the word ""âdam" ("men") must be struck out.
after his death, if he permitted it during life-time.
. . . A murdered person, and a woman who has
died in child-bed, to whose clothes blood adheres, are
in several places not washed before burial, also they
are not undressed, but the burial costumes are drawn
over their clothes. . . . All blood they have lost
since passing away, as well as all articles of clothing,
utensils, parts of the bed and suchlike, to which any
of this blood sticks, are laid in the grave with the
body. . . . Everything that has been cut from or
has fallen from the dead is consigned with him to the
grave."*Much that is relevant here also occurs in
/. Ch. Korn,
"
Der Talmud vor Gericht," Part I.,
Vienna, 1884
(46).
G.
Finally, the fact may be also alluded to that
the corpse and all parts of the corpse make unclean,
according to Jewish religious law, Cf. Numbers xix.
;
Mishna treatise "Ohal6th"t; Maimonides, "Laws
about defiling by a dead person (Tum'ath meth)."
The want of the means of purification, ac-
cording to the Law (ashes of a red cow),
has caused several alterations in the practice. But
even now the numerous Kohanim, i.e., the men who,
by tradition, belong to the priestly caste, must avoid
all pollution through corpses, so that they may not
even be in the same house together with corpses.
Cf. Landshuth, "Seder biqqur holim ma'âbar Jabboq w'^sepher ha-
hajjim" ("Prayer and devotion-book for the use of invalids, dying
persons, and at burials
"
(Be. 1867 XXXVI. sq. ; Schulhan "Ârukh,
Jore De'â, 364, 3.4 with the commentaries.
-j- .S'. Jerome, Epistle 109 to Riparius : "Samaritanum et Judaeum, qui
corpora mortuorum pro immundis habent et etiam vasa quae in
eadem dome fuerint pollui suspicantur
"
(Opera ed, Vallarsi 1., 719).
XY. POPULAR THERAPEUTICS AND BLOOD-
SUPERSTITION WITHIN THE JEWISH
PEOPLE
A . In Judaism the opinion prevailed :
"
At the
head of all diseases stand I, the blood [out of the
blood come most diseases]*; at the head of all
remedies stand I, the wine,"
"
Talmud Baba bathra,"
58 b. Thence it is declared in "Sabbath," 41 a: "It
has been taught : If any one has eaten and not drunk,
his eating is blood, 'âkilatho dam
'
[ie., he is consum-
ing his vital power, he is becoming emaciated], and
that is the beginning of indigestion; if anyone has
eaten and not walked four ells, his eating causes
putrefaction, and that is the beginning of bad smell."
The Jew has naturally a disgust for partaking of
blood, as is clearly stated in
"
Makkoth
"
23 b :
"
Rabbi
Simeon bar Rabbi said: It is written (Deuteronomy
xii.
23),
'But take heed that thou eatest not blood,
for the blood is the soul,' etc. If, then, man, whose
soul loathes blood, receives reward because he
abstains from blood, how much must it be counted to
him for a merit if he abstains from robbery and for-
bidden carnal intercourse, on which, nevertheless, his
lust is set !
"
Cf. also
"
Siphre," No. 76, on Deutero-
*
The British Museum Greek papyrus, 137, says of the pre-Aristotelian
doctor, Thrasymachus of Sardes, that he regarded the blood as the
cause of all illnesses. It is the teaching of Galen about the plethora,
which doctrine was also the cause of the excessive use of blood-
letting in the East, Cf. /. Bauer,
"
Geschichte der Aderlasse,"
Munich 1870
(230). ,..,
Popular Therapeutics 133
nomy xii. 23 (Friedmann's Edit., No. 90 b).These
views and the contents of Ch. 14 justify the assump-
tion that only rarely, at least considerably more rarely
than heathens or Christians, have Jews used, or do they
use, blood for
therapeutical or
for
magical purposes. The
assumption is confirmed by the consistency of tradi-
tion.
B. Antiquity. Except what follows, it would be
hard to find anything requiring elucidation in the
whole Talmudic literature. Several points here
brought forward are neither superstitious nor loath-
some, but simply component parts of an all-compre-
hensive
"
popular medicine
"
;
they should, however,
be mentioned here, so that they may not appear to
have passed unnoticed (e.g., the consumption of
animal milt). Of what an altogether different species
are the
"
Hauss-Apothec," the "Dreck-Apotheke,"
and what may be read in the Ebers papyrus, in Pliny,
etc. (v. Ch.
1)
!
1. Animal blood. For the eye-disease "Bar-
qith," the eye is smeared with woodcock's blood, for
"
Jarod
"
with bat's blood (Cf.
p. 57, 1. 3).
"
Sabbath,"
7S a.
"Against one-sided headache take a woodcock,

butcher it with a silver
'
Zuz
'
(a coin) above the side
on which the head aches, so that the blood flows on
that side; care, however, must be taken that the eye
is not blinded (by blood flowing in). Next hang the
woodcock at the door in such a way that the patient
rubs against it on entering and on going out,"
"
Gittin," 68 b. For the cure of jaundice it is recom-
mended in
"
Sabbath," 110 b. etc., that the blood of a
very young donkey should be let run over a place
shaven clean on the centre of the patient's head, but
so that the blood may not flow into the eye. "Hullin,"
28 a supr., 85 b fin. : Bird's blood as a means for dis-
persing moth
("
janiba,") which have got into the flax.
Palestinian Talmud Ma'aser sheni V., fol. 56 b. Rab,
whose flax had turned out a failure, asked Hijja the
Great, whether a bird might be killed, and its blood
mixed with the flax-seed (to better its growth). (The
consideration was that then the command to cover up
blood would not be fulfilled).
Whoever smears himself with salamander's
blood, is, according to "Hagiga," 27 a, immune
against fire. Ahas wanted to sacrifice to Moloch also
his son Hiskia; but Hiskia's mother had smeared her
son with salamander blood, v. "Sanhedrin," 63 b.
Together with the name of
"
Salamandra," the Jews
also took over from the Greeks their wondrous notions
about the idiosyncrasies of that creature.
2. Parts and refuse of animals. For nyctalopia, eating roasted
animal-milt is among, other things, thought a remedy,
"Gittin," 69 a. Mar Samuel is of opinion that after a blood-
letting milt-food is strengthening, "Sabbath," 129 a. A
Mishna teacher, who had been in Rome, advises for hydro-
phobia that one should eat a lobe of the mad dog's liver,
"Joma," 84 a
*

"Sabbath," 109 b sq. : "If anyone is bitten
by a snake, let the foetus of a white jenny-ass be taken and
divided, and let the bitten person sit on it. An official in
Pumbeditha was bitten by a snake. Now, there were ten
white jenny-asses on the spot. They were slit open one after
the other; but they were all found to be f^repha^ (i-e., afflicted
with an injury of the womb)."
"Kethubboth," 50 a. : Abaje
heard from his mother that should a boy of six be stung by a
scorpion, one should dip the gall of a white kite in
beer (schikhra), and make the boy drink it.
"Sabbath," 67^:
For tertian fever, collect several [counted singly] objects in the
number of seven of each, among them also seven threads from
an old dog's beard, and bind all to the neck with 'nira barqa
(white thread? tuft of hair?). "Gittin,"
69b:
For the disease
of "Karsam," touch a white dog's excrement with balsam. But,
if possible (i.e., if one has another remedy, or if the malady is
endurable), the excrement should not be eaten.
"Sabbath,"
67a
: Whoever has a bone stuck in his throat should take a bone
* M. Sachs, "Beitrage zur Sprach-und Alterthumsforschung," I. (L.
1852), 49, compares here Aelian, "De Natura Animalium" XIV.
20, and [Pseudo-3 Dioskorides
"
Ue/ji fwropio-rwi/ KâpfLaKtav"!!., c. 113
Cf. also Galen,
"
Hcpi ruiv dirXoiv
4>apfjLa.Kiov
"
k.t.X. xi., 10 (ed. Kiihn
xii.,
p. 335). The same remedy also found among the aborigines of
the present day, e.g., the Haussas, v. Zeitschr.
fur
Ethnologic 1896,
Verhandlungen,
p.
31.
Popular
Therapeutics
135
of the same kind, lay it on the crown of his head, and say:
"One, one, go down, be swallowed, be swallowed, go down, one,
one."
3. Parts of corpses. Among a series of popular
remedies for diseases of the spleen* (e.g., take the
spleen of a she-goat which has not yet had young,
stick it to an oven, stand opposite, and say: Even as
this spleen shrivels up, so let the spleen of N, the son
of N, diminish) occurs also the following,
"
Gittin,"
69b
:
"
Or look for a dead man, who died on a Sabbath,
lay his hand on the sick spleen and speak :
Even as
this hand shrinks, so may the spleen of N, son of N,
diminish." Cf. supr., Ch. 8 D.
4. Executed persons. According to the
Mishna "Sabbath," vi., 10, the hope of being cured
induced many people to carry about with them a
locust's egg [against pains in the hips] or a fox's tooth
[if from a living fox, for facilitating waking up ;
if
from a dead one, for insomnia] or a nail from the
"Club" (cross, gallows) [for fever]. Cf. supr.
p.
76.
Besides, Cf.
"
Sabbath," 134 a: A new-born child, that
will not cry, should be smeared with the after-birth
belonging to it." Sabbath,"
109^:
R. Hanina said:
If you take 40 days' urine, 1/32
of a log (taken
inwardly?) helps against hornet's sting; 1/4
against
scorpions' ; 1/2
against the harmful effect of water
which has stood uncovered; 1/1
even against sorcery.
Palest.
"
Sabbath," xiv., fol. 14^ line
3,
mentions a
child's dry ordure as an ingredient of a medicament
against the mouth disease "Caphdina"
(scurvy?).
5. So far
as I see, human blood is only mentioned
"
Sabbath," 75 b,
fin.
:
"
Some say menstrnation blood
should be kept
for
the cat; others it should not be
kept, because it is weakening." The blood is here
regarded not as a means
of
cure or magic, but simply
as a tit-bit. Moreover, Rashi remarks on the pas-
*
Cf. on the point, Pliny,
"
Nat. Hist." xxx., 6,
1. 17
!
sage :
"
Whoever gives such blood to a cat gets ill.''
//
it is true what Dio Cassius Ixviii. 32 relates about
the war against Trajan (115-7 a.d./ the question
does not turn wpon a superstition, but only upon a
reaction against the most outrageous maltreatment,
though certainly a reaction
of
the grossest barbarity.
The Jews are said to have killed 220,000 persons in
Cyrene, to have sawn their enemies asunder
^
besmeared themselves with their blood, and eaten
of
their flesh.
The following fact characteristically proves that
the statements here gathered together have not the
remotest connection with the Jewish religion. The
blood of the sacrificed animals which ran from the
altar of burnt offering through a subterranean pipe to
the valley of Cedron at the time of the Second Temple
was sold to gardeners for manuring, v. Mishna,
"Joma" (day of atonement) V. 6;
Talmud, "Pesa-
chim
"
(Easter Festival) 22a.
C.
Middle Ages. In
"
Sha'are Cedeq," a collec-
tion of legal professional reports of the Geonim=^ (Sal-
onichi, 1799, No. 22 b), we read, Book L, Ch. 5., 10:
"
The Jews in Babylon circumcise over water and wet
their faces with the water; the Jews in Palestine cir-
cumcise over earth, v. Zachariah ix.,
11."
11 :
"
Rab
Kohen Cedeq: As regards your questions about the
child's circumcision over land and water, there is no
manner of prohibition, which wôuld justify us
ordering you to alter your practice. But we are used
to boiled water, in which are myrtle and perfumes,
which are pleasantly fragrant, and circumcise the
child over the water, so that the blood of circumcision
falls into the water, and all our young men wash
Thus are called the most prominent of the authorities in the sphere
of traditional Jewish religious law, who lived at Sura and Pumbe-
ditha in Babylonia from the 7th century till the year 1040.
themselves therewith in remembrance of the blood of
the covenant that exists between God and our father
Abraham." M. Brilck makes a mistake when he says
in his
"
Pharisaische Volksitten und Ritualien,"
Frankfort a M., 1840, 25, that the Babylonians "held
the blood of circumcision holy;" also Gaon's answer
does not contain the statement of purpose advanced
by Briick
" but in order that the public may be eager

to snatch at this blood-water." Cf. also Jakob hen
Ashers
"
Tur Jore^^ Deâ^, 265, and /. Miiller,
"
Hil-
luph Minhagim," Vienna, 1878, No. 17. This custom
is no longer referred to in the
"
Schulhan Arukh."
In the "Buck der Frommen," by Jehuda ben Samuel the
Pious, who lived c. 1200 in Regensburg, the following
sto7'y is told to establish the conception that parents
and children constitute a single body also from a
physical point
of
view (Bologna, 1538, \232
; Be.,
1891, sq.,
^291):
A rich 7)ian travelled with his
servant over the sea, and took a large sum
of
money
with him. Soon after he died in foreign parts.
Thereupon the servant seized upon all the treasure,
making himself out to be the son. But a short time
after her husband' s departure his pregnant
wife,
who
remained behind, had borne a son. When this son
grew up, he went to the Gaon Saadja \in Sura; flor.
892-942]. The Gaon advised him to go to the king.
The king commissioned Saadja to decide the matter.
Saadja bled both, and then laid a bone, taken from
the father's grave, in the servant's blood; still the
bone did not suck the blood up. This, however,
actually happened when the bone was laid in the
other's blood, because they were one body. So Saadja
gave the son the fortune
*
*
Cf. Geo. AI. Kohut, "Blood test as proof of kinship in Jewish folk-
lore," in Journal
of
Amer. Orient. Society, vol. xxiv.
(1903), p.
129-
44.
"Bahrrecht" (ordeal
of
the bier)
(Cf. p. 49)-
''Buck
der Frommen," Bologna,
\1143
:
"
When the
murderer approaches the corpse
of
the
murdered man the wound begins to bleed,
so that the murderer may be brought to justice;
but this occurs also when anyone who has eaten bread
dipped in soup, and then eaten no dry bread,
approaches the corpse. Therefore murderers, after
committing the crime, are wont to eat dry bread!'
Rudimentary element of the building-offering

(r).p. SI sq.). Jehuda the Pious says in his
"
Testa-
ment," 27;
"
Where a house has never stood, there
let none be built. Should it, however, come to pass, the
house should remain uninhabited
for
one year.'' He
probably considered the empty spot to be the happy
hunting-ground
of
demons (Isai. xiii.
21).
For
that reason timid Israelites, even in the first half
of
the 19th century,
"
iuhen they reared up a house in
such a place, quartered in it a cock and a hen befoi'e
they installed themselves there, and then had them
killed. These propitiatory sacrifices were intended to
avert the peril menacing the new inhabitants
of
the
male and female sex," Urquell, 1894, 158.
F. Gregorovius,
"
Geschichte der Stadt Rom im
Mittelalter," vii. (Stuttgart, 1870), 306 sq., relates
about the death of Pope Innocent VIII. (July, 1492)
:
"
Surrounded by his greedy nephews, Innocent VIII.
lay meanwhile dying in the Vatican. He was barely
able to take any other nourishment than woman's
milk. If the fine picture of the departing Medici,
whom his doctor tried in vain to save by a potion of
dissolved pearls, resembles a significant fable of the
value of riches, by what name indeed should the scene
be called, which is said to have been played at the
death-bed of a Pope ? His Jewish
physician-in-ordin-
ary lit upon the idea of instilling the life-blood of boys
into the dying man ; three boys of ten submitted to it
for money, and they died victims of this criminal
experiment. The dying man, it is true, did not give
his consent; he thrust the doctor from him"*
Assuming (not yet admitting) that the Pope really
hesitated to accept the medicine offered him at the
last, it is abundantly demonstrated as a conclusion
from the first part of this work that the Jewish doctor
did not advise such remedy as a Jew, but as a doctor
living in the illusions of his period.
D. Modern Times. A great mass of varied
material that properly belongs here is afforded by the
numerous Avritings called "Book of Medicine"
(Sepher r^phu'oth or Sepher r^phu'a*") or "Book of
secret cures" (Sepher s^gull6th),j which, partially
belonging already to the Middle Ages in their
material, even now stand in high esteem with those
Jews, especially the Polish, who are little or not at all
affected by modern culture. Before me lie four books,
to which I limit myself, since they were even
reprinted a few years ago, and we are here especially
concerned with the relations that exist even now
between Jews and superstition. 1. "Sepher
ToPdoth Adam," by Elia Baâl Shem, firstly at Wil-
hermsdorf, 1734; in an undated new impression,
names the same place of printing. 2.
"
Sepher
R^phu'oth," Kolomea, 1880, 18a-24a, secret remedies
from David Salomo Eybeschiltz' s
"
Lbushe ^rad." 3.
"Sepher Z^hira^," by Sacharja Plungian, Hamburg,
1709, and often in the Warsaw edit., 1875. 4.
"
Judaeus quidem fugit, et Papa oon sanatus est. The blood-monij
was a ducat for each poor child. No wonder that the fable of the
Passover blood persisted. Infessura and Raynaldus n. xxi. The
Florentine Valori, however, gives no information of the kind."
[Also Burkhard's diary has here a hiatus, as Gregorovius mentiona

in another place: The Manuscript in the Chigiana stops at the 14th
July, 1492, and then begins the Pontificate of Alexander VI. with
his elevation to the throne.]
^ J. A. Benjacoh, "09ar-ha-sepharim," Wilna 1880, p.
407 sq
;
548-
50 gives a fairly copious, but yet incomplete list.
"
Sepher Miphâloth 'Elohim," by the Kabbalists, Joel
Ba'al Shem and
Naphtali ben Isaak Kohen, and the
physician Simha, Zolkiew
(?),
1810;
Sklow, 1821;
according to the Lemberg edition, 1872 (128).*
Some samples. Tholedoth Adam prescribes for
jaundice: "Let the patient take a yellow turnip,
make watert into it, and hang it in the chimney,"
and
"
Let goose-dung be put in wine, and let the
patient drink without knowing about it." Against
fever: "Take some of the patient's urine, add milk
and bread to it, and give it to a dog to eat." Against
fever and other illnesses: "Let the patient bury a
small mug of his water under an elder-tree, and say
thrice: 'Consumption, jaundice, vomiting-illness,
siebenundsiebzisêrleij
("seventy-seven kinds of")
illness; it is better I bury you than you me.'
"
To
stop the bleeding of the circumcision wound :
"
Take
warm pig's dung, and lay it on the child's belly."
To stop menstrual bleeding :
"
Pulverise a ruby, and
drink it in water or wine." One's own blood helps
against bleeding
:
"
Boil the circumcision blood or
blood from the nose till it becomes a dry mass, and
sprinkle this on the circumcision wound or the
nose;" or: "Write on the nose or the forehead with
the still fluid nose-blood :
'
tib bHib p^nim b^dam,'
or *zeto' (iiOT)
=
Gk.
^
^^Vai*
'
let him live.'
"
Quite
*
Similar writings have been utilised by A. Grunwald, ''Aus Haus-
apotheke und Hexenktiche," in
Mittheihingen der Geselhchaft fiir
judische Volkskvnde, 1900, 1-87, and 1907, 118-45, (chiefly manu-
script, in Hamburg and in Vienna).!/.
Ginshnrger,
"
Jiidische
Volksmedizin im Elsass," ibid. 1907, 1-10, mentions a volume writ-
ten in Alsace in 1777 by Joseph Lehmann, with recipes and pre-
scriptions
("Segulloth
u-rephu'oth"), whose contents are said to be
very similar to those in
"
Albertus Magnus
"
'
[v. supr.
p.
21]
+ J^liny, Nat. Hist, xxviii., 6, 18 ;
Bergel, "Medizin der
Talmudisten,"
63 ;
Strackerjan II., 115;
Wnttke'^ 182, 338, 477, 493 sq., 500, 505,
530 sq., 541 ; Frischhier 58 ;
"
Melusine," III., 278 (Vosges).
+
For the number
"77"
cf. the proverbs in
Frischhier 54.
In the Palest. Talmud "Berakhoth" vi., fol.

10<i
:
"If anybody
sneezes at a meal, one must not cry out to him
"tar" "
(;i7^[t]
" (live!
=
be healthy!) because otherwise he might swallow the wrong way
dangerously."
Popular Therapeutics
141
similar stuff in the Sepher RephuotK (e.g. 4a. 14b. sq.)
from which let also the following be taken. Extern-
ally applied: fox's blood and wôlf 's blood are good for
stone in the bladder; ram's blood for colic, weasel
blood for scrofula and podagra; wolf's blood in
deafness; pigeon's blood in eye-ache; dry raven's
blood, fresh hare's blood, and hare's gall in hemor-
rhoids. In excessive or improper bleeding let the
woman bake some of the blood in bread, and give it a
pig to eat. The coming-out of a tooth is effected by
the laying-on of the tooth of a corpse. For the plague
there is a tried and approved remedy 23a : lay the key
of the house in a dead Jew's hand. In order to be
protected from all evils, gird yourself with the rope
with which a criminal has been hung. No. 20a (Cf.
supr.
p.
47 sq.).
B. W. Schiffer
(fictitious name for "Segel!") "All-
tagglauben u. volktiimliche Heilkunde galizischer
Juden," Ur-Quell, 1893. Under the pillow of a person
seriously ill is put a cloth which has previously lain
on the grave of a pious person
(119).
If a woman
after her first child wishes to have a boy, the after-
birth should be given to a dog to devour ; if a girl, to
a bitch. "'An efficacious, but godless remedy,' an
old Jewish nurse remarked to me
"
[B. W. Sch.]
(187).
Washing with urine as a cure, rarely
(211).
For
epilepsy: Kill a cock and let it putrefy (273).5.
Benczer,
'
Jlid. Volksmedizin in Ostsfalizien," Ur-
Quell, 1893, 42, 120 sq. (no blood).J. Spinner, "Zur
Volkkunde galizischer Juden," ibid., 1893, 95 sq.
J. A. Charap, "Volksglaube galizischer Juden,"
ibid., 1894, 81 (No blood. Love magic: Hold an apple
about an hour under the right arm, and then give it
to the girl).5. TV. Segel, "Materyaly do etnografii
zydow wschodnio-galicyiskich," Cracow, 1893
(72).
Cf. Ur-Quell, 1894, 184.
For authentic proofs that these remedies are known to the people,
V. Urquell, 1894, 290 sq. (remedies for epilepsy and jaundice,
collected in London among Jewish emigrants from Russian
Poland : Urquell, 1898, 33 sq.

"In order to get children,
barren women drink water in which was boiled moss which had
been plucked at the ruins of the Temple wall. The Sephardim
[Spanish Jews] prepare a remedy from the powder of bones
which are found beneath the sand of the desert. These bones
are mostly connected with the pilgrims for whom the eimoon
has i-eady a grave in the glowing desert-sand. The collected
bones are reduced to dust and sold to the apothecaries. The
powder is shaken up with mead, and it is given every now and
then to the patient, who has been washed beforehand and wrapt
in white linen." Urquell, 1894, 225 (after Moses Reischer,
"Schcare Jerushalajim," Lemberg, 1875).
So far as regards the use of human blood, the su-
perstitious Jew uses only his own blood, and particu-
larly indeed for the stopping of bleeding.Apart
from this only menstrual blood (of. supr.
p.
51 sq.) is
mentioned, and that too quite seldom. Against fire,
"
Sepher Zekhira," 130: Let a garment stained with
such blood be hung at the fire on a long rod. Let the
sufferer from quartan fever put on such a garment,
"
Sepher Rephuoth," No. 17 b. In order to be invisible,
put water melons first in such blood, then in the
earth; after the new fruits have ripened, one of them
will make him invisible who carries it about with
him, ibid. 23 b.* For podagra the smearing of the
menstrual blood of a woman who has borne for the
first time is a help. Tholedoth Adam, 96, and
Miphâloth Elohim, 96. If a midwife is visited by a
menstruating woman, the child gets leprosy on the
head and face. Cure for it : Bathe the child with the
stained shift, Ur-Quell, 1893, 171 [v. sup.
p.
141, line
19].
Otherwise as far as I perceive, in superstition among
Jews blood is never mentioned as a cure for leprosy
(cf. supr.
p.
62 sq.).Also, as far as my knowledge
goes, there is nowhere the point, that animal blood or
even human blood, in particular the blood of another
*Cf. Jr^/te,2 482 sq.
man, should be drunk or swallowed dry for supersti-
tious purposes.
Corpses as
'
pain-removers ' (Cf. Ch. 8) : In the
"Hatham Sopher
"
of the Pressburg Rabbi, Moses
Sopher (1762-1839) is a technical decision on the fol-
lowing quer}^ put from West Hungary : A man of the
family of the Aaronides, who must not touch a corpse
[Cf. supr. Ch. 14 G], suffers severely from epilepsy.
May he, to cure himself, take a dead man's hand and
say: "Take this evil from me; you it will not hurt,
and me you will benefit thereby?" (L. Mandl, Ur-Quell,
1895, 37). Cf. supr. Ch. 8 D.When about three
decades ago many Israelite children were carried off
by an epidemic in a small West Plungarian town, an
old man put a padlock [cf. sup.
p. 68]
into the grave of
a child just buried, threw the key away and spoke
:
"
With you shall everything evil be shut up." L.
Mandl, Ur-Quell, 1895, 37.
Cassel 34 says that "even recently Jewish bridal pairs in Silesia
mingled blood from their fingers at the wedding." Nothing
is known about it by the Christians and Jews I have asked
;
also in books nothing was to be found. If the statement is
correct, the custom may be explained according to Ch. 3.
E. The attentive reader will admit that a con-
siderable amount of the practices here alluded to are of
non-Jewish origin. The reference appearing in but
few passages to something specifically Jewish is obvi-
ously not aboriginal, as in the
"
Sepher Rephuoth," 19
a b :
"
In order to stop an enemy's tongue, take wax of
an Atonement Day candle, put a spider into it, then
stick it in your mouth and speak,
'
As the spider en-
dures in the wax, so may all enemies, who do evil, be
in my hand and power, that I may be able to do them
evil, but not they me.'
"
Quite as little, of course, do
the concluding words,
"
In the name of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Ghost ! Amen
"
(e.g. supr.
p. 57),
used in many magic formulas,
"
sympathetic,"
and other superstitious attempts to cure by supersti-
tious Christians, prove any connection between these
superstitious forms and the Christian religion. The
other popular-medical and purely superstitious
ideas, which are propounded in the Jewish medical
and secret-cure books, are, as is established in the
first part of this work, common to the whole of man-
kind. Also the fact that there is but little of the kind
to be discovered in the Talmuds, which are yet so
comprehensive, corroborates the assumption that
much was introduced later from non-Jewish circles.
F.
Relying on the Bernstein case, which was
much discussed in February and March, 1889, not a
few papers at the time accused the Jews of ritual
employment of blood. H. Des'portes, 244-8, and many
others repeated this charge in 1890.
A Jewish
candidate for a Rabbiship, Max B., of Breslau, was on
21 February, 1889, condemned for doing deliberate
bodily harm, by making a slight scratch* on the skin
of the penis of Severin Hacke, a Christian boy, which
had caused a few drops of blood to flow. The circum-
stance that B. had immediately soaked up the blood
in two bits of blotting paper was from the start con-
vincing proof to me that the
"
Christian blood
"
was
not intended to serve any of the objects commanded
or even allowed by Jewish religion, that it was much
rather a case of "blood-superstition." This convic-
tion was brilliantly confirmed by the official
publication about the case. The Vierteljahrsschrift
fiir
gerichtliche Medizin, 1891, 207-35, published in
regard to the B. case the supreme decision of the
Royal Scientific Committee for the medical profes-
sion of 5 Nov., 1890. An autobiography of B. himself,
printed there, states that B., tortured by pangs of
conscience, owing to non-fulfilment of the ceremonial
The accusation, which has been several times made, that there was
"
repeated tapping of blood," is untrue.
law, tried beforehand, in the case of two Jewish boys,
to replace by a quite similar scratch the circumcision
which had not been at all, or had been unlawfully
carried out in their regard, in order to announce to
God his repentance by such voluntary action. It then
goes on further
(220 sq.) :
"
The performance of the acts
of repentance lightened my spirits, but did not quite
content me, so I made up my mind to free myself
from sin. Now since, according to the Biblical doc-
trine, the soul is contained in men's blood, and since
my sin-burdened soul could only be atoned for by an
innocent one, I had to get blood I could use from a
human being who was without sin. Then as I knew
the boy H. was suitable, as his soul was sinless, I re-
solved to procure m^^self blood from him, and I dealt
with H. as a few months before with the two others,
but carrying out the circumcision on this occasion
without intending to complete it, as it was useless to
a Christian boy. It is possible those first two actions
in my search for freedom from sin guided me. I kept
the blood I got on a sheet of blotting paper, and
shortly undertook my atonement with it. After it
had itself become sinful by taking on itself my sins, I
buried it in a cemetery, as it could not remain in the
vicinity of men." (Cf. Leviticus xvi., 21 : The high
priest on Atonement Day lays the sins of the people
of Israel on the goat, which is then to be driven into
the wilderness). The Royal Scientific Committee for
the Medical Profession did not investigate the connec-
tion of the superstition appearing in B. with other
ancient forms of superstition, none of which have any
specifically Jewish stamp, and therefore they did not
use the general key to the explanation of B.'s method
or action. On the other hand they, or rather the
report agreed to by them, of the judicial expert, Pro-
fessor Dr. Lesser, of Breslau, who was first consulted,
gives an answer to the question whether such a
superstition in a man of B.'s education was reconcil-
able with mental equilibrium. P. 210 :
"
Not merely
the mother's, but also the father's relatives were not
intact in regard to the central nervous system; no
fcAver than seven of B.'s relatives, some on the
mother's, some on the father's side, had died mad or
were still alive in a condition of insanity. The
deputation came to the conclusion (234 sq.l based
upon personal observation of B. in the Charite
Hospital at Berlin :
"
(1 ^
that B. is diseased in mind,
and suffers from religious madness, Paranoia
chronica religiosa
; (2)
that he committed the deeds of
bodil}^ injury he was charged with, in a state of
morbid disturbance of his mental activity, by which
his free decision of will wâs excluded."Thus the
"Bernstein case
"
must be judged just like the occur-
rences described in Ch.
13.*
I do not think it impossible that some medical superstition had also
something to do with B.'s action. The consulted medical expertSj,
as far as I know, did not go farther into this question.
XVI. IS THE USE OF CHRISTIAN BLOOD
REQUIRED OR ALLOWED FOR ANY RITE
WHATEVER OF THE JEWISH RELIGION?
That the question whether the use of the blood
of a non-Jew, particularly the use of Christian blood,
is requisite or allowed, perhaps for the preparation of
the Easter loaves (Mazzoth) or for the Easter wine
that this question is to be answered in the negative,

is already sufficiently obvious from the collective
whole of the previous researches. Yet I think I should
adduce some further reasons for the negation.
If the use of Christian blood were commanded, or
even only allowed, there would be bound to be pass-
ages referring to it in the Halakhish literature of the
Jews, w^hich is positively colossal in its comprehen-
siveness, and enters into every detail of both religious
and domestic life. But neither the zeal of the experts
among the controversialists of Christian faith nor the
hate-sharpened penetration of those proselytes, who
wished to show their reliance on the new religion by
fanatical enmity towards the Jews, has been able to
extract anything out of all those writings which could
in the lease serve for corroboration of the notion. It
is also not to be expected that such passages shall yet
be discovered in MSS. of the Talmud and the other
ancient Jewish literary productions; the learned
Spanish Dominican, Raimundus Martin (second half
of the 13th century), whose "Pugio fidei adversus
Mauros et Judaeos
"
has taken all its numerous quo-
tations from Talmud and Midrash MSS., knows
absolutely nothing of the charge here in question.
There is also absolutely nothing to be found in the
collections of the passages struck out by the cenor-
ship in the later editions of the Talmud and in the big
collection of variants, "Diqduqe Soph^rim," by R.
Rabbinowicz, that could afford any sort of corrobora-
tion of the
"
blood-charge."
B. Those proselytes, who have given voice to
the accusation in question against Judaism, have been
throughout both malignant and ignorant enemies of
the Jews, on whose statements, as no proofs are
afforded, no weight can be laid, e.g. : Samuel Friederich
Brenz, author of
"
Jiidischer abgestreiffter Schlangen-
Balg," Nuremberg, 1614 (again printed in /. Willfer's
"Theriaca Judaica ad examen revocata," ibid. 1681,
4), or Paul Christian Kirchner,^ author of
"
Jiidisches
Ceremoniel Frankfurt, 1720," or Paulus Meyer, whom
the Berlin Anti-Semites had hired to libel me in 1892,
and who then on account of his bookf "Wolfe in Schafs-
fell, Schafe in Wolfspelz! Enthiillungen iiber die
Judenmission und eine Abrechnung mit Professor
Strack. Alle Rechte vom Autor vorbehalten!
"
L.,
*
What sort of a fellow this Kirchner was, Joh . de le Hoi,
"
Die Evan-
gelischc Christenheit und die Juden
"
I.
(1884), 405, and S. J
Jugendres, the preparer of a second, improved edition of the "Cere-
moniel," Nuremberg, 1734, 150, have shown. The latter at the
same time gives the reason why Kirchner '"should have remained at
home with this accusation." That Kirchner deliberately uttei-ed
falsehood can be inferred from a letter of the learned Pastor Chr.
Theoph. Unger (ob. 1719) to Joh. Chr. Wolf (v. his
"
Bibl. Hebr."
III., 914):
"
Miror, qua fronte Kirchnerus talia scripserit. Nam
ipse mihi non rogatus, cum in sermones de Christianorum crimina-
tionibus, Judaeis imputatis, incideremus, coram adfirmavit sancte
disertis verbis : Judaeos quidem omnes et singulos esse Christianorum
hostes infensissimos
;
eo tamen ipsis injuriam fieri, quod a nonnullis
incusarentur, ac si Christianorum sanguinem ad certos usus adhi-
berent.
"
"Wolves in Sheep's Clothing. Sheep in Wolves' Clothing!
Revelations about the Jew mission and a reckoning with Professor
Strack. All rights reserved by the author
!"
Christian Blood 149
1893
(94),
was
condemned by the Royal Court of
Sessions at Leipsic, in November, 1894, to a year and
ten months'
imprisonment for
"
libellous insult."
About his
"
operations
"
in Vienna Cf. Ch. 18 for the
year 1893
(p.
224). As to the denial given by numer-
ous proselytes, v. Ch. 19, B.
C. About the middle of the 8th century, a.d.,
arose the sect of the Karaeans, of whom even now the
survivors, not very numerous indeed, dwell especially
in the Crimea, in Poland, and in Cairo. The Karaeans
are essentially, apart altogether from anything else,
differentiated from the other Jews, the so-called Eab-
banites, by the fact that they reject the Talmud, while
the latter acknowledge it. A violent enmity existed,
and still exists, between Rabbanites and Karaeans,
which has also found vent in numerous writings.
Now, no one has ever believed that the Karaeans use
Christian blood for the purposes of their ritual. If,
then, there were such a ritual amongthe Rabbanites it
wôuld be perfectly unintelligible that this difference
is nowhere touched upon in the Jewish polemics, that
neither the Rabbanites reproach the Karaeans with
the non-accomplishment of this rite, nor the Karaeans
reproach the Rabbanites with this murderous and
cannibalistic savagery.
D. The Sabbathaically-disposed Frankists, fan-
atical believer's in the Sohar, asserted in the presence
of
the Bishop Nik. Dembowski
of
Kamienec Podolsk,
1756 and 1757, not only: that according to the Sohar,
the Godhead consists
of
three persons alike one to
another, which form
at the same time a trinity and a
unity, and that the Godhead has continually assumed
human form, in order to show himself visibly to all,
but also : that the Talmud contained the most abomin-
able things, inculcated the slaughter
of
Christians as
a religious ordinance, and the adherents
of
the Tal-
mud used the blood
of
Christians, And in 1759 they
declared to the Archbishop Wratislaw Lubienski,
that they panted
for
Baptism like the hart
for
the
water-springs, and offered
to prom
"
that the Tal-
mudists shed innocent Christian blood, even more
than the heathens, lusted after
it, and made use
of
it.'' At the same time they asked to have dwelling
places assigned them east
of
Lemberg, in order to be
able to live by the work
of
their hands, '' ivhere the
Talmudic brandy-
farmers mirtured drunkenness,
sucked out the blood
of
poor Christians, and marked
it up with double chalk.'' In May two deputies
of
the
Frankists pronounced in the name
of
all
of
them
before Canon Mikulski the confession : The cross was
the symbol
of
the Holy Trinity, and the seal
of
the
Messiah. It concluded
"
The Talmud taught the use
of
the blood
of
Christians, and whoever believed in it,
was bound to use the blood." At the discussion
carried on in July in the Cathedral
of
Lemberg, under
Mikulski's presidency, the Frankists tried to show
"
that the Sohar taught the trinity, and that one
of
the
persons in the Godhead had become flesh. . . .
That
such ideas occurred in the Talmud," the Talmud-
ists
"
could not deny. They had, indeed, been able to
repel with all decisiveness the fictitious assertion as
to the use
of
the blood
of
Christian children, and the
blood-thirstiness
of
the Talmud, and to appeal to the
testimony
of
Christians and even to statements
of
Popes. But they were ignorant about their otvn
history
of
suffering,
and their ignorance has avenged
itself
upion them. It is, indeed, credible that the
Talmudic spokesmen returned home ashamed and con-
fused after
three days' discussion. Even the blood
accusation remained sticking to their confession."
Soon after
the disputation, about a thousand Sohar-
ites had themselves baptized, on the pressure
of
the
polish ecclesiastics ; in November also Frank himself,
who had brought it to pass that the King was inscribed
Christian
Blood
151
as his godfather
(Jakoh Frank called himself, after
that, Joseph). As it became evident that the baptism
was to him merely a means to an end, and he alloived
himself in secret to be worshipped as God
Incarnate
and ''Holy Lord," he was confined
in March, 1760,
in the monastery
of
Czenstochow. After
thirteen
years' confinement
he was set free
by the Russians,
and played for
many years more the part
of
an im-
postor in Vienna, Briinn, and in Offenbach;
he died
in 1791.
The preceding is taken as far
as possible verbatim
from
H. Gratz,
''
Geschichte der Juden,"^ X., 4^5
sq., 430 sq. Gratz, however, is mistaken,
when
trusting the exceedingly
one-sided Jakob Emden
'' Hith'abb^kuth,'' Altona, 1726 sq., 35),
he writes
that the Hamburg Rabbi, Jonathan
Eibeschutz, had
remained ''dumb" to the imploring entreaty
of
the
Polish Jeivs that he should
"
meet the accusation
of
the
use
of
Christian blood."*As this sentence has left
an impression on Christians, that there might after
all be something in the blood-accusation, I will here
put the facts of
the case cleai'ly. Eibeschiltz not only
himself
elaborated a detailed, professional
report in
December, 1759 (probably for
despatch to the Danish
Government), but also repeatedly urged Christian
scholars to express their views. E.g. in 1760 (he was
impelled to do so precisely by the lies
of
the Frank-
ists) the tvell-known Professor
of
Theology in Halle,
Chr. Ben. Michaelis, and John. Sal. Semler, v.
"Jiidische Volks- und Haus-Kalender filr
das Jahr
1893," Breslau, Jahrbuch,
p.
79-109. Semler' s
preg-
nant exposition closes with the sentences :
"
But from
it all comes the irrefutable inference that people who
impute guilt to the Jews and want to prove from
the
books
of
their law that they use Christian blood, must
"
Christentums
"
in Gratz is obviously a printer's error.
he either very illiterate
simpletons or malignant
hostile spirits. . . . and that the Jews could not be
accused before any
equitable magistrate ufon
such
frivolous
ivretched charges, but far
rather such
simple or malignant accusers might be repulsed, and
probably even held to an apology.''
Jonathan
Eibeschiltz himself
writes at the beginning
of
his
work
:
"
/ have had to hear, not meiêly ivith the great-
est exasperation, but also with the greatest sorrow,
how a few
godless people, forgetful of
honour, who a
long time ago were expelled from
the Jewish Syna-
gogue, have banded together, and in order to conceal
their viciousness have tried to diminish the Jewish
nation in the sight
of
the Christian high authorities,
and to affirm,
with baseless, even altogether lying
sentences taken from
Jewish books, that the Jewish
nation has need
of
Christian blood
for
its chief
cere-
monies. But this accusation is so Godless that
ONE HAS FAIRLY TO WONDER HOW THE EARTH
CAN BEAR SUCH PEOPLE ON ITS SOIL."
The manuscript which contains these three

documents has been transferred
out
of
the
property left
by Dr. B.
Zuckermann to the
Jewish Theological
Seminary at Breslau.
And
already in 1736, likewise at the request
of
Eibeschiltz,
Prof.
F. Haselbauer,
of
P
league, delivered a pro-
nouncement against the blood accusation, v.
inf.
Ch.
19 E.
E. It is generally admitted that those Jews who
held fast at all to their religious law, or now hold fast,
have always been ready, or still are ready, to give up
their lives rather than to become unfaithful to that
law. If, then, there were any phrase whatever that
ordained the use of Christian blood, such blood would
be annually requisite, would therefore also be shed;
in that case, however, a
considerable number of
instances must doubtless have been alluded to, espe-
Christian Blood 153
cially during the period of the last hundred years, at
least in those law-governed States of Europe in whose
midst the Jews live in scattered groups. Yet such
proofs are altogether wanting.iVgain, the accusation
of the ritual use of blood would be bound to have been
declared and to be declared everywhere ;
also, it would
be bound to have been referred to in every century
since the establishment of the Christian religion; or, at
any rate, since the Christian religion has become the
ruling one in the old Roman Empire. But there is no
"everywhere
"
nor "at all periods" to be found in
this case. It is especially noticeable that the decree
by which the
"
Catholic Kings
"
Ferdinand of Aragon
and Isabella of Castile, on 31st March, 1492, com-
manded all the Jews of Spain, Sicily and Sardinia to
emigrate within four months on pain of death, does
not mention the blood accusation.
F. In order to make the assertion of the ritual
use of blood plausible, people talk readily about
"
Schachtschnitt* (Jewish butcher's cut), and the
employment of a
"
Schachtmesser
"
(Jewish butcher's
knife); also " Schachter " (Jewish butchers) are
accused, by preference, of killing Christian children.
It is on that account very notable that Joseph
The 'omim, a Rabbi of Lemberg and Frankfort a. 0.
(ob. 1793), in his extremely prized Hebrew commen-
tary, "P'^ri m'^gadim
"
(Be., 1772, sq.), on the first two
parts of the "Schulhan Arukh, Jore Deâ," 8,
relates
the following :A
"
Schachter
"
bought a knife which
an executioner had used at an execution, and wanted
to use it for his own professional purposes. Rabbi
Joseph declares this forbidden ; because human flesh
was forbidden, and the human flesh absorbed by the
knife would combine with the animal flesh in slaugh-
4: 'Schachten" is the verb used in German for "to butcher" in the
Jewish manner: the usual Gentile butcher "schlachtet," not
"schachtet
.
'
' Translator.
tering, and thereby make the latter also forbidden.
Whoever affirms the ritual killing of Christian chil-
dren by
"
Schachtung
"
(Jewish butchering) is bound
to assume that the "Schachter" have tivo sets of
"Schachtmesser," one for the animals which are to
be slaughtered, the other . . . would not such
an assumption exceed the extremity of foolishness?
G.
Every experienced criminalist, especially
every investigating judge who carefully handles
criminal cases, knows that the detailed information
of public journals about " interesting cases
"
has often
acted as a provoking influence on the imaginations
of men, who were not firmly established in the good
or were already disposed to the bad. The fact that
men who make attempts on crowned heads, even
when the bullet or the dagger has not reached its
mark, are, at least temporarily, notorious through the
daily Press, has provoked many a fresh attempted
murder of the kind.* Accordingly, it might be
imaginable that precisely the unceasing repetition of
the idea that the Jews want Christian blood might
have suggested or might suggest, fsomewhere, at some
time, to a subject not quite mentally responsible who
happens to have been born a Jew, just to try whether
Christian blood was really a quite different fluid from
Jewish blood. An incident of the kind could not be
laid to the charge of the Jewish religion.
The imitative impulse altogether plays a great part in criminology,

V. e.g. Lomhroso, II., 289-91, 86, 106.
Jo. Stall, "Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der Volkerpsychologie,"
L. 1894
(523).
XVII. THE
AUSTRIAN
PROFESSOR AND
CANON AUG. ROHLING
The Imperial-Royal
Austrian Professor Aug.
Rohling, of Prague, became in 1883 the mainstay of
the blood accusation levelled
against the Jewish
religion. To the scientific world, indeed, his name
has never been worth anything. His polemic against
the Talmud and his "proofs" of the reality of the
Jewish blood-ritual were of such a kind that one
could only be in doubt whether, owing to his malig-
nancy, the penal law ought to be invoked, or owing
to his spiritual obfuscation the doctor ought to step
in. It unfortunately
happens, however, when one
looks at the result, that it is often far less important
whether an assertion is true than whether it is
believed. Therefore, as Aug. Rohling, in consequence
firstly of the praise of very numerous partisan news-
papers, secondly, of the irresponsible patronage, even
favouritism, on the part of the then Austrian Ministry
of Education, was blindly believed in very wide
circles, not only of Austria, but also of Germany, nay,
even of France and other countries, I wrote in Sep-
tember, 1892, in the fourth edition of this book:
"
I PUBLICLY ACCUSE HEREWITH THE IMPERIAL
Royal Austrian Professor and Canon
iVuGUST
Rohling of perjury and gross forgeries. / further
'publicly ask those who, after reading this book, protect
the aforesaid Aug. Rohling, whether they are not
making themselves guilty
of
aiding in the continuance
of
the aforesaid crime or delinquency. Finally I
declare that Aug. Rohling has given numerous proofs
in his judgments on Jewish literature and Jewish
religion
of
his disgraceful ignorance, and that he got
the copious quotations
from
Talmudic and Rabbinical
literature which blind the lay mind, partly copied out
of
Eisenmenger s
"
Entdecktes Jttdenthiim," partly
guided by others, especially by Ahron Brimann.
/
am ready to establish this grave accusation in the
presence
of
any Court
of
Justice.''
Although this edition sold to the extent of 9,000
copies, and numerous papers, especially Austrian,
quoted my words and made them widely known,
neither Rohling nor the Austrian Ministry of Educa-
tion took action against me. Rohling kept silent, in
the hope that his reputation among the racial Anti-
Semites, Avhose feelings of justice are dulled by
hatred, could not be damaged by anything whatever,
and that the great majority of people partly possess
a short memory, partly had remained ignorant of my
accusation. At any rate, I will to the best of my
ability prevent Rohling from being again in the future
regarded as an expert. For that reason I have here
repeated my accusation, and bring forward some
points, at least, to substantiate it.
Rohling became most known through his book (which
was ALMOST ALL COPIED OUT OF ElSENMENGER^
"
Der
Talmudjude,'' Milnster, 1871; in 6th edition, 1877
(126).
The
"
Entdeckte Judenthum,''
of
Eisenmen-
ger, owing to the one-sidedness with which the author
has made his compilation,
offers
no accurate picture
of
the Jew who holds
fast
to the Talmud
;
yet the reader
is able, at least to a certain degree, easily to check his
[i.e., E.'
s']
assertions because Eisenmenger everywhere
gives the Hebrew or Aramaic wording
of
the original,
Canon Aug.
Rohling
157
and indeed
frequently
long
extracts-*
Rohling, however,
only
quotes those words which
exactly suit his purj>ose,
without any
consideration
of
the context,
and indeed
only in the German
la.nguage(
according to E.'s trans-
lation), so that his
exposition
is not merely a
caricature
of
the truth, but even the contrary
of
it.
The most
important
counterblast is that
of
Franz
Delitzsch,
''
Rohling' s
Talmudjude,''
L., 1881
(64);
5th impression
enlarged by a
continuation, 1881
(87).
Among
writings
of
Jewish
authors I
only name:
Josef
Nobel, ''
Kritisches
Richtschwert
filr
Rohling'
s
'
Talmudjude,'
" Totis
(Halberstadt),
1881 (87).- Rohling
rejoined in ''Franz
Delitzsch
und die Judenfrage,"^
Prague, 1881 (155).
With
how little knowledge
and veracity,
Delitzsch has
showed in the 7th edition
of
his already
-mentioned
work,L.,
1881 (120); Cf.
also
Delitzsch's
"
Was
Dr. Aug.
Rohling
beschworen
hat und
beschworen
will," L., 1883(39).
Rohling followed
up with
"
Meine
Antworten
an
die
Rabbiner.
Oder: Filnf
Briefe ilber den Talmu-
dismus
und das
Blut-Ritual der Juden,"Prague, 1883
(106),and'' Die
Polemik
und das
Menschenopfer
des Rabbinismus,"
Paderborn, 1883
(108).Re-
joinders by
Delitzsch
:
"
Schachmatt den
Blutliignern
Rohling und Justus,''
Erlangen, 1883
(43),
and:
"Neueste
Traumgesichte des
antisemitischen
Pro-
pheten," Erlangen, 1883
(3).Jose7
Block,
Rabbi
at Floridsdorf,
near Vienna, also wrote very
severely
against the
"Antworten," in the
Wiener
Allge-
meine Zeitung, 22 Dec, 1882; 6, 10,
and 24
January, 1883,
which
articles are
reproduced
in
''Aden und
Gutachten in dem
Frozesse
Rohling
contra Bloch,'
'
I.
( Vienna, 1890),
5-89.
This book
of
Cf. A. Th. Hartmann,
"
Johann Andreas
Eisenmenger
und Bcine
jiidischen Gegner,"
Parcbim 1834 (40).
S5 sheets contains altogether an abundance
of
con-
clusive evidence against Rohling.
Rohling was repeatedly and publicly accused by
Franz Delitzsch and others not only of gross ignorance
and malignant distortions, but also perjury. R. went
on lying and kept on indulging again and again in
false swearing, in the comforting conviction that the
authorities over him would not make up their minds
to take steps against him, or even allow the actual
state of affairs to be expertly examined into. At
length R.'s attempt to influence the Hungarian court
of justice of Nyiregyhaza (Tisza-Eszlar trial) caused
the aforesaid /. Bloch to accuse Rohling
(" Acten," I.,
109-20) of offering perjury in the Wiener Morgenjyost
of 1st to 4:th
Juty,
1883, in such strong terms. *that R.
could not but take action, and, in fact, instituted an
action "for insult to honour." Bloch pronounced
himself ready to produce the proof of the truth of
what he wrote. He prepared this proof in an uncom-
monly thorough-going manner, so that the judicial
proceedings could not be commenced before 18th
November, 1885, and the twelve following days. Just
*
A few examples :
"
His lying Talmudic quotations he has already
often solemnly sworn to An Imperial Royal pro-
fessor with repeated false swearings is in itself a unique fact in the
variegated changeful history of Austrian Universities ....
But a forum must at last be found before which lying, which has
lost conscience and shame, habitually carried on, is judged accord-
ing to truth and law If, meanwhile, naked men-
dacity and fraud prostitute themselves before the whole world in
barbaric nudity free from shame, it must be named by its true name
and recalled to decency and morality The professor,
however, is ever ready and greedy to swear, especially then when he
puts forward assumptions, and propounds assertions about which he
is sure, that, being without the slightest shadow of truth, they
would be harshly repelled by all experts The Pro
fessor of Hebrew Antiquities at Prague carries on lying like a
handicraft." Cf. also Bloch's
"
Rohling und kein Ende
"
in the
Ot'sfeneichischr Wochenschrift, 12 August 1892, No. 33 (R. is there
repeatedly termed the "perjury-canon"), as well as the article,
"
Meiueid
"
in Jiidnche Presse, 1892, No. 30-3, 35.
Canon Aug. Kohling 159
hejore the proceedings Rohling simply withdrew the
charge! Cf. also Joseph Kopp (a Catholic, and a
well-known
barrister-at-law in Vienna), "Zur Juden-
frage nach den Akten des Prozesses Rohling-
Bloch,"^L., 1886(199).
According to R.'s statementand here he seems
to have uttered the truth for oncethe Ministry com-
manded him, after the appearance of the "Antwor-
ten
" and the "Polemik," "to leave the Jewish
question alone on his part." This command afforded
him the welcome opportunity to write under a false
name a justification of his whole conduct and a
laudation of his own erudition, and so to create the
impression that there was a Christian scholar and
expert in the Talmud who had tested and approved
of R.'s assertions! "Prof. Dr. Rohling, Die Juden-
frage und die offentliche Meinung. Von Abbe Dr.
Clemens Victor,"' L., 1887
(83).
Victor is nobody, but
Rohling himself, although R. has obstinately denied
it. So far as this writing shows wide reading in
Jewish literature, it does not proceed from Victor-
Rohling, but from a convert (probably from notes of
Brimann, which R. has in part entireh^ misunder-
stood)and so far R. has indeed a certain right to
deny his authorship; in all main points, however,
the same ignorance and mendacity come to light as in
the writings describing the aforesaid Rohling as their
author.
At any rate, two examples, intelligible to any
reader, may be adduced of Rohling's ignorance. He
translates "dam b^thulim " not "sanguis
virgini-
tatis," but "sanguis virginum," which in Hebrew
would be "dam b*'thul6th." The very frequent
expression "Am ha-'arec," "the mass ignorant of the
law
"
(John vii. 49,
"
this people who knoweth not the
law"in particular, the "tradition of the elders"
or also "the individual Jew ignorant of the
law," he translates
"
non-Jew!
"
and thus he renders
a saying of the Rabbi Eleasar :
"
It is permitted even
on the Day of Atonement, when it falls on the Sab-
bath, to stab a non-Jew." That the sentence, which
is formulated with real Oriental coarseness, is not to
be taken literally, but is merely a proof of the fana-
tical hatred dividing those learned in the law from
those ignorant of it, is shown by the opposite saying
of the Rabbi Aqiba, not quoted by R., which has been
handed down on the same page of the Talmud,
Pesahim 49b
" When I was an Am ha-areg, I said

:
Give me a learned man that I may bite him like an
ass."
Between most of the others, especially the older
advocates of the "blood-charge
"
and Rohling, there
is in particular this difference, which is, indeed, only
secondary as far as results go, that R. does not so
much assert the partaking of Christian blood, but
rather the effusion of Christian blood by the murder-
ing of Christians as an object of the Jewish ritual.
Now what are the
froofs?
Firstly, the
unproved and unprovable assertion of the exist-
ence of a tradition about the blood-ritual or ritual
blood-murder, orally handed down from generation
to generation. I think I may declare there is at the
present moment absolutely no domain of the Jewish
ritual, however remote in appearance, which has not
been dealt with in more than one printed book.
Rohling makes particularly much ado* about a
*
Cf. E.'s writing, dated 10th July, 1892 (during the Xanten pro-
ceedings) to the District Crout at Cleve : "If the facts of
history
cannot be denied, it is indeed unintelligible that, in spite of the
castration of certain Rabbinical works there are still texts here and
there, which point to the subject The Talmud
hints at the matter even in the castrated editions [about
"
Kethub-
both" 102^ V. infr.
p.
162 sq.]; Sefer halkutim and Zohar speak
more definitely, as is stated in my work,
"
Polemik and Menschen-
opfer des Rabbinismus
"
(Paderborn, 1883). This statement is to-
day still completely convincing to me But since my
Canon Aug. Kohling
161
passage in the
"
Sepher ha-liqqutin," written down
after the discourses of the Kabbalist Isaak Luria (b.
1533, d. 1572, in Safet), the Jerusalem edition of
which R. used, I have had since 1884, and
about some passages of the "Zohar." Against the
.crazy interpretations of R. cf. Franz Delitzsch,
"
Schachmatt," and Ad. Merx,
"
Wissenschaftliches
Gutachten iiber den wahren Sinn der Stellen aus dem
Sohar und aus Vital's liqqutim, auf die Herr Profes-
sor Rohling seine Blutbeschuldigung griiden will,"
Vienna, 1885 (repeated in Block, ''Âcten," I., 125-38).
The original phrasing of these presumably so blood-
thirsty passages is also to be found in "Acten," I.,
353-7. To this may be added the following: Rohling
made the acquaintance
of
these passages through Bri-
mann
*
and blindly believed his interpretations.
Brimann, however, writes in his work bearing the date
1885, dedicated to Prince-Archbishop Eder, of Salz-
burg, "Die Kabbala
"
(Innsbruck,
58), f
p.
44: "How
holy conviction
(
! !)
was officially branded a frivolity before a court
of law (by the judicial expert, Prof. Th. Ndldeke), I held it to be
my duty to inform you that, in view
of
death and my eternal Judge I
cannot ^peak otherwise, and must confess that the blood-accusation is
the truth."
Dr. Justus [pseudonym of Ahron Brimann],
"
Der Judenspiegel,"
4th edition, Paderborn 1883, 80. About Rohling's dependence on
Br. V. also
"
Acten
"
I., 205, 207.
+
The work certainly appeared without a name ; I know, however,
from an absolutely sure source (through a Christian theologian
descended from a Christian family), that Br. is the author. And
Br.'s testimony must be decisive for R.
;
for even in 1887 (I will
not here touch upon testimonies from the year
1883) Roli ling-Victor,
10, writes:
"
Briman?i .... is an alto-
gether honourable,
strong man, who always studies honourable
conduct, and is entirely worthy of every confidence." I have good
reason for the belief that Br. adhered later on, too, to his deprecia-
tory judgment of R. (the letter of Br. communicated by Rohling
Victor, 14-6, is either a forgery or was extracted for Br. by some
stratagem). And, besides, I am convinced (till proof of the
contrary), that the fifth edition of the "Judenspiegel" which ap-
peared in 1892 was produced without the author's express consent.
Possibly Br. sold his author's rights in return for a single payment
or for some other cause he could not resist ; but he did not collaborate
in that edition.
many there are, unfortunately, who from ignorance
believe or from malice wish to make others believe
that the Kabbala contains nothing but murder and
conflagration, slaughter of virgins, assassination of
Kings. . . . What a disgrace. ... to our century.
. . . that there are still such fools as to lend ear to
such malignant calumniations." In the Kabbala one
could "find true pearls, which will afford such an
apologia for Christianity as could hardly have been
expected." And
p.
41: "How unskilfully Messrs..
the Jew-eaters or the so-called anti-semitic scholars
exploit quite harmless passages in their amazing
ignorance, can be seen from the truly laughable inter-
pretation of this Sohar text in [Rohling's]
'
Polemik
und Menschenopfer.' etc.,
p.
62!"
For a considerable time R. was of the opinion that
ritual blood-murder was taught indeed in oral
tradition as well as in the books of the Kabbala (the
Jewish mysticism), but that it could not be pointed out
in the Talmud. But as he sought and wanted to find,
he found. He first of all gave information of his find
in the Antisemitische Coi^respondenz, No. 171, of 22
November, 1891. He then disseminated (as a contri-
bution to the Neiie Deutsche Zeitung, of 16 March, 1892,
evening edition, and in other ways) a pamphlet
"
Eine
Talmudstelle fiir rituelles Schachten." Beneath thi&
superscription he put firstly,
"
Confidential," in order
to give the impression of something mysterious,
secondly, "Pamphlet for connoisseurs," so as to
flatter the noodles who would be caught in his snare.
The main sentences run:
"
It might be interesting to know that the Talmud
itself, although the
fact
long remained unnoticed,
testifies to the Jews' blood-ritual. The Talmudic
passage occurs in the treatise Kethubboth, 102b
(infr.).
It is there announced that even a Jew boy,
a minor, was killed on the evening before the
Canon Aug. Rohling 163
Easter Festival hy his brothers or
[/]
was going to
be killed. The Talmud states that people (on the part
of
the Jewish authorities) did not desire this slaugh-
ter, and therefore let the minor groiv up with his
mother, and not with his brothers, who were avari-
cious, and wanted at the same time to inherit the boy's
property ; it was not allowed because the dead father
had bequeathed the boy to the mother, and so they
wanted in this case to show respect
for
his last will.
In this
affair,
logic
[//]
forces on everyone the convic-
tion, that
( 1)
even a Jew boy, whom his father's last
will did not protect, can be slaughtered as an Easter
lamb. . . .
(2) If
Jews sought
for
[/]
Easter lambs
even among the minors
of
their own people, how much
more will they ritually
[/]
slaughter the non-Jews
(esteemed low as the beasts?)
The memorable
passage runs. . . . according to the Amsterdam
edition
of
the Talmud
"
Babli
'
' as follows :
"
djji^
io
1QS1 ^2b'î^ bii Nn* DnQ^^< 2Kn wiv ids'? iiop ]2
n^:m
rn'jD ah^ ^D^< 'îiN ^n1^< vn*:D
^b:iii bi^ ^n
^<^> niDMi
".nosn 21)^ imion::?! n^n nî^^D .wirb îNn b:^ im
That means :
If
a person dies and leaves behind a son,
not yet
of
years,
for
his mother, and the father's
heirs (the brothers) say:
"
Let him become big (grow
up) with us, but the mother says :
"
Let my son
become big with me
"
he is left
with his mother, and
he is not left
with those entitled to his inheritance:
the case comes to pass (it might occur in analogous
cases,
Cf.
Berakhoth 2a), that they would slaugh-
ter HIM ON THE EVENING BEFORE THE EaSTER
Festival (l^th Nisan, on 15th is the actual Easter
Festival."
This passage in the Talmud had been known to
me since 1885; I did not, however, mention it in the
first edition
(1891) of this book of mine, because I did
not think it possible for anyone, who had read even a
single page in the Talmud, to come upon the idea of
using these sentences for proof of the accusation that
Christian Hood is employed by Jews for ritual
purposes. As, however, they had been quoted by
Rohling, I give the correct interpretation in the fourth
edition
(1892).
First of all an exact translation of the
whole extract.
Mishna xii., 1 (101b):
If
anyone takes a
wife,
and she arranges with him that he should rear up
her daughter \jrom a previous marriage]
five
years,
he is under obligation to rear her up
for five
years.
If
she marries another man
[after being divorced
from that one] and arranges with him, that [also] he
should nurture her daughter
for five
years, he is
[likewise] under obligation to nurture her
five
years.
Let not the
first
one say,
'
Only
if
she comes to me,
will I rear her up,' but he brings her her maintenance
there where her mother is."
The Gemara, 102^
attaches the following elucida-
tion to the last sentence
:
Rab Hisda says :

"
This Mishna teaches, the
daughter must be with her mother.'' (Question)
"
Whence does it follow that it holds good
of
a grown-
up daughter? Perhaps it holds good
of
a little
daughter, and the Mishna refers to a fact
which has
once occurred^
for a doctrinal tradition says :
'
//
any
one has died and leaves a little son to his mother, and
the father's heirs say: Let him be brought up with
us
and the mother says, my son shall be brought up

with me
he is left with his mother, and not with

anyone who might inherit
from
him,
for
it once
happened that he was murdered (shdhdt) on the day
*
Rashi declares : It has namely to be feared (on account of the occur-
rence mentioned in the doctrinal tradition), that the brothers might
murder her (harag) in order to inherit the tenth of the fortune due
to her. But in the case of a grown-up daughter murder (r9iha) is
not to be feared
;
whence one might continue thinking that she might
live with the brothers.
Canon Aug. Rohling 165
before the Easter festival.''' (Answer)
"/w that
case
*
it would be said in the Mishna :
'
There where
SHE
75.
'f
But why does the Mishna say: 'There
where the mother is
'?
Thence you can infer that
the daughter should be with the mother without dis-
tinction, whether she is grown up or little."
To understand this it may be remarked : The wife
is not the heiress of her husband ; altogether women
only have the right to inherit in a very limited way,
if males entitled to inherit are present. (Cf. M. Bloch,
"Das mosaisch-talmudische Erbecht," Budapesth,
1890) ; so the small children (the daughters, and,
according to the doctrinal tradition quoted in the
question, also the sons) are safe with the mother, but
this is not equally the case with the males entitled to
inherit.
The reader will ask in wonder : How is it possible
to find in Kethubboth 102^, the ordaining or even
merely the permission of the ritual slaughter of
Christians ? In this sphere everything is possible for
R. when he pleases.Firstly, e.g., he translated
"Shahat," by "religious, ritual slaughtering." This
meaning, however, is only proper to the verb when
animals are in question. When human beings,
"
Shahat
"
stands for the meaning of a violent death,
e.g. the word
"
slew," in Jerem. xxxix., 6, and lii., 10
:
The King of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah, and
the chief Jews; Jerem. xli., 7: Ishmael, the son of
Nethaniah, slew eighty Israelites; II. Kings x., 7:
The inhabitants of Samaria slew 70 of Ahab's de-
scendants; Judges xii.,
6;
Jephthah's followers killed
42,000 Ephraimites; Cf. also Numbers xiv., 16: "The
heathen will say of God, He slew Israel in the wilder-
'Rashi: "If namely there was a distinction to be made between a
grown-up and a little daughter."
T Rashi : "A grown-up daughter, where she is, and a little daughter,
where she is."
166
ness," and I Kings xviii., 40; Elijah slew the priests
of Baal. With regard to the human sacrifices which
were offered up on the part of the idolatrous Israel-
ites, the word Shahat is twice contemptuously used,
Isai. Ivii.,
5
; Hezek. xxiii., 39. It need not be pointed
out that in all these passages, and in Genesis xxii, 10,
Jewish ritual slaughter cannot be alluded to.In
agreement therewith is the Talmudic use of language,
V. "Nedarim," 22a, "Megilla," 7b;
"Hullin," 56b,
infr. Of violent death' at the hands of the Romans
:
"Sanhedrin," 110b, and "Pesahim," 69a. In the
ritual blood-murder was taught assuredly in oral
Midrash on Jerem. ii., 2, it is related that Nebusara-
dan, in the place where Zachariah was killed,
killed, "shahat," the members of the great and the
little synedrium, the young priests, the school child-
ren; but the Talmud,
"
Gittin " 57b, says of the
occurrence, therefore quite synonymously, 'harag.'
The two verbs are likewise used,
"
Sukka," 52a, supr.
Secondly: The "doctrinal tradition" advanced
by Rohling alone closes with the sentence :
"
For it
once happened," etc. These words ("ma'aê^ haja^";
literally, "fact [or occurrence] has been") are so in-
terpreted by R. that a reader ignorant of Hebrew gets
the doubly false impression: that such actions
happened repeatedly, and the Talmudic ordinance
(the child shall stay with the mother) had the object
of preventing religious butcherings from taking place
on the day before the Easter festival. In reality, how-
ever, the ordinance is' not intended to forbid religious
slaughtering on the day before the Easter festival, but
to assure the lives of young heirs and heiresses. And
furthermore it is only a matter of a single event that
happened once. The latter follows from the perma-
nent use of the word "ma'aê^," Cf. Mishna Sabbath
iii., 4;
xvi, 7 sq. ; xxii., 3; xxiv., 5,
etc.; moreover, in
the old collection of Jewish law traditions called
Canon Aug. Rohling
167
"Tosephta,"
Zuckermandel's
edition, 273,
where
the same thing is related, the words are; "ma'aê^
haja^
1/ehad," "it came to pass with one man, that
they killed him on the day before the Easter festival/'
The phrase "ma'aê^ haja^," or the Aramaic (of iden-
tical meaning)
"
hawa ôbada," often points to a
previous case, which gives occasion for the establish-
ment of a decree of the law. Cf.
"Qiddushin,"
85^.
fin., and especially
"Kethubboth,"
60^. It is stated
in the latter passage, in the addendum to the
doctrinal tradition brought forward
60* fin., according
to which a suckling woman, whose husband dies,
can neither be betrothed or marry before the lapse of
24 months
:
"
If the child dies, the new betrothal or
marriage is allowed ; if she has weaned it, she must
await the expiry of the 24 months. Mar, the son of
Rabx\she, said:
'
Even if the child has died, the pro-
hibition holds good, that she may not kill it so as to
marry. The fact once happened, that she strangled
it.' But that is worth nothing, because that woman
was a fool ; women, after all, are not wont to strangle
their sons."
Thirdly: From the words "the day before the
Easter festival"* no inference can be drawn about
the ritual character of the killing. Far from it. The
choice of the day (if altogether there is need to think
of anything else than a purely historical assertion) is
connected with the circumstance that on this day
there was least fear of discovery of the cause of death.
Everyone is occupied with the preparations, and no
one enters the house of a dead person, unless obliged,
because he would then be unclean for seven days,
and therefore miss the whole of the
festivities, cf.
Tosephta "Ahiloth," iii., 9 (Zuckermandel, 600).
*
The conjecture expressed on the Jewish side in consequence of R.'s
"find" (they wanted to deprive the "Antisemites" of a point of
attack), that the statement of the time rested on an error in the text,
is quite untenable.
According to Talmud "Hullin," 83% this day of pre-
paration belonged to the four days on which many
entertainments at meals and rejoicings took place.
Fourthly. The reference to the Christians is
introduced by R. into the passage in the Talmud by
the following audacious conclusion
:
" If Jews
sought for Easter lambs, even among the minors of
their own people, how much more will they ritually
slaughter the non-Jews (esteemed low as the
beasts)
?"
But in the whole passage there is no word
about Jewish children as Easter lambs. As far as the
words, "non-Jews (esteemed low as the beasts)," are
concerned, the uncompromisingness of the utterance
must be, and is intended to provoke in all, who are
not professional experts in the subject, false ideas.
The x\ustrian Reichsrat Deputy Schneider had
this
"
newly discovered, amazingly important passage
from the Talmud" photographed, according to the
imprints of Venice, 1526 sq., and Amsterdam, 1644
sq., and made it the subject of inflammatory dis-
No. 190) and pamphlets. Moreover, too, he had the
courses (v. e.g., Staatshilrger-Zeitung. 23 April, 1892,
effrontery to say at the sitting of the Reichsrat, 10th
November, 1899 :
"
Now there are quite a number of
Jews who state that there is no written passage in the
Talmud about the use of Christian blood. Well, I
have here a photograph, which I have taken person-
ally So no explaining away is possible
There is no falsification in regard to this passage in
the treatise Kethubboth."
Be it observed in conclusion, that the passage in
"
Kethubboth," 102b, if it really meant what accord-
ing to Rohling and Schneider it does, would have
been deleted by the Christian censorship, or at any
rate altered. All the impressions produced in Ger-
many, however (e.g. the Berlin edition of
1862),
give
exactly the same text as those photographed by
Schneider.
XVIII. THE PRETENDED EVIDENCE OF
HISTORY FOR JEWISH RITUAL MURDER
"
PerSonne ne la racontera sans que la plume
n'hesite et que Vencre, en ecrivant, ne blanchisse de
larmes.'' (J. Michelet,
"
Du Pretre, de la femme,
de la famille," 3rd edition, Paris, 1845,
on the
history
of
the Waldenses).
The first writer in recent times,* who busied him-
self to prove, by instances from history, the actual
existence of the doctrine of ritual murder among the
Jews was, as far as I perceive, Konstantin Cholewa de
Pawlihowski,
"
Der Talmud in der Theorie und
Praxis," Regensburg, 1866. He enumerates 73
"human sacrifices
"
(p.
245-308), which the Jews had
brought about, or at least had tried to bring about,
"
in order to eat the blood in their unleavened bread."
Geza V. Onody,
"
Tisza-Eszlar in der Vergangenheit
und Gegenwart," authorised translation by G. v.
Marczianyi,Budapesth, 1883 (215)
devotes a
chapter
of 91 pages to "Ritual murders and blood-sacrifices."-
Rohling referred to the
"
verdict of history
"
in
"
Meine
Antworten," 53 sq. in "Prof. Dr. Rohlingj, die Juden-
frage u. die offentliche Meinung," 22-6, and
further
in the letter of 10th July, 1892 (v. supr.
p.
114).
He
Eisenmenger IT., 220-7, gives a long list of Christians (especially

children), who are said to have been murdered by Jews. In relation
to the use of blood, he says at the end :
"
Every one can guess that
not everything is bound to be untrue. But I leare it undecided,
whether the matter is so or not."
copied out some articles that appeared in the Cimlta
Cattolica in 1887 and
1882.^. Desportes,
"
Le mystere
du sang chez les Juifs de tons les temps," Paris, 1890,
has devoted almost 200 pages to the
"
facts of the
case."Anonymous: "Die Juden und das
Christen-
blut," L., 1892
(46),
a plagiarism,
especially from
Pawlikowski,
Desportes, and Onody,
superabound-
ing in ignorance.The book of Carl Mommert (a
Catholic priest),
"
Der Eitual-Mord bei den Talmud-
Juden," Leipsic, 1905 (127 p.),
a
contemptible
mixture of malignancy and ignorance, is almost
entirely stolen from the writings just mentioned.
Similar books about "ritual murders," not a single
one of which rests on original work, have often been
printed, cf., e .g.,
Athanasius Fern [pseudonym],
"
Die
jiidische Moral und das
Blut-Mysterium," L., 1893,
32-45.
In March and April, 1892 (Nos. 8438-8473) the
Milan paper, Osservatore Cattolico
published 44
articles on
"
Certezza del ritualismo nelle uccisioni
giudaiche
"
("certainty of the ritual character of the
murders practised by the Jews"),
including lastly a
comprehensive "list" of 154 cases "of perpetrated
or attempted ritual murders."
This long list has received attention among many
people, partly because of the bold impudence shown
by its author. But it was undeserved, because he
is a/i ignorant plagiarist, who does not even observe the
siinplest rules
of
historical criticism.
First of all, a few examples of the disgraceful
ignorance of the Osservatore Cattolico.
Copying a
printer's error of Desportes, it declares, case 106,
Dublin to be the capital of a Russian
government!
Copying two other mistakes of Desportes, it believes
*'
Steyer-Marck
"
and
"
Karntey," case 96, to be towns!
Eisenmenger II., 223, correctly has "in Steyermarck,
Karnten." Likewise the town of "Thorn," in the
Evidence of History
171
"Belgian
Province of Liittich,"
case 103, is merely a
printer's
error (for Theur?)
copied from Desportes.
The
Emperor Joseph
11. died on 20th February, 1790,
but the
Osservatore
Cattolico, case 102,
makes out the
Jews,
condemned
for a murder
committed in 1791 in
Transylvania, to have been
pardoned by this
"
Free-
mason!"
Desportes,
the Osservatore
Cattolico'
s
authority,
read
perfunctorily
Onody's
account, and
thereupon
misunderstood
it
!
The Osservatore
Cattolico conceals the fact that it
is plagiarising, by very often naming not
Desjjortes,
but the authority
mentioned by him, and in doing so
not infrequently
copies wrong numbers, and wrong or
inaccurate
quotations.
In case 4, e.g.,
occurs the
wrong number,
1071 (instead of 1171)
as in Victor,
Desportes, and the Leipsic anonymous
writer.Case
22, "Florent de Worcester, p.
222." In an
Italian
paper the name ought to have been given either in
Latin, according to the title of the book, or in English,
according to the country of the author, or in Italian,
but not in French.
Desportes forgot to give the num-
ber (II.) of the volume, so it is also missing in the
Osservatore Cattolico. The page number is missing in
both: in case 91 and
111.In case 113,
Desportes has
the incorrect page number,
"355
"
instead of
"356;"
so also the Osservatore Cattolico.
Dq^ôxIq^ and
the
Osservatore Cattolico have wrongly:
"
Wizzens
"
in-
stead of
"
Weissensee," case 36 ;
"
Zirgler
"
instead of
"
Ziegler," case 77:
"
Orkul
"
(in Hungary)
instead of
"
Orkuta," case 102;
"
Pecho
"
instead of "Pico," case
61.In the name
"
Colmenares
"
the letters
"
en
"
are
are not clear in Desportes' s book, which has been pro-
duced by stereotyping. To this circumstance
the
author
"
Colmohares
" owes his existence in the
Osservatore Cattolico. The exact title of the book,
which Desportes also did not look for, runs:
"Historia de la insigne ciudad de Segovia,"
Madrid,
1640, foL, v.p. 400, 1649 sq. ; the author, who is not
named on the title page, is Diego de Colmenares.
Also the quotation taken from Desportes,

"
Onody,
Tisza-Eszlar passim," in cases 132-5 betrays the
plagiarist, because Onody, 137, mentions these four
cases in two immediately successive lines.The
Osservatore Cattolico has also plagiarised from Rohling.
Firstly in regard to his book, assumedly written by
Victor, 25 sq., for in cases 22, 29, 42, 46, 47, 69, 73, 74,
there are the same mistakes or inaccuracies in the
quotations. Secondly, in regard to "Meine Antwor-
ten," 55 sq. Both "authorities
"
have the following
errors in common : Case one is attributed to the year
425 under appeal to Baronius, whilst the "Annales
Ecclesiastici " of that industrious compiler have
"415;"
for case 39 these annals are brought forward
for the year 1325 instead of 1305 ; that the Jew Salomo
killed the boy Konrad, case 66, is stated in the Annals
for the year 1476 not in No. 20, but in No. 19. Inci-
dentally, whoever looks closely into the matter, can
easily recognise that Rohling did not derive informa-
tion from the authorities themselves in the domain of
history any more than in that of Jewish literature.
Likewise those quotations of the Osservatore
Cattolico, which are neither in Desportes nor in
Rohling-Victor, so far, at any rate, as concerns dates
up to 1840 inclusive, are copied without verification
from other sources (mostly indeed from the Civilta
Cattolico; cf. e.g. case 8: "Pagi n.
15,"
and case 17:
"
Blancas. Arag. Comment." with G. de Mousseaux,
"Le Juif," Paris, 1869, 191).
A large number of the cases are impossible of ex-
amination because Desportes and his copier, the
Osservatore Cattolico, neither adduce an authority nor
give otherwise sufficiently precise information, e.g. case
30:
"
1289, Suabia, ritual murder."
At least four times the same case is counted double.
Evidence of History 173
Case 23,
"Northampton,
1279;" case 24,
"London,
1279."
The chronicler Florence, of Worcester
(" Flo-
rentii Wigorniensis manochi ;Chronicon ex Chronicis,"
de. B. Thorpe, II., London, 1849), 222,
whom Des-
portes and the Osservatore Cattolico quote, but have
not looked up, says quite distinctly :
"
Apud North-
amtonam die Crucis adoratae [14
September]
puer
quidam a Judaeis crucifixus est; ipso tamen puero
non tunc penitus interfecto. Cujus
quidem rei
praetextu multi de Judaeis statim post Pascha
[2
April] Londoniae equis distracti et suspensi sunt."
(Moreover let the word
"
praetextus
"
(a pretext) be
taken into consideration).Case 25 "Munich,
1282,"
is identical with case 27,
"Munich,
1285," as
Desportes and his copier must have seen, if they had
not merely quoted but also read Matth. Rader's
"Bavaria Sancta," 11. (Munich, 1624),
315 sq. The
Leipsic anonymous writer uses the same passage in
Rader even for a third case, "Munich, 1286."Case
74,
"1503, Waltkirch," and case 75 are one and the
same. The Osservatore Cattolico did not look up
either the "Acta Sanctorum," which Desportes men-
tioned as his authority, nor the work of Joh. Eck
("
Echio !"), which he found quoted in an Italian book.
Also case 12,
"1235, Norwich," is identical with
case 15,
"
1240, NorwiclT." It is true, Matthew Paris
mentions in both years in his
"
Chronica Majora
"
(ed. H. P. Luard, London, 1876 sq.) the
circumcision
of a Christian boy; but the account of D'Blossiers
Tovey,
"
Anglia judaica " (Oxford, 1738),
96-101,
based upon the original documents, leaves no doubt
that it concerns only one occurrence.
Yet worse than these faults is that there is no
criticism whatever exercised as regards the credibility
of
the reports. All accusations are regarded as correct,
without
consideration as to when and by
whom they
were made, and without testing the question,
whether they are probable or even possible.
Even were it assumedbut not admittedthat all
the cases announced by the chroniclers and other
reporters had actuallj^ happened, and indeed hap-
pened just as they are said to have (followed by
miracles, etc.), vei^y many cases would nevertheless not
belong here, because they have no ritual character
whatever even according to all these reporters.
In several cases, always assuming the credibility
of the tradition, it would be a matter of
fofular
-medical
belief, and therefore hardly of anything ancient
Jewish, and quite certainly not specifically Jewish.
According to the Marbach annals, the Jews of Fulda
(when tortured, of course), confess in December, 1235,
that they had murdered the miller's children,
"
ut ex
eis sanguinem ad suum remedium elicerent." Here
should be placed the confession forced from the Jews
at Tyrnau, in 1494, with which the statements of J.
Pfefferkorn and F. A. Christiani (v. Ch. 19 B) should
be compared. The case of Poesing, in 1529
("
at the
marriage festival,") points perhaps to a popular
belief of a similar kind.
Thomas Cantipratanus (called after the monas-
tery of Cantimpre, near Cambray, b. about 1201, d.
between 1270 and 1272) believed that the Jews use
Christian blood as a means of cure. (Note the words,
"importune fluidam," and " verecundissimo cruci-
atu.") In "Bonum universale de apibus," II., 29,
23
ed. Colverenius, Douay, 1627, 304 sq. ; cf. W. A.
Van der Wet,
"
Het Bienboec van Thomas van Can-
timpre," 's-Gravenhage, 1902, 221, 222),
he examines
the question, why the Jews annually shed Christian
blood :
"
It is namely quite certain that they cast lots
every year in every province, which community or
city shall produce Christian blood for the other com-
munities. When Pilate washed his hands and said
:
*I am innocent of the blood of this just person,' the
excessively godless Jews cried out
:
' His blood be upon
us, and on our children!' (Matthev^ xxvii.) St.
Augustine appears to allude to this in a discourse,
which begins
"
In cruce;" that in consequence of the
curses upon their fathers, the criminal disposition is
even now transmitted to the children by the taint in
the blood, so that the godless posterity suffers torment
inexpiably through its violent coursing through their
veins till they repentantly admit themselves guilty of
the blood of Christ, and are healed.* Besides, I heard
that a very learned Jew, who was converted to the
faith of our times,f said that a man, who was rever-
enced among them as a prophet, had prophesied to
the Jews at the end of his life :
'
You may be firmly
convinced, that you can only be cured by Christian
blood of this secret torment, with which you are pun-
ished.' J This utterance was caught at by the
ever-blind and godless Jews, and they hit upon the
plan that every year Christian blood should be shed
in every province, so that they might be healed by
such blood. And he [the proselyte] added : They all
interpreted the utterance by understanding the blood
to be that of any Christian whatever ; whilst yet that
"Quod ex maledictioiie parentum currat adhuc in filios vena facino-

ris per maculamsanguinis, ut per hanc importune fluidam proles
impia inexpiabiliter crucietur, quousque se ream sanguinis Chriati
recognoscat poenitens et sanetur."
+ [Perhaps Nicholas Donin, of La Rochelle, who in 1239 presented
Pope Gregory IX. with a complaint against the Talmud, containing
a good many calumnies, which led in 1242 to the burning of a mass
of Talmud MSS. which filled 24 waggons, Cf. Js. Loth in Btvut des
Etudes juives I.
(1880),
247-61
; II.
(1881), 248-70; III., 39-57, and
I., 293-6. In 1240 a Disputation between N.D. and Jechiel, f
Paris, and three other Rabbis about the Talmud. Thomas, of
Cantimpre, was in Paris 1237-42, and relates in t>he
"
Bonum
universale" I.,
3 6; van der Vet, "Bienboec," 230 about the
Talmud-burning; so he was personally acquainted with Nicholas.]
I
"
Certissime vos scitote nullo mode sanari vos posse ab illo, quo
punimini verecundissimo cruciatu nisi solo sanguine Christiano."
176
blood was meant, which is daily poured on the altar
for the forgiveness of sins; everyone of our people
who, converted to belief in Christ, receives this [the
blood of Christ in Holy Communion], as is proper, is
soon healed of the curse inherited from his fathers.''
It is a question how those cases should be judged,
in which the desire for blood is mentioned without a
statement of its object, e.g.
Pforzheim (1261),
Weissen-
burg (1270),
Krems (1293).
The actual or presumable
motive may either have been the
above-mentioned
(popular medicine or absolute
superstition connected
with folklore), or that which will presently be men-
tioned.
Numerous other murders might, if not be
justified, at least be explained as a reaction against
the far more numerous deeds
of
blood and violence prac-
tised against Jews, especially in the Middle Ages, by
Christians, and indeed not only by private but also
by official individuals
.*
The first incident that is relevant here is that re-
lated by the Ecclesiastical historian Sokrates, vii., 16.
In the Syrian town of Inmestar the Jews, who had
got drunk on the occasion of a festival, began to scoff
at the Christians, and then at Christ Himself. They
next tied a Christian child to a cross, and made mock
of it. Finally they so ill-treated the child that it died.
The Jews were severely punished for this outrage
committed in their insolence. The Jewish festival was
presumably the feast of Purim, and the child was
supposed to represent Haman {H. Grdtz,
"
Geschichte
der Juden," 2nd ed., iv., 393; J. G. Frazer, "The
Golden Bough," 2nd ed., iii., 173 sq.)
*
No Christian will be able to read without pain and without shudder-
ing the fifty-page chapter on "Sufferings" in Zunz's "Die Bynago-
agle Poesie des Mittelalters
"
(Be. 1885). (Cf. also A. Neuhauer
and M. Stern,
"
Hebraische Berichte iiber die Judenverfolgungeo
wahrend der Kreuzziige," Be. 1892).
The hatred of Jews for Christians, the Christian
religion, and its founders, [odium Christi et Christia-
norum] corresponded to the hatred of Christians for
the Jews and the Jewish religion. The crucifixions
of Christian children, more rarely of grown-up
Christians, at Easter, frequently reported, especially
in the 12th and 13th centuries, so far as they are really
historical, would give expression to this hatred, e.g.
William of Norwich,* 1144, Harold of Gloucester,
1168, Blois, 1171, William of Paris, 1177, Richard of
Paris, in Pontoise,t 1179, Robert, in Bury St.
Edmunds, 1181, Winchester, 1182, Prague, 1305 (v.
infr.) Christians were treated as Jesus was once
treated, and as they would gladly have treated all
those by whom they were hated, persecuted, and
killed. Also, whoever assumes all these reports to be
exact accounts of actual happenings, has no right to
speak of ritual actions. Such ideas are simply con-
tradicted by the fact that the reports referring to the
more remote periods speak of the Christian, not of the
Jewish Easter festival. The combination of the cru-
cifixions, and the other so-called
"
ritual murders
"
with the Jewish Easter I hold to be something quite
secondary. It is utterly perverse to imagine these
assumed or actual murders to be sacrifices of atone-
ment. If they had that character, they would have
frequently been mentioned about the time of the
Jewish Day of Atonement, i.e. the end of September
or in October.
*
This accusation is the oldest after 416 a.d., and appears to be an
imitation of what happened at Inmestar. Cf. A. Jessop and M. R.
James,
"
Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich," Cambridge
1896
(91
and 303
p.);
S. Berger in "Melusine, Recueil de
mythologie," etc., vol. viii. (Paris 1896-7), col. 169-74.
i- Louis VII. of France
(1137-80) subsequently admitted that the Jews
were not guilty of the murders in Blois and Pontoise, v. A. Nevhauer
and M. Stern. 34
(p.
149 of the German translation). That false
charges were often brought, can be seen by the Jewish ordinance of
the Bohemian King, Ottokar II., in 1254 (v. Ch. 19 D).
M
Again, it should be carefully noted, that even in
the case
of
the twelfth
century, the utilisation
of
Christian blood by the Jews is not mentioned by any
ancient winters, much less its utilisation for ritual
objects. According to the Marbach annals, it was in
1236 the Emperor Frederick II. first inquired whether,
as a wide-spread idea was current, the Jews needed
Christian blood ("utrum. . . . Christianum san-
guinem in parasceve necessarium haberent,") and he
received a negative answer from the expert commis-
sion appointed by him (v. Ch. 19 B).
The long list of
"
ritual murders," which terrifies
the ignorant, will shrink very much in size in the
judgment of anybody who seriously weighs all the
facts here presented. It is at once nullified, if one
critically examines every single "case
"
which is de-
scribed in sufficient detail. Whilst referring the
reader to a series of articles called "Die Blutliige
"
(the blood-lie), published by Dr. H. Bildesheimer in the
Oesterreichische Wochenschrift (Vienna), 1899, No. 44
sq., I shall mention here at any rate the majority of
those older cases which are often brought up, and a
portion of the accusations belonging to the most re-
cent times, and indeed in chronological order. Fulda,
1235; Valreas, 1247; Trent, 1475; Tyrnau, 1494;
Posing, 1529; Damascus, 1840; Tisza-Eszlar, 1882;
Corfu, 1891; Xanten, 1891; Polna, 1899; and Konitz,
1900 are the most "famous
"
cases.
1235. Fulda, Cf. supr.,
p.
176 sq. It is related in
the Erfurt Annals
(" Monumenta Germaniae, Scrip-
tores," xvi., 31)
:
"
In this year
[1235]
on 28 December,
at Fulda, 34 Jews of both sexes were put to the sword
by
crusaders, because two of the Jews had, on holy
Christmas Day, cruelly killed the five sons of a miller
who lived outside the city walls, and was at the time
at church with his wife; they had collected their
blood in bags smeared with wax, and had then, after
they had set fire to them, gone away. When the
truth of this occurrence was made known, and con-
fessed to b}^ the guilty Jews themselves, they were
punished, as stated above." Here, too, no witnesses;
here, too, merely confession produced by torture,
therefore valueless. At any rate, there can be no
question here of a ritual murder ; because
(1)
the Jews'
confession concerns only the use of blood for cura-
tive purposes (Marbach Annals, v. supr.
p.
176 sq.);
(2)
the expert commission appointed by the Emperor
Frederick II. declared the untenableness of the accu-
sation that the Jews were obliged to have human
blood for any object whatever, and the Emperor in
consequence "fully acquitted the Jews of Fulda of
the crime attributed to them, and the rest of the Jews
of Germany of such a serious charge
"
(v. Ch. 19 B);
(3)
on 25th' September, 1253 (v. Ch. 19 C), Pope Inno-
cent IV. likewise declared against this accusation:
"Since many Jews at Fulda and in several other
places have been killed owing to a suspicion of the
kind, we forbid," etc. Cf. R. Honiger,
"
Zeitschrift fiir
die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland," I.
(1877),
136-51, and M. Stern, ibid. II.
(1888),
194-9. The
names of the victims are given in the Nuremberg
Register, v. S. Salfeld,
"
Das Martyrologium des
Niirnberger Memorbuches," Be., 1898, 13. 122 sq.
1247. Valreas (a little town in the present depart-
ment of Vaucluse). Meilla, a girl two years' old, dis-
appears on 26th March, the Tuesday in Passion week.
The following day she is found dead in the town ditch,
with wounds on her forehead, hands, and feet. The
child has been seen previously in the Jews' street ; for
the rest, torture was employed here also as a substi-
tute for all evidence. The confession ran to the effect
that Christian blood was used as a kind of sacrifice
("quasi sacrificium.") Cf. A. Molinier,
"
Enquete sur
un meurtre impute aux Juifs de Valreas
'
' (in
"
Le
Cabinet Historique. Nouvelle Serie," II., Paris,
1884, 121-34), and M. Stern, "Beitrage," II., 46-62.
This "case" gave rise to two bulls (not known to
Molinier at the time) of Innocent IV. to the Arch-
bishop of Vienne, 28 May, 1247. I translate the one
which is most important here, according to the first
impression in E. Berger,
"
Eegistres d'Innocent IV.,"
Vol. I., Paris, 1884.
/., No. 2815 :
"
//
the Christian religion were care-
fully
to weigh, how inhuman and contrary to
fiety
it
is, to torment with divers oppressions, and exasperate
with manifold grave injuries, the survivors
of
the
Jews, to whom, as the remaining witnesses
of
His
redemptory suffering,
and His victorious death, the
goodness
of
the Saviour has promised the grace
of
salvation, then woidd it not only keep its hands from
doing them injustice, but would also, at least
for
the
sake
of
the semblance
of
piety, and out
of
reverence
for
Christ, impai^t the consolation
of
humanity to
those who to a certain extent pay tribute to it. Now
a petition
of
the Jews
of
Vienne to us states that the
nobleman Draconetus, after
the Jews
of
Valreas had
been accused
of
having crucified a girl who was found
dead in a ditch, despoiled three Jews, without their
having been convicted or having confessed, nay, with-
out anyone having accused them,
of
all their property,
and consigned them to terrible imprisonment, refused
them legal redress and justification
of
their inno-
cence, had some
of
them cut to pieces, others burnt.
The genital organs were torn
off
the men, and the
breasts
off
the women, and they were tortured with
all manner
of
toi'tures until they admitted with their
mouths what their conscience knew nothing about, be-
cause they preferred to die once in agony than to live
and be continually tortured.* In order to increase
* "
Donee ipsi id quod eorum conseientia non didicit ore, sicut dicitur,
sunt confessi, uno uecari tormento potius eligentes quam vivere et
penarum afflictionibus cruciari."
Evidence of History
181
the agonies oj the tortured, the Bishop
of
Trois-
Chdteaux and some
magnates
of
the province had
seized this
opportunity to rob all the Jews dwelling in
their districts
of
their possessions, and to
imprison
and torture those whom the Apostolic See has taken
under its protection, by various forcible
methods and
oppressions.
They have therefore
humbly en-
treated us, mercifully to be solicitous for
their inno-
cence. As therefore,
when there has been no
antecedent
crime, no one shall suffer
punishment, and
also no one may be punished for
another's crime, we,
filled
with fatherly
sympathy for
them, command you,
if
things are so, to cause the Bishop and the others to
restore to the aforesaid
Jews their freedom
and
belongings, to give them compensation, and to allow
them to live unhampered.''
II., No. 838
:
''It proves an
unpraiseworthy
zeal
or a repulsive
cruelty, lohen Christians,
acting con-
trary to the clemency
of
the Catholic
7êligion, which
permits Jews to dwell among them, and has ordained
that they may live in their own rites, despoil,
mutilate
and kill the Jews out
of
avarice or
blood-thirstiness,
without a trial. The Jews
of
your province are now
making bitter complaint to us, that some prelates and
nobles
of
those
parts, in order to have a cause for
raging against them., charged them with the death
of
a girl, who is said to have been secretly
murdered
near Valreas, and on that account
inhumanly de-
livered some
of
them to the flames,
without their
having been legally convicted, or having confessed,"^
deprived several
of
all their property, and banished
them, and that they are compelling their sons (con-
"
Quod quidam prelati et nobiles
ut in ipsoa
haberent materiam seviendi eis cuiusdam puelle, que apud Valri*
furtim perempta dicitur, interitura imponentes quosdam ipsorum
non convictos legitime nee confessos flammis ignium
inhumaniter ere
maverunt."
trary to the manner
of
the free
mother, who hears her
children to freedom)
to become baptised. Since we
do not intend to tolerate this, as indeed, under God,
we cannot, we command that you restore everything
again to legal conditions as regards these Jews, and
do not allow them to be unjustly
of
pressed by anybody
whomsoever henceforth, on account
of
these or similar
accusations, by using the compulsion
of
ecclesiasti-
cal punishment, without granting appeal, in the case
of
those who oppress them^
1261. Pforzheim. Thomas Cantipratanus (about
him V. Ch. 20, ad init.),
"
Bonum Universale," Douay,
1627, 303 sq., gives the story according to the accounts
of two Dominicans, who are said to have been at
Pforzheim three days after the incidents: A
thoroughly bad woman, on friendly terms with the
Jews, wâs said to have sold them a girl of seven years.
The Jews inflicted many wounds on the child, and
carefully collected the blood on a folded piece of linen
placed under her. They then weighted the corpse
with stones, and threw it into the river. A few days
later some fishermen noticed a hand raised up to the
skies, and find the dead child. The populace at
once suspected the Jews. When these are brought to
the corpse, the wounds begin again to bleed (v. supr.
Ch.
3, p.
49. When they are brought before the dead
fchild a second time, her face flushes, and her arms
rise up, as had already happened before in the pre-
sence of the Margrave of Baden, who had hastened to
the spot. There were in addition statements by the
woman's little daughter
("
filia parvula,") and
(" quia
a puero et ebrio extorquetur Veritas,") because the
truth is extracted from children and drunken people,
the Jews were broken on the wheel after various tor-
*
"
Non permittas, ipsos de cetero super his vel similibus ab aliquibus
indebite molestari, molestatores hujusmodi per censurara ecclesia-
sticam appellations postposita compescendo."
Evidence of History
183
turings; two of them strangled one the other. A
proper judicial
examination did not take place; the
miracles taken together with the child's statements
sufficed. It is curious that the same miracles are
reported apropos also of other
"
ritual murders
"
(Werner, of Oberwesel, etc.). If proof were necessary
that the Pforzheim "case" was also a judicial
murder, it is forthcoming in the manner of its narra-
tion in the Nuremberg Register (Salfeld, 15. 128),
and
in the synagogal poems. Cf. Osterreich.
Wochenschr.
1899, No. 45, p.
850 sq., where in my opinion it is justly
assumed, that the woman should be regarded as the
murderess.*
1270. Vyeissenhurg. The Leipsic anon,
writer,
Desportes and Osservatore Cattolico :
"
1260. The Jews
of Weissenburg kill a child," following the minor
annals of Colmar, "Monum. Germ. Script." xvii., 191.
But year and day of the death are established by
the Jewish authorities and Hertzog's
"
Edelsasser
Chronik"" (Strasburg, 1592, 198 sq.) : Peter and Paul
Sunday, 29 June, 1270. Heinrich Menger, a boy of
seven, was on that day left alone by his father in a
field near the town. When the father returned, the
child had vanished. His cap is found on the brink of
the Lauter, which flows near at hand ; on Tuesday his
mangled corpse in the river near a mill. There is no
investigation as to whether the wounds have been
caused by the mill-wheels, but the Jews are accused,
because the wounds bleed afresh as soon as the corpse
was carried into the town. Count Emicho IV. of Lein-
inijen, who is summoned, postpones judgment till the
following Friday. x\s the wounds bleed on that day
also, although, according to the accusation, the Jews
(Salfeld, 128-30, holds the year to be 1267 : but Thomas's book, bo

far as we know, was ready as early as 1261, and that date is given
both in the above-mentioned edition of the Latin text and also in
the Middle-Dutch translation, v. van der Vet, "Bienboec," 222.
had hung up the child by the legs, and opened all hi&
veins, in order to extract all the blood, any further
examination into the actual circumstances was
thought superfluous, the former torturing of the pro-
testing Jews was even omitted, and they (seven of
them) were brought by the wheel from life to death.
Cf. Oesterr. Wochenschrift, 1899, No.
47, p.
888 sq. ; Sal-
feld, 21 sq., 148-151.
1283. Mainz. Leipsic anon.
" A child is de-

livered over by its nurse to the Jews of Mainz, who
killed it." In April, 1283, the body of a child was
found near Mainz. Archbishop Werner, of Mainz,
befriended to the best of his abilities the Jews who
were accused without proof, but could not even
accomplish the introduction of a regular trial; the
rabble, exasperated by a relation of the child's, fell
upon the Jews on the 7th Passover Day
(19
April),
slew ten of them, and then started plundering. Cf. K.
A. Schaab,
"
Diplomatische Geschichte der Juden in
Mainz," Mainz, 1855, 32 sq., Salfeld, 20. 144 sq.,
Oesterr. Wochenschr. 1899, No.
45, p.
851.
1285. Munich (Cf. supr. page 173). An old
woman, caught kidnapping, accused the Jews when
tortured. The fury of the populace cannot in any
way be restrained, either by the authority of the
magistrate nor by the command of the prince
("
nee
magistratus auctoritate nee principis imperio ulla
ratione cohiberi potest,") M. Rader, "Bavaria
Sancta," II. (Munich,
1624), 315 sq. There was no
waiting for judicial proceedings and pronouncement
of sentence ("non expectato judicio vel sententia,"
Hermann von Altaich,
"
Mon. Germ. Hist., Scripto-
res," xvii.,
415), but on 12th October the mob storm
the synagogue and burn it down, together with 180
Jews who had taken refuge in it. Cf. also Salfeld 21.
146 sq.
1286. Oheinvesel. "The good Werner." Leipsic
Evidence of History
185
anon.: "At Oberwesel am
Rhein, the fourteen-year-
old Saint Werner is slowly tortured to death by the
Jews for three days."
Neither the brief Worms
Annals ("Monum. Germ. Script." xvii., 77,
for the
year 1286), nor Baronius (for the year 1287, No.
18),
say anything about blood, or even of a ritual purpose.
The sole evidences against the Jews were the
"miracles." The corpse swam upstream to Bacharach,
gave forth a halo, healed sick people. And yet there
were between 1286 and 1289 persecutions of Jews in
Oberwesel, Bacharach, Siegburg, and numerous other
places, V. Salfeld, 24 sq^, 155 sq. The Emperor
Rudolph I. of Habsburg, to whom the oppressed Jews
had turned with prayers for protection (would they
have done so had they been really guilty?) com-
manded Archbishop Heinrich to announce solemnly
in his sermon that the Christians had done the Jews
the greatest injustice, and that "the good Werner,"
who was commonly described as having been killed
by the Jews, and was worshipped by some simple-
minded Christians as a Saint, should be burnt, his
ashes scattered to the wind, and brought to nothing
(Colmar's
"
Chronik," for the year 1288, in "Monum.
Germ. Script."
xvii., 255. Cf. Oesterr. Wochenschr.
1899, No. 44, p.
832 sq.)
In spite of these being the actual circumstances, F. S.
Hattler, "Katholischer Kindergarten oder Legende fur
Kinder" (4th edition), Freiburg i. B., 1889
(606)
ventures to
inform Roman Catholic children in detail, that the Jews of
Oberwesel first hung up the boy Werner by the legs, because
they thought they wovild in that way get hold of the consecrated
wafer [v. supr.
p.
58 sq.j of which he had partaken beforehand,
and then opened his veins and cut him with scissors, in order
to collect his blood. Tales are told about Andreas, of Rinn
(1462),
and Simon, of Trent (1475)
in a similarly mendacious
manner ! Does this work rightly commence with the state-
ment : "With approval of the right rev. vicarship of the Chapter
of Freiburg?"
1293. Krems (Lower Austria).
" The Jews in
Krems had a Christian sent from Briinn, and killed
him in the most cruel way, in order to get his blood."
Thus Zwettl's
"
Klosterchronik," the only original
source, "Monum. Germ. hist. Script.," ix., 658. But
it was written nearly three centuries after the occur-
rence. Who believes that the Jews at that time were
able to "send" each other living Christians, and in
addition, over so long a distance ? Besides which, the
chronicler adds that after two Jews had been already
broken on the wheel, Duke Albert I. (as King of
Germany, 1298-1308) and the nobility interfered in
favour of the rest.
1294. Rudolph of Berne. Leipsic anon, for the
year 1287: "The Jews rob St. Rudolph at Easter, put
him to fearful tortures, and finally cut the child's
head off. The chief offenders were broken on the
wheel, their accomplices banished." The best exam-
ination of the actual facts has been made by the
Bernese clergyman, J. Stammler, in
"
Katholische
Schweizer-Blatter," Lucerne, 1888, 268-302, 376-90,
which I follow here.* The Roman Ritual Congrega-
tion had indeed in 1869 approved the mention of the
boy Rudolph in the Diocesan Supplement (brieviary
and missal), and in the Diocesan Calendar of the
bishopric of Bale (17
April); "but that certainly did
not imply any declaration of the truth of the whole
contents of the story of his life, but merely a permis-
sion of its use in the breviary or choir prayer. It is
altogether not forbidden Catholic knowledge, to test
the correctness of the historical part of the breviary
"
(269).All later mentions go back to the Chronicles
of Konrad Justinger, who died in 1426. The Jews
His predecessors in correctly judging the affair were J. E. Eopp^

"
Geschichte der eidgenbssischen Biinde
"
II., 399; W. Fetscherin
(in
"
Abhandlungen des histor. Vereins des Kantons Bern
"
II.
(1851) 61 sq.
;
G. Studer (in "Archiv des histor. Vereins von Bern"
1863,
536)
; and
6'.
v. Wattenwyl ("Geschichte der Stadt u. Lands-
chaft Bern" I., 146, Schaffhausen 1867).
Evidence of History
187
were alleged to have horribly martyred and murdered
the boy Kuof in the house and cellar of the rich Jew,
Joli. "Die morder wurdent gevangen, ein Teil uf
reder gesetzet, die andren usgeslagen und wart da
einhellenklich von einer gemeiiide
bern gelopt und
verheissen, daz kein jude niemerme gan bern komen
solte" ("The murderers were caught, some broken
on the wheel, the others banished, and it was there
unanimously sworn and proclaimed by a meeting of
the Bernese community, that no Jew should ever
again come to Berne.") King Rudolph of Habsburg
is said to have waxed very wroth about it, and to have
appeared before Berne with an army of 30,000
men at
the end of May in the same year, 1288. But the real
cause of the King's wrath was the
refractoriness of
the town, and the dealings of Berne with Savoy,
which were dangerous to the kingdom. The King
repeatedly besieged the town in 1288 without, how-
ever, taking it; his son, Duke Rudolph,
defeated the
Bernese in 1289, and peace was concluded in the same
year. "The Jewish persecution
narrated by Just-
inger
"
was
"
not even a complementary cause
"
of the
fighting,
"
and indeed for the simple reason that the
persecution can be proved to have taken place only
later on
"
(284).
The Bernese quarrel with the Jews,
and the murdering of the child belong,
according to
the original documents, to the year 1294,
i.e. to the
time of King Adolphus of Nassau. A boy of the name
of Rudolph was found dead in the year mentioned,
and public opinion accused the Jews of having killed
him out of hatred for Christians. The man Joli,
described by
Justinger as the chief criminal,
appears
alive in the original documents of June and Decem-
ber, 1294, so he was not broken on the wheel; there is
also nothing recorded about the execution of one or
several other Jews. The words
"
ut dicitur
"
(as
people say) in the quittance of the magistrate of
December, 1294, prove
"
that no judicial finding of
guilty took place, and accordingly also doubtless no
breaking on the wheel" (293 sq.). Moreover, the
contemporary annals of Kolmar for the year 1294
merely announce : "As people say, the Jews of Berne
killed a boy," and King Albert, in the year 1300,
speaks only about "excesses which, as people say,
have been perpetrated by the Jews." In 1294 the
Jews were maltreated by the Bernese before 30th
June. The Jews turned to their liege-lord. King
Adolphus. The judgment of his ambassadors said
nothing about the guilt of the Jews, did not especially
mention the death of the boy, but levied a heavy
money-bail on the Jews : they were obliged to remit
all debts of all the inhabitants of Berne, and pay
besides to the community 1,000 silver marks, to the
magistrate 500 silver marks (according to the present
value of money about 4,000 and 2,000). This can
only be explained if it was not a question of blood-
guiltiness, but bitterness prevailed owing to the fact
that very many persons owed the Jews money (297).
Not before the 18th century comes the statement of

/. R. V. Waldkirch,
"
Einleitung zu der eidgenossischen
Bundes-und Staatshistorie
"
(Bale, 1721), I., 135, that
the Jews "crucified" the child, and /.
Lauffer,
"
Beschreibung helvetischer Geschichte " (Zurich,
1736), TIL, 108, is the first to know that the Jews
"
distilled all his blood out of him, in order to practice
their damnable superstition!"
1303. Weissensee, in Thuringia. The contem-
porary Presbyter, Siegfried von Klein-Balnhausen,
"Monum. Germ. hist. Script.," xxv., 717 relates that
the Jews before the Passover had drawn all the blood
out of a schoolboy named Konrad, after opening all his
veins, and put him to a cruel death. No further proof
of the guilt of the Jews apart from the miracles (the
Jews are supposed not to have been able to bury the
corpse, etc.) is brought forward. There was no
judicial investigation; but on the 14th March the
Jews were nevertheless slaughtered in heaps
("
tur-
matim.") The Nuremberg Register has preserved
the 120 names, v. Salfeld 59. 215-17. The Jews in
other parts of Thuringia, with the exception of the
town of Erfurt, were visited by the persecution of that
period. Cf. Oesterr. Wochenschr. 1899, No. 49, p.
929
sq.
1305. Prague (Osservatore Cattolico wrongly
"1325.")
Crucifixion of a Christian at Easter time.
Oldest authority: Johannes Dubravius, who wrote
two and a half centuries later, in his history of
Bohemia. In this case, too, the rabble, without wait-
ing for judicial proceedings on the King's part
("
non
expectato judicio regis ") put the Jews to death in a
horrible fashion
("
exquisitissimis suppliciis.") These
hasty proceedings become comprehensible, when it is
considered that Wenceslaus II. (1283-1305) had con-
firmed Ottokar II. 's Jewish Ordinance a few years
before, and therefore no condemnation of the Jews
without proofs was to be expected from him. If the
accusation was well-founded, it was a question of one
of the crucifixions mentioned supr.
p.
125 out of hatred
against Christ ("odio Christ!.")
1317. The Jews of Chinon (in Touraine) complained
to the French Parliament that four of them had been
arrested and tortured because of a suspicion they were
guilty of a child's death. Two of them, under force of
torture
("
vi tormentorum,") had confessed, and been
hung; two had resisted, and were still in prison. The
Parliament named plenipotentiary commissaries of
investigation {Boutaric, "Actes du
Parlement," II.,
No. 4827, 5 May, 1317).
The investigation
quickly
took place, and led to the arrest of a
number of
Christian men and women, who had come to be sus-
pected of being the real murderers (ibid. No. 4936, 12
July, 1317).
"
In order to determine the commissaries
to these arrests they had to have very strong
evidence ; above all the innocence of the Jews had to
appear quite clear to them," Molinier, "Cabinet
Historique," new series II. (Paris, 1884),
127.
1329. Savoy. Children had disappeared in
Geneva, Rumilly, Annecy, and elsewhere. A
Christian, Jaquet, of Aiguebelle, was under suspi-
cion
;
when arrested he admitted the kidnapping, but
declared that he had sold them to some Jews through
the medium of a Jew called Acelin, of Tresselve.
Acelin confessed voluntarily ("sponte,") i.e. accord-
ing to the language of that period, "after the first
degree of torture," he had resold five children to his
co-believers, Jocetus (Jose) and Aquinetus (Isaac).
These, he said, had killed the children, and com-
pounded out of their heads and entrails a salve or
food,
"
aharace,"* so as to give some of it to all the
Jews
;
"
and the Jews eat of this food at every Pass-
over instead of a sacrifice ("loco sacrificii,") and
prepare it at least in every sixth year," because they
believe they are saved thereby ("credunt se esse
salvatos.") The accusation was soon levelled also
against the Jews of other parts, in fact, throughout
the whole of Savoy. Count Edward of Savoy there-
upon set on foot a thorough investigation of the
matter. This led to the result that the accusations
were heaped upon the Jews by deliberate misrepre-
sentations and deceptions on the part of some
adversaries of theirs, so that they might be robbed
of their property, contrary to God and justice," v.
H.
Hildesheimer in Jild. Presse, 1892, No. 18, p.
211, and
Oesterreich. Wochenschrift, 1899, No. 51, p.
963, and
Edward's whole original documents of 20 July, 1329,
in Sterrt.,
"
Beitrage," I., 7-14.
i.e., "haroseth," the sauce, in which the bitter herbs (endive, etc.)
were dipped on the first Passover Evening.
1332. Ueherlingen (in the present Grand-Duchy of
Baden). A boy was found dead in a well. John of
Winterthur relates in his Chronicles,* that the parents
had "observed by definite surmises and clear proofs,
especially by incisions in the bowels and veins, that
he had been killed by the Jews." In addition to this
proof occurred
"
the renewed flowing of wounds when
he was carried in front of the Jews' houses." The
Jews (as is said, more than 300),
were enticed together
into a house, and this was set fire to from below, with-
out consulting the Emperor Ludwig [1314-47] and
without paying attention to the judgment of his
Imperial Governor." Cf., besides, Oesterr. Wochenschr.
1899, No.
51, p.
964sq.
1345. Munich. It can only be gathered from
Rader's
"
Bavaria sancta
"
that the lacerated body of
the boy Heinrich was found, and the guilt for the
deed was laid on the Jews. Nothing is said about
using the blood, and as little about a judicial investi-
gation. Even John von AVinterthur (Wyss, 232;
Freuler,
334),
relates that Ludwig, the Bavarian, for-
bade worship of the boy.
1462. Rinn. The boy Andreas Oxner, of Rinn,
near Innsbruck, is said to have been sold by his god-
father to Jewish merchants, to have been cruelly
killed by them on the "Jew-stone"
("
Judenstein,")
in the neighbouring birch-wood ; they had carefully,
it is alleged, collected the blood in vessels. Adrian
Kemhter,
"
Acta pro veritate martyrii corporis et cultus
publici B. Andreae Rinnensis," Innsbruck, 1745;
/. Deckert,
"
Vier Tiroler Kinder, Opfer des chassidi-
schen Fanatismus," Vienna, 1893, 87-119; also a
"Johannis Vitodurani Chronicon," published by G. v. Wyss,

Zurich 1856, 106sq.
"Die Chronik Johann's von Winterthur," done

into German by B. Freuler, Winterthur 1866,
145-7. In regard to
the date (J. v. W. says "1331"), cf. M. Stern, "Die israelitische
Bevolkerung der deutschen Stadte; I., Ueherlingen am Bodensee,"
Frankf. a. M. 1890, 3 eq.
bibliography in Daumer II., 263. The tradition was
not committed to writing before the beginning of the
17th century, and then especially b}^ the physician
Hippolyt Guarinoni, in Hall, who died in 1654. He
also found beneath the wall decoration, dating from
1575, near the pulpit in the Rinn Church, pieces of an
older inscription, in which the Jews are indeed
accused of the murder, but there is nothing said about
the extracton of blood. That the inscription cannot
be regarded as historic in the strict sense of the word,
is clear from the two following statements contained
in it : that the money given to the godfather changed
into leaves, and a lily grew on the child's grave.
There was no judicial examination into the facts of
the case ; nothing is even said of an inspection of the
corpse by the authorities. The Jews are said to ha.ve
bought the child on their return to their homes, on the
pretext that one of them wanted to adopt him. But
how, then, is it intelligible that they did not delay the
sacrifice, which took up time on account of the col-
lecting of the blood, till they had crossed the boundary
which was near at hand? The careful reader may
perceive even in Deckert's excessively biassed account
that a
"
ritual murder
"
is nothing less than proved.
lJj.68, Regenshurg, v. 1476.
1474, Regensburg. C. Th. Gemeiner,
"
Regensbur-
gische Chronik," III. (Regensburg, 1821),
532
sq., narrates as follows, according to the official
documents: "A master of the Jews [Judenmeister]
living here, too, Israel, of Prunn [Briinn], was
acquitted of such inhuman dealing. For a time there
were only rumours about it in the community, till it
was said aloud that Hans Veyol, a baptized Jew, had
really asserted about the Judenmeister and himself
given information that he had sold him a boy seven
years old. Then nobody doubted any more that the
lawless deed had truly been done." As King
Wladislaus
pronounced from Prague and the
Emperor from Nuremberg a very decided prohibition
of Israel's execution, the council resolved to try again
the baptised Jew, about whom it was probable that
he had only made such assertions through hatred of
Israel, and who was destined to the death penalty on
account of other crimes. This man,
"
in the certain
expectation of death, confirmed his earlier statements
[about his own crimes], and he only recalled the accu-
sation brought against the master of the Jews, and
declared him innocent. His recantation was the more
readily believed, since, in spite of all searching,
nobody had been able to discover the parents from
whom the child Avas said to have been stolen."
1475 Murder of Simon of Trent, a child of two
and a half years, on Good Friday night. Biblio-
graphy: "Acta Sanctorum, March IX," 24 March;
Bonelli,
"
Dissertazione apologetica sul martirio del
Beato Simone da Trento," Trent, 1747; Civilta
Cattolica, 1881, sq. : Onody, 83-99; Rohling,
"
Meine
Antworten," 58-80, 96-101; Desportes, 132-63; /.
Deckert,
"
Ein Ritualmord.
Aktenmassig nachgewie-
sen,
"5
Dresden, 1893(39);
J. Deckert,
"
Vier Tiroler
Kinder, Opfer des chassidischen Fanatismus. Ur-
kundlich dargestellt," Vienna, 1893,
1-72.
I
here use
the results of the archival researches of Dr. Moritz
Stern. Trent, 1475, and Damascus, 1840, are the two
chief bulwarks of the blood-accusations,
when it is a
question of proof by adducing
"
historical facts." But
unjustifiably, because both in Trent and in Damascus
the confessions desired by the examiners, but untrue,
were extorted by torture. All Jews were for several
days subjected to inhuman torments, and only con-
fessed after repeated torturing, increased in agony
each time. Bishop Hinderbach, of Trent, admitted
this himself in his letters to the Pope.
The assertion that a ritual murder in the proper
sense of the phrase, i.e. a murder for procuring
Christian blood to be ritually used, took place, is
proved impossible merely by the date of Simon's
death. The Jewish Passover in 1475 fell on Maundy
Thursday, 23rd March, so it began on the evening of
22nd March. The partaking of the "mazza'' (the
unleavened Easter bread) and the four cups of wine is
prescribed by the religious law precisely for that
initiating evening, the so-called "Seder'' evening.
But the boy first disappeared on Maundy Thursday,
and so the charge states, was murdered on Good
Friday night. How on earth could the Jews on the
22nd March bake into the Easter bread and put in the
wine the blood of the boy who was staying in his
parents' house, still hale and unharmed? And, after
all, according to the accusation confirmed by "con-
fession," they were obliged to have ''fresh
Christian
blood
"
precisely in that year as in a year of Jubilee!
Incidentally : The year 1475 was celebrated with quite
extraordinary pomp by Pope Sixtus IV. as
"
annus
jubilei," but since the destruction of Jerusalem in
587 B.C. the Jews have no longer commemorated the
Year of Jubilee (Leviticus xxv.) Thus have the
accusers made constructive charges arising out of
their own peculiar point of view, and then had them
confirmed by the Jews by means of torture
!
About the kind of torture practised, the docu-
ments, which Hinderbach sent to Rome for his
justification, and therefore prepared for publication,
afford even then more than sufficient revelation
(Vienna, Codex, 5360) :
On 30th March, Samuel, the most respected
of
the
incarcerated T7'ent Jews, was ""tried"
for
the first
time ; at the conclusion he was led hack to prison
"
in
order to recover" ("" animum repetendi," i.e. in the
judicial language
of
that age, he had fainted).
The
following day he is stripped naked, bound hand and
Evidence
of
History
195
foot,
and
drawn wp
high by a
rope, so
that his limbs,
drawn
down by
the
weight of
the body,
were
wrenched
out
of
their
sockets.
As he
protests
his own and
the
other
Jews'
innocence,
he
gets
'' una
cavaleta,"
a
''jump,''
i.e. he was
quickly
let drop,
in order
that
he
might be
pulled up
again
equally
quickly;
they
then
"move,"
i.e.
strike
the
tense-
stretched
ôpe on
which he was
hanging,
and
made
him
"jump"
several
times
more. A
swoon
prevents
the
continua-
tion.
Torture is
resumed
on 3rd
April,
and first of
all,
with the
repetition of
all the
grades
already
applied.
Ashe
asseverates
he can
pledge
his
word for
the
innocence
both
of
himself
and
of
all Jews,
the rope ^s
''vigorously
moved,"*
and he is
made to
"jump"
twice from
twice the
height
of
his
arms.
Run up
again,
the
poor
wretch
cries:
"Where
has
your
Worship
learnt
that
Christian
blood
has
importance
and use for
usf
'
The reply is, he had
learnt
it from
other
Jews
like
Samuelf
The
"
jumping
"
procedure
is then
twice
repeated,
each time
twice or
thrice the
height
of
his arms,
and as even
this
martyrdom
does
not force
any
confession
he is let float
up aloft for
two-thirds of
an hour,
till a swoon
again
overpowers
his senses.
The fourth
day
of
torture
(7th
April)
begins
with
a
repetition of
the
previous
grades.
As
Samuel
not
only
disputed any
guilt, but
called out:
"
Were I to
* "
Corda f uit
pluries squassata.
'
' Innsbruck
"
Akten
"
;
" also ruereb
man das sail ettwas vill." (Lit.
"then one moves the
rope rather
much."
Trlr.).
t
"
Quod didicerat
illud a Judaeis
similibus sicut ipse
Samuel,
' i.e.,
from the
statements
procured by torture in previous
trials.
Ihis
answer of the city
prefect, who was
conducting
the
examination,
confirms
what is established by other
documents (Cf.
Archiv-
tur
katholisches
Kirchenrecht,"
vol. 50, p. 46),
that Bishop
Hinderbach
furnished the
protocols
connected with other trials.
No wonder
that the
confessions
of the Trent Jews partly tallied
with those of
their
companions in suffering
in other trials.
confess I had done any evil, I should he lying," they
tied to his leg as he
floated
in the ai?' a piece
of
wood
(which ivrenched the limbs yet further apart and sub-
stantially increased the pains); next they took an
iron pan
filled
ivith burning material, on which sul-
phur was thrown, and held it under his nose. In
spite
of
the stinking sulphur gas, fatal to all breath-
ing and feeling, and the pressure
of
interrogations
("cum pluries interrogaretur,
"
) he abides by his
denial
of
any guilt. Accordingly they "move'' the
rope several times, and thereupon tie the piece
of
wood between the shin bones (whereby the weight
became yet heavier, and the pain greater), and let the
poor wretch hang thus
for
a quai'ter
of
an hour.
When the
"
jumping
'
' process was now again re-
peated, Samuel's power
of
resistance was broken;
he "confesses" that he and Tobias "put a pocket-
handkerchief round the boy's neck and drew it tight,
so that the boy was strangled." Apart
from
this
"statement," which directly contradicts the accusa-
tion
of
extracting blood, nothing could be got out
of
him. When the question is put to him, how and by
whom the wounds were inflicted on the boy, he declares
he knows nothing.
There is now a pause
of
nearly two months in
Samuel's "examination." During this interval
occur the torturing
s and
"
confessions
'
'
of
the rest
of
the Jews, which now
form the basis
for his further
interrogation. About the 6th June the protocols
concerning Samuel only report about the
first
degrees
of
the torture (stripping, binding, hoisting up) ; dut
as they add that he was taken back into the prison
"
animum repetendi," the tortures must have been
substantially greater. He probably recanted already
on 6th June his
"
confession
"
of 8th April, as he
did on 7th June. The protocols report verbatim as
follows regarding the tortures on this day
:
Evidence of History
197
"
In the torture chamber. When invited to tell the
truth, since he did not need to hide what all his
ACCOMPLICES
HAD ALREADY ADMITTED, he rCfUeS
that
IF THEY HAVE ADMITTED
ANYTHING, THEY HAVE NOT
SPOKEN THE tRUTH. As the aforcsaid
town-prefect
had been told that the drinking
of
holy water brings
to confession
rogues who do not wish to confess, he
gave Sainuel a spoonful
of
such luater. Then being
invited to tell the truth, he said he had told it. Where-
upon tivo BOILING HOT EGGS iverc taken and jmt under
his armpits. Once more invited to tell the truth, he
answered he was willing to tell it ; he wished that only
the Hon. City Captain, and the Hon. City Prefect
should be present at his confession. The captain
and prefect
then ordered all those present to leave the
torture-chamber, and Samuel now declared, as the
Captain afterwards informed me, the Notary, that
he was willing to speak the truth, on condition that
the captain and the prefect
promised him to have
him burnt, and not to put him to any other
DEATH."
The re^wrt speaks a deeply-moving language: although
Samuel learns that his companions in suffering
have
already confessed, he disjmtes any guilt till the
abominable tortures force
him to acknowledge the
hopelessness
of
further resistance, the certainty
of
fresh,
augmented martyrdom, and place him at the
disposal
of
his tormentors. In dull resignation he
has but one wish, to be liberated by the quickest death
possible from
his agonies, which had now lasted
almost four
months and a half : after all it had been
promised him that he would only (I) be burnt!
A t first he only makes the
"
confession
''
'
to the two officials
named; he then, we assume, repeats it to a third party
(Odoriciis de Brezio), whilst he only says to the other
councillors, who have been recalled to the torture^
chamber,'' he WANTED to tell the truth." Since the
Captain and the prefect, however, saw that he
"
was
well disposed to tell the truth,''* they did not make
him do so immediately on the spot, as he is said to
have done a short time before ; but he is brought into
the City Captain's house, and there he is said to have
delivered his "confession," ''sitting on a kind
of
cathedra,"
f
before a number
of
witnesses. In spite
of
his self
-accusations his torturers were not yet satis-
fied;
because he is again
"
tried
"
on 11th June, again
in the City Captain's house. He is invited
"
to tell
the truth better,
"J
whilst he is threatened ivith a
hoisting on the rope in case he does not tell the truth.
Samuel answers he wants to tell the truth ; after con-
fessing to the murder
of
the boy, he would also
confess the rest.
Further denials would have been

futile in the position
of
affairs,
would only have
resulted in a reneival and enhancing
of
the tortures,
and accordingly he
"
confesses
"
everything they want
to hear
from him. On 21st June the poor wretch ivas
burnt.
Thus do the documents
of
the pi'oceedings, the documents
PREPARED by Bishop Hinderbach
for
submission to
Rome, describe the manner in which the
"
declara-
tion
"
of
Samuel, the chief accuser, ivas compassed!
A nd ALL the other victims in this tragedy were treated
likewise, even those who let themselves be baptized.
Typical
of
it is what Israel, the son
of
the Mohar
from
Brandenburg, has certified. The latter was taken
prisoner on 27th March, was tortured
from
12th to
21st April, desired baptism on 21st April, is set free
in consequence and is now called Wolfkan (Wolf-
gang). But on 26th October he is again imprisoned^
repeatedly tortured
from then till 11th January,
1^76, and on 19th January broken on the wheel. This
* "
Bene dispositus ad dicendum veritatem."
f
"Dura sederet super quadam cathedra."
X
"Quod melius dicat veritatem."
subsequent punishment accrued to him because he bore
witness at Roveredo before the Papal Legate, the
Bishop
of
Ventimiglia, about the torturing
of
the
accused Trent Jews. A t his
"
examination
"
at Trent,
on 23rd l<lovember, 1475, Wolfgang says he answered
the aforesaid bishop's inquiry: ''That
fire
with
sulphur was held under his (Wolfgang's) nose, by
which his
face
was burnt . . . and that the other
Jews were tortured in many ways, that
fire
with
sulphur was held under their noses, so that their
faces and breasts were burned, and that boiling-hot
eggs were placed under their armpits."
The Jews had already in this first trial pointed to
the Swiss Zanesus as the murderer. This man had
lost a lawsuit against his neighbour Samuel, and was
therefore a mortal enemy of the Jews. In the second
trial, conducted at Sixtus IV.'s command, by G. B.
dei Giudici, Bishop of Ventimiglia, at Trent and
Roveredo, in 1476, Anzelinus, too, a citizen of Trent,
accused Zanesus of the murder. It was besides
established, firstly, that the "confessions
"
of the
Jews were only forced from them by cruel torturings,
secondly, that the clerks of the court of Bishop Hin-
derbach in Trent had committed gross forgeries. At
the third trial, which took place in Rome in 1477-8,
the guilt of the Jews was not the point of issue, but
only the question whether the first trial had been con-
ducted with formal regularity. To save the face of
Bishop Hinderbach the Pope, on a bed of sickness,
allowed himself on 20th June, 1478, to be implored
into giving the decision that
"
processum ipsum recte
factum," i.e. the trial as such. In the same document,
however, he ordered the bishop to take heed, that no
Christian should venture, on account of the Trent
episode, or for any other reason, to kill an}^ Jew with-
out permission of the authorities, or to mutilate or to
wound or unjustifiably to extort money from them,
or to hinder them from continuing to observe their
rites which were allowed by law
("
ritus suos a jure
permissos continuare.") The ritual of the Jews is
here positively placed under Papal protection, which
is again a proof that the Pope considered the Jews
innocent who were done to death on account of the
boy Simon. The careful reader can recognise that
this was the state of the case, even in Deckert's
biassed account.
The fact that Pope Sixtus V., more than a century
later, in 1588, allowed the Mass in honour of Saint
Simon, proves nothing as to the guilt of the Jews;
from the standpoint of the Roman Catholic Church
this permission seems justified by the miracles which
were admitted by the Church. Similar proceedings
took place in respect of the boy Lorenzino of Marostica
(ob. 1485), V. "Bullen," 113 (note by M. Stern).
1476. Regensburg. Gemeiner III,, 567 sq. Pro-
ceedings arising from the Trent "confessions,"
because of a murder which the Regensburg Jews are
supposed to have committed eight years previously,
i.e. 1468. New light is thrown upon it, and conse-
quently upon the Trent occurrences, by A. Osiander,
22 sq. (for title v. Ch. 19 E) :
"
So too, many years ago
at Regenspurg, in the case of seventeen Jews, and
among them the most respected and wealthy, it had
to be acknowledged that they had never done [the
deed], and when the commissaries of His Imperial
Majesty had heard the evidence, they came to the
conclusion that one of the Jews, namely Jossel Jud,
on the day, on which he was said to have committed
the murder at Regenspurg, had indisputably been at
Landsshut, engaged in great and important business
with, and in the presence of, the same commissaries,
and so it was discovered, that everything the seven-
teen Jews had confessed was untrue, and had simply
been extorted by threats and violence." Jossel was
the chief of the accused, and had described himself as
a murderer, under torture.
1490. The child at Guardia, near Toledo. Isidor
Loeb,
"
Le saint enfant de la Guardia
"
(in
"
Revue des
Etudes Juives," xv., Paris, 1887, 203-32) points out,
that there was no search either for the remains of the
iDody nor for the clothing of the child, nor for the
instruments of the crime, also that neither the place
nor the time of the crime have been established ; there
was not even an inquiry whether a child had really
disappeared. In the same sense Henry Charles Lea,
"El santo nino de la Guardia" (in The English
Historical Review, IV. [London, 1889]
239-50). Loeb
and Lea follow the work of the Jesuit Father Fidel
Fita, which is based on careful study,
"
El Proceso
y
Quema de Juce-Franco (in "Boletin de la Real
Academia de la Historia," xi., July-September, 1887,
Madrid).
1494. Tyrnau. Anton Bon
fin,
''^QT\nn'H.\mg^r\-
carum decades," Decad V., Book 4,
Edition of C. A.
Bel, Leipsic, 1771, 728:
"
In the same months several Jews
of
Tyrnau suffered
the
'penalty they deserved. Twelve men and two women
strangled a Christian youth
of
high rank, whom they
had secretly caught and brought into the nearest
house, and dreio his hlood from
him whilst he was
dying, by opening his veins. This blood they partly
drank at once, pai'tly kept
for
others; the body, ivhich
was cut to pieces, they buried. As the youth did not
make his appearance, and it luas sufficiently estab-
lished that he was last seen on the previous day in the
Jews street, a judicial examination is set on foot
against the Jews. The servants
of
justice sent into
the house find fresh traces
of
blood, and ari'est the
master with his whole family. The women, dragged
to judicial examination, confess, under compulsion
of
the
fear
of
torture
("
metu tormentorum adactae
"
),
the whole story
of
the extremely unworthy deed.
Through their evidence the rest are convicted
,
and
then they are all burnt, at the command
of
the Count
Palatine, who was the chief
authority
of
the town,
after a big ivood-file
had been raised
for
the furyose
in the market-flace ; others, who seemed less guilty,
were mulcted in a large sum
of
money. When the
reasons
for
the perpetration
of
such a horror were
ascertained from
the old men by the agony
of
tortures
f""
per tormentorum cruciatum
"
),
it was found
there
were four
reasons ivhy the Jews at Tyrnau at that
time and elsewhere had often
made themselves guilty
in a criminal way. Firstly : They were convinced
by the judgment
of
their ancestors that the blood
of
a
Christian was a good remedy for
the alleviation
of
the wound
of
circumcision. Secondly : They were
of
opinion that this blood, put into food,
is very
effica-
cious
for
the awakening
of
mutual love. Thirdly:
They had discovered, as men and women among them
suffered
equally
from
menstruation, that the blood
of
a Christian is a specific
medicine
for
it, when
drunk. Fourthly: That they had an ancient but
secret ordinance by which they are under obligation
to shed. Christian blood in honour
of
God in daily
sacrifices in some spot or other; they said it had
happened in this way that the lot
for
the present year
had fallen on the Tyrnau Jews'"
Bonfin is, so far as I know, the only Christian
authority.* No examination of witnesses. The men
in their prime and the youths confess nothing ;
the
fear of torture opens only the women's mouths, the
torture itself opens the old men's mouths. And the
A Hebrew elegy on an empty sheet of a Hebrew MS. in Cracow be-

wails the death of the innocent slain, cf . S. Eohn,
"
A Zsidok
Tortenete Magyarorszagon
"
[History of the Jews in Hungary] I.,
Budapesth, 1884, 241-4. Had a ritual extraction of blood taken
place, the poet, who was sure no Christian would read his verses,
would have boasted of the fact.
Evidence of History
203
confessions thus extorted are so silly, contain
partially such impossible stuff
*
that one recognises
that the accused spoke what was expected to be heard
from them ; they thought an end of terror was better
than a terror without end. In a very large number of
cases of "blood-accusation," the sequence of events,
alas ! is simply as follows : A Christian child is mur-
dered or has vanished ; no witness is in a position to
state anything; suspicion is directed against the
hated Jews ; the suspicion suffices to raise the accusa-
tion; the accused are tortured, and at length confess,
preferring any death, however, painful, to the agonies
which are worse than death. Such judicial transac-
tions yield no proofs of
the jmsitive occurrence
of
ritual
murders.
1504. Frankfort a. M. A shoemaker,
Henrich
Bry (also called Henrich Bry's son) beat his step-child
with leather thongs, so that it died.
Immediately at
the first hearing he made a candid confession; also
at the second he confessed, likewise without torture,
that he was the murderer, but added that he had
stabbed the child, gathered the blood in a vessel, and
taken it to the Jew Gompchen (who had lent him
money against security). The latter even under tor-
ture asserted he knew naught of the deed, and
begged, but in vain, to be conducted to the evil-doer,
that he might confront him eye to eye. The latter'
s
guilt was then made evident by the statement of the
And yet the Bollandist, Gottfried Henschen (" Acta Sanctorum,"
April II., 501, Paris 1866)
give these four confessions according to
Bonfin, as the grounds why the infamous Jews commit murders of
children ! What impossible and at the same time horrible state-
ments have been wrung by torture, can be seen especially in the
ghastly instances afforded by trials of witches (intercourse of female
werewolves and witches with the devil, etc.); Cf. e.g., De I'Ancre,
"Tableau de I'inconstance des Mauvais Anges," Paris 1613,
and Bnqurf, "Tableau des Sorciers," Lyons 1608 (some extracts in
W. Hertz, "Der Werwolf," Stuttgart
18'62,
100 sq.) ;
W. Q.
Soldan,
"Geschichte der Hexenprozesse," Stuttgart 1843: Jakoh Sprenger
and Heiiirich Institoru, "Malleus maleficarum," passim.
servant; Gompchen acquitted. A few days before
his sentence was pronounced, the criminal admitted
having falsely accused the Jew, and repeated this
again a short time before his execution. L. Neustadt,
"
Eine Blutbeschuldigung in Frankfurt a. M. im J.
1504. Auf Grand der Prozess-Akten des Frankfur-
ter Stadt-Archivs," Magdeburg, 1892
(26).
1529. Posing in Hungary, ritual murder of a
kidnapped boy.
Osservatore Cattolico and Desp.,
following Eisenmenger, wrongly:
"1509."
Onody,
103-7, relates the case in detail according to a very old
printed sheet of eight pages: "Ain erschrockenlich
geschicht vnd Mordt, so von den Juden :
zu Posing,
ain Marckt, in Hungern gelegen: an ainem Neiin-
jarigen Knablin beganngen, wie sy das jamerlich
gemarttert, geslagen, gestochen, geschnitten, vnd
ermordt haben: Darumb dann bis in die Dreyssig
juden, mann und weybs personen vmb jr misshannd-
iung, auf Freytag nach Pfingsten, den xxi. tag May,
des M.D.vndxxix. Jars,
verbrenntwordenseind,"'and
the StaatsMlrger-Zeitung, 1st July, 1892, No. 302,
did
the same." After enduring the agonies of torture [I
quote from Onody verbatim], the tortured ones at last
confessed," one "that they sucked such blood out of
the little child with quills and small reeds," another
that they
"
afterwards took the blood into the syna-
gogue, whereupon they had great rejoicing," a third
"
that the Jews must have Christian blood, wherewith
Jews of the highest rank besmear themselves for their
wedding feasts, and the Jews term such in Hebrew
'
komandy
(?)
pentsche.' "The fairly careful reader,
on merely reading the
above-mentioned
account,
must feel extremely
doubtful as to the cred-
ibility of the statements made. In this case,
however,
we do not require any internal evidence for the value-
lessness
of
confessions
extracted by torture: the child
alleged to have been slaughtered by the Jews was stolen by
the prosecutor himself, and later on was discovered alive.
G. Wolf,
"
Historische Skizzen aus Osterreich-Ungarn,"
Vienna, 1883, 296-8, jixes the actual circumstance
according to the documents
f"
Examen vnd Vrtel vber
die Juden zu Basing in Ungarn") in the Imperial
Finance Ministry at Vienna as follows :
"
Count
Wolf
of
Bosing owed money to the Jew Esslein A usch
of
that place, and besides to several Jews at Marchegg
in Loiver Austria. He wanted to free himself
of
those debts by getting his creditors out
of
the way. A
pretext
for
doing the Jews an injury was soon found.
Count Wolf induced an old, half-imbecile
woman to leave B. with a Christian child not belong-
ing to her. Whereupon . . . Count Wolf
raised
the charge against the Jeivs. . . . Esslein A usch
was taken in custody and tortured. . . . He
declared everything they wanted him to say, among
other things also, that the Jews in Marchegg were his
accomplices. Thereupon all the Jews, who had not
saved their lives by absconding, were burnt to death.
Count
Wolf
then wanted to continue his work in
Marchegg. The Jews then applied . . . to the
Emperor Ferdinand, with the request that the matter
should be looked into . . . Whilst the proceed-
ings were going on, some Viennese Jews, who were
travelling on business, discovered the woman and the
boy who was alleged to have been murdered, whereupon
the proceedings came to an end, as a matter
of
course.
The fate that
befel Count
Wolf,
even supposing
anything happened to him, is not ascertainable from
the documents here [in Vienna'] deposited."
Cf.
also
the work
of
Andreas Osiander mentioned in Ch.
19 E.
1764. Orcuta, in Hungary. The son of Joh.
Balla, a boy of ten, is discovered dead in the brush-
wood on 25th June,
"
with the sisfns of ritual murder
"
(Osservatore Cattolico.) Dr. S. Kohn, of Budapesth, who
some time ago went through the legal documents in
the provincial archives, writes in a letter that was
before me: "I remember well, that the judges in this
trial were at last condemned, and that lengthy legal
proceedings were instituted because of the child, who
was forcibly converted in prison/' Cf. also P. Nathan,
"Tista-Eszlar,"
29-31.
1791. Tasnad, in Translyvania. February.
Murder of a boy of thirteen, Andreas Takal. Des-
portes and his copiers affirm that the guilty and
condemned Jews were pardoned by Joseph II. [ob.,
20th February, 1790!] iVt the Tisza-Eszlar trial the
anti-semites produced documents to prove that in 1791
certain Jews were condemned to death, because they
had murdered a Christian boy and extracted his
blood. It resulted, however, from the findings of the
courts of higher instance, that the Jews were finally
acquitted, and the functionaries of the court of first
instance were called to account for practising tortures*
etc., V. P. Nathan, "Tisza-Eszlar," 266.
1834. During the night of 13/14
July, a boy of six
was murdered near Neuenhoven, in the Government
district of Diisseldorf.
"
Circumstances came to light
in connection therewith, which seduced a portion of
the credulous mob with the delusion that the boy's
blood had been drawn off in an outrageous manner,
whence it was then further concluded that Jews and
Jewish fanaticism had necessarily had something to
do with it." In consequence of this, during the night
of 20/21 July an attack was made by
"
a numerous
crowd on the dwellings of two Jews living at Neuen-
hoven, and they were almost entirely laid waste
together with the furniture and goods in them, whilst
at the same time the Synagogue at Bedburdyk was
stormed and likewise completely destroyed"
(Elber-
f
elder Zeitung, 26 July, No. 205). A few days
after, on
26 July, a decree of the Kgl.
Ober-Procurator at
Evidence of History 2U7
Diisseldorf, proclaimed (AmtsUatt der Kgl. Regierung
zu Diisseldorf, No. 48) :
"
The murder of a child of
Christian parents in the Grevenbroich district has
awakened a superstition sprung from the barbarism
of centuries long past, and occasioned wild deeds of
violence against Jews living in the neighbour-
hood and the places of their religious gatherings.
The judicial establishment of the facts of the murder

has completely banished any thought of the reality of
the silly tale, and the ringleaders of the attacks
directed against the Jews are in the hands of justice."
Cf. the brochures of Binteri7n and Wiedenfeld (Ch. 19
E.)
1840. Murder of the Capuchin Father Thomas
and his servant in Damascus, February. Chief work
:
Achille Laurent, "Relation historique des affaires de
Syrie, depuis 1840 jusqu'en 1842, et la procedure com-
plete dirigee en 1840 contre les Juifs de Damas,"
Paris, 1846, 2 vols. (After this: Pawlikowski, 284
sq. ; Onody, 116 sq.; Rohling,
"
Meine Antworten," 84
sq. ; Desportes, 188 sq., etc.) Achille Laurent was
never a Professor, and is not to be confounded with
Professor Francois Laurent, of Ghent, the Jurist and
Historian. He asserts, II., 399: "As all documents
referring to the proceedings taken against the Jews of
Damascus are deposited with the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs, the [possible] inaccuracy of the protocols, etc.,
in this part can be easily established." This asser-
tion is either untrue (because the 'aforesaid Ministry,
when L. wrote, allowed nobody to look into its
archives; it is only since 1874 that permission has
gradually been granted to use documents extending
to 1830), or Laurent used the documents illegally. In
either case his credibility may be regarded as open to
suspicion. But even if the words are correctly repro-
duced, the correctness of the contents does not there-
fore follow, because the prejudice of the then French
Consul, Ratti-Menton, is universally admitted by
those who have looked closely into the matter.The
confessions are forced from the accused by tortures
equally barbaric and refined ; two of the accused died
in prison of their maltreatment. I particularly allude
to the reports of the missionary Pieritz, a convert,
who was sent to Damascus by the great London Jew-
ish Mission Society, and who, as he says himself, was
"in no respect a friend or defender of Rabbinism."
"
Persecution of the Jews at Damascus. Statement of
Mr. G. W. Pieritz," London, 1840
(21),
and his work
addressed to the Jews of Alexandria on 13th May,
1840, in which it is said (v. Lowenstimm,
"
Damascia^"
203 sq., in which book there is still further material
for the confutation of Laurent)
:
**
/ will not here describe what my feelings were when at
Damascus I found
the whole charge against the Jews
there a vile fabrication, that all means and right
of
legal defence was denied them, whilst the most cruel
tortures were employed to extort from
them false con-
fessions
of
guilt, which some were cowards enough to
make. . . . The tortures employed were
1st,
flogging. 2nd, soaking persons in large tanks
of
cold
water in their clothes. 3rd, the head machine by
which the eyes are pressed out
of
their sockets. 4th,
tying up the tender parts, and ordering soldiers to
twist and horribly dispose them into such contortions
that the poor sufferers grew almost mad from
pain.
5th, standing upright
for
three days without being
allowed any other posture, not even to lean against the
walls, and when they would fall down, were aroused
up by the sentinels with their bayonets. 6th, being
dragged about in a large court by the ears until the
blood gushed out. 7th, having thorns driven in
between the nails and the flesh
of
fingers and toes.
8th, having set
fire to their beards till their
faces are
singed. 9th, having candles held under their noses
so that the flame
arises wp into their nostrils."
It may incidentally be remarked that Desportes's
assertion, which he made twice, and which was re-
peated by others, to the effect that the documents
disappeared during the time of the Cremieux Minis-
try, is untrue. An official document of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of 5th May, 1892, says verbatim:
"
Les pieces concernant le meurtre du P. Thomas a
Damas en 1840 n'ont nullement ete derobees ou de-
truites par Cremieux en 1870. Ces pieces se trouvent,
en effet, completes au ministere."
1844, On 17th April, the Jews of Tarnow
addressed a petition to the Emperor Ferdinand of
Austria, that he would oppose the blood-accusation
w^hich was continually being levelled against the
Jews in Galicia. Out of this petition I extract the
following according to G. Wolf,
in Wertheimer's
"Jahrbuchfur Israeliten,
5623," Vienna, 1862,
30-9:
"
The first attempt
of
this kind was made by fanatics in
1829 in the village
of
Boleslaw (in our district), on
the river Weichsel. There came a girl and
informed against the Jews dwelling there . . .
that three iveeks before the Jewish Easter holidays
they bought her child
off
her
for
a fixed paid price,
for
the purpose
of
killing it and using its blood
for
the Easter festival. On the basis
of
this . . .
charge the magistrate, without further examination,
arrested
four
of
the Jews mentioned, and chained
them to the walls
of
the prison, and thus they
languished
for
several weeks." Then the accuser
confessed
"
she had murdered her child with her own
hands, through want
of
means to support it, and hid
it in a pool, and by the advice
of
the provost
of
the
place made her above-mentioned accusation. There-
upon the Commission went with this murderess to B.,
where, in the presence
of
the magistrate
of
the place,
the child was drawn out
of
the defths
of
the
fool,
without any external injury, with a stone tied to its
neck. The murderess was then condemned to the
penalty she deserved. . . .
"
The second attem'pt was maliciously made in 1839 in the
village
of
Niezdow, in the Bochnia district, where
similarly a girl called S., who drowned her child in
March
of
the same year, accused the Jews
of
the "place
. . .
of
a similar crime, the buying and murder-
ing
of
the child
for
the Jewish Easter festival, before
the magistrate, who, after undertaking a search
through their houses, had them at once arrested and
chained. The Govei^nment councillor at Bochnia
being put in possession
of
the
facts, at once appointed
a criminal commission, whilst the innocently-
suffer-
ing Jeivs were set free. The traducer was convicted
of
the murder
of
her own child, concerning which the
legal documents in possession
of
the ivorthy district
officer of
Bochnia as well as
of
the Royal Impeinal
Court at Wisznia can give the authoritative proofs.
"
On 25th March,
1844,
W. Ritter von D., barrister
of
the
Royal-Imperial District Court in these parts,
brought the charge before the ivorthy magistrate here
that he had gone
from
the village
of
Gtobikowka in
the district into the Jews' street with an orphan boy,
called J. G., who was in his service and was eight
years old, and when he made the same wait
for
him
there till he had made his purchase, this boy had dis-
appeared in the Jews' street, and luas already two
days missing, whom the Jews had kidnapped in order
to get blood
from the same
for
their approaching
Easter festival. In consequence
of
his information
an official inquiry was ordered, which was under-
taken on the evening
of
the same day at about 7 o'clock
by many officials appointed
for
the purpose, the
entrances and exits
of
the Jews' street being barred^
in all the Jewish houses in the toivn and the nearest
neighbourhoods, with the help
of
80 men
of
the mili-
tary provided with loaded arms, besides the finance
and police watches . . . in the course
of
which
all rooms, chambers, cellars, chests and drawers were
most strictly examined, and in several cellars even
the earth was dug up. D., however, not yet satisfied
with this, made charges in this connection also before
the Imperial-Royal cririiinal court at Rzeszow, when
he adduced as proof
the bloody stories
of
the Damascus
and other murders. This worthy penal court at once
ordered an investigation. Ten days went by, and
the boy had not yet been found.
Hatred and demand
for
revenge became continually louder among the
Christian public. We lived through an anxious
time; disgrace and shame, fear
and despair lay
heavy upon us
;
full
of
care and anxiety we saw each
day dawn, which showed us again there was no trace
of
the missing lad. We were
scoffed
at, and could
not encounter a single Christian, however good
friends he might be, without hearing reproaches about
our cannibalistic methods. It was simply with a
shudder that we looked forward to the approaching
Easter Festival.''
At last it was found
possible to ascertain beyond doubt
that the boy (who ivas, by the way, 12 not
8)
had run
away from D. owing to ill-treatment and bad
food,
and is bringing him back alive to Tarnoiv.
1873. Enniger. The (then) Berlin paper Das
Volk, 13 March, 1892, No. 62, has the following infor-
mation from Ravensberg
:
" So far as I know, a Jewish
ritual murder or blood-murder has not hitherto been
reported from Westphalia. But there has* already
been such a one here. About 1860 or 1870 a young
girl was murdered in the village of Enniger, near
Ahlen. The Jews, of whom there was a large num-
The word "has" should be noticed, in contradiction of the follow-

ing
"
no proofs."
ber there, were universally accused of the deed. It
was asserted the Jews wanted to use the blood of the
girl, who had a reputation for genuine piety, for the
consecration of the new synagogue [building sacrifice,
V. supr.
p. 31].
The judicial inquiry certainly pro-
duced no proofs of the charge ; but public opinion
spoke vigorously enough to drive all the Jewish
families out of Enniger. The synagogue has never
been used, and not only time, but also the hatred of
the inhabitants, has treated it ill, as is related: horror
dwells in the empty window-holes." Attorney-
General Ii^gahn, of Hamm, said in reply to my request
for information about it,
"
that certainly an investi-
gation was carried out on the part of the Royal Court
at Munster on account of the murder of an unmarried
person, Elizabeth Schiitte, which was committed near
Enniger on 23rd April, 1873. The person who did it
was not discovered. The motive of the deed, how-
ever, is from the beginning not doubtful to the
persons entrusted with the enquiry, and is exclusively
to be found in the satisfaction
of
the sexual appetite.''
1881. Franciska Mnich, alleged to have been
murdered by the Jewish publican, Moses Ritter, and
his wife in Lutscha (Galicia). The accused were
acquitted by the supreme Court of Judicature. Cf.
J. Rosenblatt, " Prozess Ritter" (in Das Tribunal.
Zeitschrift filr
praktische Strafrechtspflege, Vol. I. and
II., Hamburg, 1885 and 1886).
1882. Tisza-Eszldr. On 14th April [Friday]
there disappeared at Tisza-Eszlar, on the Theiss
(Hungary), the young servant, Esther Solymosi.
Suspicion turns against the Jews, several of whom
are arrested by Bary, the investigating judge, who
was only twenty years old. Moritz Scharf, the son of
the temple servant, Joseph Scharf, declared at the
first hearing that he did not know Esther, and like-
wise knew nothing about her disappearance;
Evidence of History
^13
ni the second
hearing he made precise
statements about the alleged
"
religious butch-
<ering
"
of E. S. in the Synagogue, which
he said he had observed through the keyhole,
and this declaration he repeated on the first day of
the trial, 19th June, 1883. But on the 17th July it
vvâs established by an inspection on the part of the
court of the premises, that Moritz could not possibly
have seen what he said he had. One of the judges
said
:
"
We ought to have begun with this inspection of
the place of the deed ; we should not then have needed
to deal with the matter for five weeks." The verdict,
which corresponded with the pleadings of the State
Attorney and the defence was to the effect "that
there was not the least ground for the assumption
that E. S. had been murdered, and all the accused
would be acquitted." This sentence was confirmed
by both the courts of higher instance. A body which
floated to the bank on 18th June, 1882, some twenty
kils. below Tisza-Eszlar was in all probability that of
E. S. Cf. Paul Nathan,
"
Der Prozess von Tisza-
Eszlar," Be., 1892 (416).
Onody and Desportes,
212-43, wrote on the racial anti-semitic side.
1891. Corfu. In the night, between 12th and
13th April, a girl of eight was murdered. The magis-
trates have unfortunately omitted to publish an
official report on the inquiry. It is usually asserted
it was a Christian woman, Maria Desylla, who was
murdered by Jews and deprived of her blood. It is
in reality as good as certain that the murdered woman
was called Ru])ina Sarda, and was a Jewess, the
daughter of the Jewish tailor. Vita Chajim Sarda de
Salomon ; Cf. particularly the following document,
which has lain before me in the original
:
"
Certificat.- Je, sonssignee, religieuse institiitrice de
VOrdredes Soeurs de lôtre Dame de la Comj)assion
de Marseille, actuellement au Convent et Orphelinat
de eel ordre etahli a Corfou, cert
i
fie : Que la petite
Rubina Sarda, Israelite, afres
autorisation preal-
ahle de sa Grandeur Monseigneur Boni, Archeveque
latin de Corfou, a ete admise dans la classe gratuite
que je dirige, au commencement du mois de Juillet de
Vannee mil huit cent quatre-vingt-neuf (1889);
qu'elle a quitte noire ecole au mois d'octohre de la
m,eme annee, four
suivre, m'a t'on dit, les classes
d'une ecole fondee vers cette epoque, a Corfou,
pjar le
Gouvernement italien. Je declare e7i outre:
1
que
cette enfant, fille de pere et de mere israelites, pro-
fessait, a ma connaissance, la meme religion que ses
parents;
!2
qu'elle a toujours ete connue a Vecole sous
le nom de Rubina Sarda, et que, jamais je nai
entendu parler d'une nommee Marie Desylla ;
3
que
ladite petite fille a toujours ete t7'es douce et tres sage
tout le temps qu'elle a frequente ina classe, et qu'enfin,
elle n'a nidlement manifests le desir de changer de
religion.
Et a la dem.ande du Consul de France en

cette ville, je signe le prescrit que j'affirme
sincere et
veritable. Corfou le 22 Juin, 1891. Signe:
Josephina Martin, en religion Soeur Marie Loetitia.
Le consul de France a Corfou certifie
veritable et
bien conforme a Voriginal depose aux archives de la
Chancellerie, la copie de la declaration ci-dessus.
Corfou, le 22nd Juin, 1891.
Le Consul de France,
(L. S.) (Signed) A. DANLOUX.
In a communication
of
M. Danlousc to M. Pariente, the
Director
of
the Israelite Schools in the Orient (Cor-fu,
23rd June, 1891),
the murdered woman is expressly
called Rubina Sai^da, and the sentence occurs:
"Nobody can tell me whence the name
of
Marie
Desylla comes, about which it is asserted it was the
victim's name.''
On the respective side (known to

me by a photograph)
of
the register, ichichis keptby
the Rabbi in Corfu,
there are nine entries, Nos.
28-36, in the period between 29 March till 18 April,
1883. No. 35,
of
16th A'pril, runs :
"
Ruhina di Vita
Sarda e Lucie Eliezer," i.e. Ruhina, daughter
of
the
[Chajjim] Vita Sarda and Lucie Eliezer.
Cf.,
too,
M. HoROViTZ,
"
Corfu," Frankf. a. M., 1891
(15).
1891. Nagy-Szokol, Tolna County, Hungary.
Esther Fejes, a young servant of an Israelite, Jonas
Griinfeld, disappeared in June. The charge of ritual
butchery was raised, and as the father and the autho-
rities searched for the girl in vain, Griinfeld was put
under police supervision. Half-a-year later Esther
was seen at Buda-Pesth by another girl from Nagy-
Szokol, and told her she had left her home secretly
because her parents did not live at peace and her
mother had taken all her money away. Besides, a
strange gentleman had persuaded her she should not
remain at the Jew's, else it would happen to her as it
did to Esther Solymosi; and he had given her ten
gulden for travelling expenses. She was now in
service at Moritz Fischl's, Karls-Ring 17. Oesterr.
Wochenschrift, 1892, No.
3, p. 40, following the Magyar
Hirlaf of 7th January.
1891. Xanten (Rhine province). Cf.
"
Der Xan-
tener Knabenmord vor dem Schwurgericht zu Cleve,
4-14 July, 1892. Vollstandiger
stenographischer
Bericht,"' Be., 1893 (509).* On the evening of Mon-
day, 29th June, the corpse of a boy of five and a half
years, Johann Hegmann, was found with a
gaping
wound in his neck on loose-lying chafT in the barn
belonging to a publican, Kiippers. In connection
with the fact ("Report," 384) that the medical
practitioner. Dr. Jos. Steiner, in the protocol of the
inspection of the corpse, which was drawn up on the
The three defending barristers corroborate the trustworthiness of

this report in prefatory autographic writing, and the three short-
hand writers similarly give assurance that thoy have worked reliablj
to the best of their ability.
evening of 29 June, had written,
"
The trace of blood
appears as an after-bleeding," it was declared in wide
circles that undoubtedly a Jewish ritual murder had
been perpetrated for the sake of obtaining blood, and
people soon talked also about a Jewish butcher's cut
("Schachterschnitt," Cf. supr.
p. 108). Some of the
inhabitants threw suspicion on the butcher and
former
"
Schachter " of the Jewish community,
Adolf Buschhoff. Firstly, as far as concerns the
species of the neck-wound, it was irrefutably estab-
lished that there could be no serious question of a
"
Schachterschnitt," by the protocol of the dissection
("Report," 461 seq.) prepared on 30th June by the
district physician, Dr. Bauer (Mors), and the district
surgeon, Dr. Niinninghoff (Orsow), and by the expert
report (478 sq.) drawn up by the medical college at
Coblenz on 4th April, 1892: "The cut was not pro-
longed below the Adam's apple, the knife was applied
much higher upnamely, in the region of the upper
margin of the Adam's apple. Thus the air-pipe was
not only divided, but the cut went alsowhich is
express^ forbidden under penalty in the
"
Schachter-
schnitt
"
through the gullet instead of through the
oesophagus. . . . Further, whilst the "Schachter" so
conducts his cut as to cut evenly through the soft parts
on both sides of the neck, we see that in the case before
us all the soft parts on the right side were divided up
to the spinal column; whilst on the left side, on the
other hand, not even the sterno-cleido-mastoid muscle
and the big blood-vessels were touched. Next,
the "Schachter" carefully avoids penetrating with
his knife into the spine, so as not to injure the spinal
marrow. Here the cut had pierced two centimetres
deep into the spine ("Report," 488, cf. 48). Cf. also
the declaration of the Prussian Minister of Justice in
the Chamber of Deputies in Berlin on 9th February,
1892 :
"
The manner of the cutting of the throat [was]
Evidence of History
217
not such as is observed in the butchering of animals
according to Jewish ritual." It was further proved
beyond doubt that the place of discovery
(Kuppers'
barn) was also the place of the deed
(" Report
"
40, 45),
so that the child could not have been killed in
Buschhoff's house. Thirdly, it was settled beyond
any doubt that so much blood was found in the chaff
under the body, on and in the body of the murdered
boy, and in his clothes, that there was not the very
least
orround for assuming that any blood had been
removed.* Cf. "Report"
39-48, 388, 478 sq.
The
Attorney-General Hamm declared: "It is therefore
beyond dispute that the deed took place in the barn.
That is established beyond the possibility of doubt. I
shall lose no words about the initiatory and repeated
remarks that a large amount of blood was missing,
that there was only a little blood there, whereas there
ought to have been a great deal more. Such remarks
are all utterly confuted."
Prof. Koster ("Report"
374)
stated besides that the murderer would have
plied his knife deeper if he had been concerned about
obtaining blood. It seems to me Dr. Steiner's state-
ment before the Court on 91h Only was especially
important.
"'
On 29th June
[1891]
I was . .
asked
to take up the case of the finding of the corpse. I
could not then touch the wounds more particularly;
I could only look at them. I could also not undress
the body, etc. It was dark at that time, 9 o'clock at
night, and the inspection of the corpse took place by
the light of a petroleum lamp. . . . The experts
have now . . . explained to me how much blood
a man has altogether, and how much he can lose so
as to bleed to death ; I have also learnt the opinion of
the experts about the chaff and earth, and have, for
the first time, been able to inspect the clothes, as you
*J. Marcus, "Etude medico-legale du nieurtre rituel." Paris 1900
(107
p.), pp.
22-48; Xanten;
p.
49-76: Polna.
have here seen them. 'At that time I did not dare to
take the clothes away. I have now come to the con-
viction that all the blood which the child could lose
has been discovered, and . . . so it is a matter of
course that the place of the discovery is also the place
of the deed" ("Report" 297).
The Attorney-General fiamm, moreover, said in
his pleading ("Report" 399): ''It is proved that
Buschhoff could not have done the deed, and the court
must come to the conclusion to pronounce a sentence
of 'not guilty' with regard to the accused." And
the Chief Attorney Baumgard
("
Report " 417) :
"I
must observe that in my long experience of criminal
cases no single instance has yet come to my notice in
which there has been brought forward such clear,
circumstantial proof that the accused cannot have
perpetrated the deed as in this case." The Editor-in-
Chief of the Staatshiirger-Zeitung
(Berlin), O.
Bachler,
again disseminated at least four deliberate untruths
when he allowed it to be stated on the 19th Septem-
ber, 1899, in No. 438 of his paper :
"
On 22 [read
"
29
"]
June, 1891, the bloodless
[1]
corpse of the boy Johann
Hegemann [read
"
Hegmann
"],
of Xanten, was
found behind the ground-property of the Jewish
'Schachter
"
[2],
Buschoff [read
"Buschhoff"], with a
'
Schachtschnitt
"
[3]
in his neck, whilst the ])lood,
which had streamed away from the small body, was
nowhere to be found [4]."
1892. Eislelen. As this case seems
especially
valuable to the Osservatore Cattolico, No. 8,454,
and
also the Leipsic anon, and others have made a fuss
about it, I will, as far as possible, make the matter
clear.
On 1st February/, 1892, Herr G.
Kriiger, President
of
tJi^
Reform
A ssociation at Eisleben, held a discourse on
"
Rituelle Morde der Juden und der Knabenmord in
Xanten."
The Eislebener Zeitung
of
7th Febru-
Evidence of
History
219
ary, 1892,
No. 32,
reported in regard to the
discussion:
"J citizen
of
our town, who had
appeared as a guest, and well deserves his claim to
credibility,
stated. . . . that he had opportunity for
keeping
top intercourse with Jews during his sixteen
years as a handicraftsman
in a small town iii Posen.
The friendship)
between him and them became so inti-
mate owing to their meeting every night, that he gladly
and repeatedly accepted the Jews'
invitations to
accomimny
them into the temple. He was there
handed by the Jews all kinds
of
dainties and sweet
drinks. When he had visited the temple several times
he received one Friday eveningit ivas the time before
the Jewish festivalan invitation to accompany them
again into the temple. The Jews ivho
accompanied
him there, first of
all left
him standing at the outer
door, with a view to bringing him in later on. Scarcely
had he approached nearer when he was informed
that
he woidd only then be allowed to stop in the temple any
longer,
if
he was
'
pure,' and that he must be subjected
to a testing for
the confirmation of
the assumption.
Then there immediately
appeared an older Jew, who
was hung round ivith a big ivhite cloth, and wore a
black head-gear, and he bade him strip his left
arm.
Ashe dreamt
of
no ill befalling
him, he did what was
desired
of
him. Herewpon the same Jew made a cut
with a small sharp knife
into the inner elbow joint
of
the guest, luho is an Evangelical Christian, and collec-
ted the blood flowing from
the wound in a vessel which
already stood prepared, whilst during the
operation
the other Jews sang songs (certainly Hebreiv) which
were unintelligible to him. The wound caused was
bound up, and healing followed in about eight to four-
teen days. The scar can even noiv be seen[/J\
As
early as the next number (33,
9th February)
there
appeared a declaration
signed
"
Walther
Simon, Max
Zweig,"'
that these
statements
''rest upon lies. At
any rate they may he referred to a morbid desire
for
bragging on the part
of
the persoii in question. We
do not hesitate to pronounce the supporter
of
the
Reform
Association to be simply a malignant
slanderer."The Staatsburger-Zeitung, No. 68
(10th February) introduced its report
of
the meeting
with the words:
"
We are able in the following to
bring forward a fresh
example . ... as regards the
question
of
ritual extraction
of
blood,'' and it re-
marked at the conclusion :
"
That was an occasion for
two genuine Jews
of
those parts . ... to publish a
notice in which they represented the honourable citizen
with truly Jewish shamelessness as
'
a liar and malig-
nant slanderer.'' As the man ivho has been so grossly
insidted will not let the matter rest as it is, it is good
news that the
affair
will be decided before a court
OF LAW." But the ''honourable citizen,'' W.
Schneider, the miner, did not bring an action!
The Staatsburger-Zeitung, so
far
as I know,^ has
not robbed its readers
of
the expectation that W.
Simon
and M. Zweig would have to atone
for
their crime in
prison.
1892. Ingrandes [department
of
Vienne, F?'ance). The
(clerical) paper that appears in Tours, the Journal
d'Indre et Loire, published on 27th March, No.
74,
an article lieaded,
"
IJn meurtre rituel," which treats
of
the discovery
of
a child's shockingly-mangled
corpse. ''Justice has set on foot
the customary in-
vestigations, but has reached, no 7'esult up to now.
That is perhaps beca,use a wrong road has been taken,
although the mutilation whichthe victim has endured
points sufficiently to the real criminals. . . .
A
murder
for
motive
of
gain or out
of
revenge does not
bear that stamp. That the murderer cuts
off
his
victim's head so that it may not be recognised is not
out
of
the way. But why the other mutilations?
[The
genital organs a,nd the limbs were also cut
off].
. . .
Evidence
of History
221
We
find
ourselves in the presence
of
a
ritual murder
achieved by the Jews ; everything
proves it. . . .
The
body was found
in a new sack, therefore
the blood was
drawn
off
from
it beforehand.
. . The murder coidd
not have been
committed at the 2)lace
of
discovery, but
in a
perhaps distant part,
certainly at a place, ivhere
it was quite convenient to draw
off
the blood from
the
yet livimj victim, and to cut the body in pieces, which
could readily be made to
disappear. . . .
It is easy
to understand the interest
of
the murderers in the dis-
appearance
of
the limbs: the ^Joint was to get rid
of
the marks on the neck, on the arms, on the femoral
artery, on the limbs which were finally
crucified, of
the extraction
of
blood, which
would have been
terrible and irrefutable
accusers on the count
of
ritual murder. And
if
there had been found
on the
body the marks
of
circumcision,
which is
ordained for
the obtaining
of
the circumcision
blood, a panacea in
the eyes
of
the Jewwho then does not understand the
interest
of
the sacrificers
in the
disappearance
of
the
traces?"
The Paris paper Le Temps,
of
5th August
No. 11,397,
reports about the residt
of
the affair
:
"
The investigation showed that the child was the son
on an unmarried woman named Marquet, who let
herself be called by the name
of
a former
lover. Widow
Joul)ert.
During the searching
of
the house there
were found
in the privy the entrails and the half-
burnt cap
of
the poor little boy.
The mother was
arrested. She declared in her own defence
that she
wanted to suffocate
herself with her son, ivhen she was
awakened by violent pains; the child lay on the
ground, and one
of
his legs had been half-charred
by
the overturned
coal-pan. She had then made up her
mind to cut the corpse to pieces, and to throw the
larger portion into the water in a sack.
The pro-
secution,
however, is
of
opinion that she only
proceeded to this mournful
operation after
she had
strangled her oivn son, and had attempted to hnrn him.
The jury
of
Vienne^has just condemned the unnatural
mother to 20 years' hard labour."
1892. Bacau (Roumania). An Israelite, Eisik
Suler, had a young gipsy girl, Florea, in his service.
The girl's parents, who knew of the accusation that
Jews used Christian blood for their unleavened Easter
cakes, made her secretly leave her master, and hide
in their hut. They then, accompanied by a crowd of
half-drunk gipsies, demanded their child back with
great outcry ; Eisik had killed their child in order to
get its blood. The chief of police quickly ascertained
the baselessness of the charge. He therefore arrested
the parents, and threatened them with severe punish-
ment if they did not point out where their daughter
was staying. Next day they confessed where the girl
was, and that their sole intention was to extort money
from the Jew. Monthly Report of the "Alliance
Israelite Universelle," 1892 (Cologne),
p.
84 sq.
1893. Kolin (Bohemia). At the beginning of
March, Marie Havlin, a girl in whom melancholy had
shown itself for a considerable time, and who was in
service with the Jewish family of Brett, was missed.
Not until over a month had elapsed was the dead
body found in the Elbe, whilst sand was being drawn
up from the river. The Young-Czech, anti-semitic
journal, Polaban, announced in leaded type, that
stabbing wounds had been noticed on her body, so
that suicide was out of the question. The accusation
that a ritual murder had been committed was bruited
through the town, and led to serious excesses against
the Jews, so that the military were summoned from
Kuttenberg. On the 15th of April, the burgomaster, A.
Civin, issued the following proclamation, in the sec-
tion of the Royal Imperial County District in his
charge: "At the dissection of the body of Marie
Havlin, which was held by the Commission of the
Royal Imperial District Court, consisting of the judge
and the official physicians, Dr. Sil and Dr. Stappan,
it was confirmed that there were no marks of an in-
jury or assault found on the corpse. It was on the
contrary established that Havlin came to her death
by drowning, and in fact by suicide, and that the
body must have lain already five weeks in the water,
because remains of red clay, such as the then high
water carried with it, were found on the clothes. . . .
All rumours which were set afloat about the girl's
murder are untrue and without any foundation. There-
fore the further dissemination of these rumours is to
be punished as a malicious deception of the people."
Cf. Jiidische Presse, 20 April, 1893, No. 16. Also in the
Bohemian Landtag, the Statthalter, Count Thun,
declared on 3rd May, in consequence of an interpella-
tion : The judicial inspection of the corpse had proved,
that there were not the slightest tra-.-es of violence
found on the corpse, but that it was rather a case of
suicide. On the grave a memorial tablet was placed
with the following inscription :
"
Here rests Maria
Havlin, who died a martyr's death before the Jews'
Easter. May God reward them for it!" Owing to
complaints from the Israelite religious community it
had to be removed. Otherwise the tablet would cer-
tainly in a few years have been used as an original,
monumental proof of the reality of ritual murder.
Jiid. Presse, 12th October, 1894, Nos. 41-42.
1893. Holleschau. On 9th, or on 15th June, 1893,
the servant Karoline Schnula and the peasant-wôman
Katharina Schonbaum were condemned by the Court
at Ungarisch-Hradisch to 13 or 15 months' imprison-
ment with hard labour, because they had made the
accusation against David Tandler, and also two other
Jewish inhabitants of Holleschau, that these had
wanted to slaughter them for ritual purposes. The
barrister asked for severe punishment, so that cases
might not recur in the future, by which honourable
citizens of the state would, in consequence of an abso-
lutely stupid fairy-tale, be menaced in their honour,
life, and property. The actual authorship of the libel
was alleged to be due' to an unknown third person
;
that person must be very powerful, since both of the
condemned wômen shrank from giving him up. Jiid.
Presse, 22nd June, 1893.
1893, Prague. Jaromir Huschek, the editor of
the Czechish journal, Nove Tâjmy, had announced
that in August, 1893, the "Schachter," Hermann
Lowy, of Chotzen, had for ritual purposes extracted
blood from a worthy, industrious Christian named
Joseph Horky, and then given him two gulden, that
he might recover from the loss of blood. Inquiry
showed that Horky, a toper, suffering from hallucina-
tions, had invented the whole story. He was pun-
ished by the Court at Hohenmauth for spreading
agitating news; Huschek was condemned by the
Prague Penal Court on 3rd April,
"
in contumaciam,"
to 14 days' imprisonment, emphasised by two days'
fasting. (Neue Freie Ptêsse, Vienna, telegram from
Prague, v. 4 April).
1893. The trio, Paulus Meyer, Josef Deckert,
Franz Doll. Paulus Meyer (born 1862, at Wlozlawek,
Eussian Poland; baptised, alas! in 1887),
was ex-
pelled from Berlin by the police in September, 1892,
because he had made himself
"
troublesome." Next
he produced in Leipsic the material for the libel men-
tioned supr.
p.
148. He was on that account arrested
on 25th May, 1893, at the request of the Leipsic Assize
Court, in Vienna, where he was in the pay of the
Catholic Priest, Josef Deckert, in order to collect from
Jewish literature proofs of Jewish ritual murders.
Aug. Rohling had recommended him! He had
already written a letter to Deckert on 20th April
(Leipsic is named as the place of composition), in
which he asserted that in 1875, before the Jewish
Easter festival in Ostrowo, Government of Lublin, he
had been the witness of the ritual slaughter of a
Christian boy. Ten Israelites were said to have been
present at this holy transaction, of whom the names
were given of the Rabbi "Jehoschua Ben h'Rab
Schlohme Leb m'Lentschna
"
[son of the Rabbi Salo-
mo Leb at Lentschna], and the Synagogue servants,
Moische Berriches and Srul [Israel] Partzewar. A
portion of the blood is said to have been poured into
flasks, and to have been sent to the parishes subject
to the Rabbi named ; another portion was kept in a
silver goblet for baking into the unleavened Easter
loaves. A Jewish landed proprietor, Schmiel
[Samuel] Tarler, was said to have procured the victim
from Levertof, a place three miles distant. Deckert had
already triumphantly referred to this letter on 5th,
7th and 10th May in the Viennese journal Das Vater-
land: on 11th May its publication followed in No. 129.
Numerous anti-semitical papers copied it with
delight. But the joy was premature. Three of the
persons accused by name of ritual murder were still
alive ; the fourth, Rabbi Jehoschua, had been dead
more than two years lefore the crime falsely imputed
to him, but his daughter Rahel and her husband, the
Rabbi Jankiel (Jacob) Rabinowitz of Biala (Russian
Poland), were still alive. They brought an action,
with the result that on 15th September Meyer was
condemned to four months' arrest (in which the long
remand in custodj^ during the inquiry was taken into
consideration), Deckert to a fine of four hundred
gulden, and the Editor of the Vaterland to two hun-
dred gulden. The whole contents of the letter were a
lie. But also in the case of Jos. Deckert two deliberate
untruths were pointed out (by Meyer's ofldcial
defender); Cf. Neue Freie Presse (Vienna), Nos.
10,040 and 10,041 (15th September evening and 16th
September) ; Oesterreich. Woclienschrift, Vienna, No.
38,
pp.
731-65 (shorthand report). The well-known
Pastor F. v. Bodelschwingh of Bielefeld gave his
opinion of Meyer on 27th Sept., 1892: "A limitless
amount of cynical ingratitude towards all his bene-
factors, who finally perceived his true character and
did not desire to gratify his immoderate pretensions
!
About his behaviour here I need not tell you any-
thing, and compress it briefly when I say that in my
whole life I have never known such an example of
deep degradation, malice, mendacity and arrogance,
altogether of bottomless sordidness, as this fellow!"
1894. Berent (West Prussia). On the 5th of
April the town was excited by the rumour that a girl
of nine had been kidnapped by the Jews for purposes
of ritual. It was due to the following circumstances:
A Jewish butcher, Werner, had bought a small she-
goat from a Roman Catholic widow, Hermann. The
mother sent her daughter to deliver the animal and
receive the rest of the money. The child, however,
sold the goat otherwise, and did not return home. So
when Werner came to ask about the goat, Mrs. H.
began to scream out :
"
My child has gone ; the Jews
have put her to death." She then hastened to W.'s
house in order to demand her child back. A crowd of
people soon assembled there with menacing gestures,
and, in particular, some witnesses turned up who
alleged they had seen that the child went into W.'s
house in the morning. The woman at length ran off
to the Burgomaster, and asked that her child should
be released. Soon after the girl turned up again.
The woman declared that she had often read in the
newspapers that the Jews were obliged to have Chris-
tian blood. Jild. Presse, 12th April, 1894, No.
15.
Mrs. H. was condemned to two weeks' imprisonment
for gross contumacy.
1896. Mdhrisch-Triibau. As a "contribution to
the use of blood by the Jews," a story went the round
of the papers, especially the Austrian, at the begin-
ning of 1896, that the merchant Moriz Moller had
extracted blood at the joints of the arms and legs of
his former servant, Philomena Waclawek, at night,
by pricking them with needles. The gossip had pro-
ceeded from the two present servants of M., Emilie
Schwab and Sophie Nemluwil, who appealed to the
utterances made them by Waclawek. The preliminary
examination conducted against M. was stopped after
a short time for want of any details or facts. There-
upon M., who had had to suffer under the false
accusation, brought an action against the mendacious
servant for insult to honour. The affair was decided
on 22nd May before the Assize Court of Briinn. On
the proposition of the Public Prosecutor, the woman
W. was condemned for libel to three months' strict
imprisonment, which was to be rendered more severe
every fortnight by a day of fasting. Oesterr. Wochen-
schr., 1896, No.
18, p.
357, and No. 22, p. 436; Cf. also
Gemeinde-Zeitung (Prague), 15th April, 1896.
1898. Skaisgirren (Niederung District, East Prussia).
Staatsburger-Zeitung, 16th February, 1898: "The
rumour
of
a ritual murder set the inhabitants here
in excitement, and causes a great deal
of
talk even
now. Some time ago the servant girl of a Jewish
MERCHANT IN THE PLACE DISAPPEARED WITHOUT
LEAVING A TRACE ; the search inaugurated has so
far
resulted in no explanation
of
the girl's mysterious
disappearance, but certainly given rise to the above-
mentioned black rumour. We hope the matter will
soon be cleared up."According to the
official
material lying
before me, the police authorities had
no cause whatever to make enquiries. The servant
girl, Wilh. Picklapp, had illegally
left other places
previously, and had done the same thing in the case
of
the merchant Markus Grodszinsky
; and she had
first
gone to her sweetheart, and then to the foster-
mother
of
her illegitimate child at Plicken near
Mehlauken.
1899. Polna (Bohemia). On 1st April, on the
Saturday in Passion Week, the corpse of the nineteen-
year-old sempstress, Agnes Hruza, who had been
missing from Klein-Wieznitz since Wednesday, the
night of 29th March, was found in the Brezina forest
between Polna and Klein-Wieznitz. Suspicion of
having committed the murder fell upon Leopold
Hilsner, a Jewish cobbler's apprentice of twenty-two,
who had often roamed about in the aforesaid forest.
On 12th September the affair came before the District
Court at Kuttenberg for trial. To the first question
put to the jury,
"
Is Hilsner guilty of having, in
association with others, murdered Hruza? " they
answered, on the 5th day, 16th September, "No,**
with eleven votes. On the other hand, the second
question,
"
Is Hilsner an accomplice in the murder?
'*
was answered in the affirmative with all the twelve
votes. The Court of Justice consequently pro-
nounced judgment for H.'s condemnation to death
by the rope. The Assize Court at Pisek, on 14th
November, 1900, convicted him also of the murder of
Marie Klima, who had disappeared on the 17th July,
1898.
It is universally admitted that H. ivas a man who shrank
from work, and was not on good terms ivith the truth.
He rebelled the
offer
that on the day
of
Atonement
(10 Tishri=14th Septernher) i.e., on a day which
even Jews, who care almost nothing at all about their
religion, hold sacred, the trial should he postponed.
A nd he contrived after his condemnation to point out
as accomplices two innocent men, Josua Ei'hnann and
Salomo Wassermann. Both were speedily found and
ai'rested, hut had to he set
free after a short time, as
they were ahle pierfectly to prove an alihi. At the
Evidence
of History
229
recantation of
his "confession**
Hilsner
asserted
that in spite
of
his
innocence he had been dreadfully
frightened
by the news that the
gallows ivere already
being
erected for
him, and he had given the false
information
in order to get a
postponment.
The
unsympathetic
nature
of
his
personality,
however,
should not seduce us into declaring
H. to be the
murderer or an
accomplice
without
convincing proof.
Still less should
"
ritual murder
"
be
asserted
without
convincing proof.
And yet the public
prosecutor,
Schneider-
Swoboda, put forivard
this assertion,
in veiled words it 'is true, and the
barrister, Dr. Baxa,
representing the
"
Anti-Semites," after
describing
desire for
revenge,
jealousy,
lust as motives to be
excluded, even said
(Viennese Neue Freie Presse,
17th September, No. 12,597):
"But we demand to
know why Agnes Hruza was murdered!
(Stormy
cries
of
"
Viborne
"
in the audience.)
The body
of
the murdered woman tells why she was murdered.
The body speaks to the whole world; it
shrieks out
why a poor, innocent Christian girl had to die.
(Storm
of
applause in the auditorium.) The circum-
stance that Agnes Hruza was first
caught with a
noose shows jylainly the motive
of
the deed, shows
plainly ichy she was butchered. Up till now we knew
the most diverse motives for
murder, even political
murder; but this motive, as it is exposed here, was
unfortunately till now not yet believed in by every-
body. Hruza was murdered for
the sole reason that
a Christian virgin had to be murdered. . . .
The highest circles in the State will have to take heed
of
the fact
that there is a society
of
human beings
among us who only murder our Christian fellows
in
order to get our blood. The State must rise up against
this class
of
persons, who want our blood, who want
the blood
of
Christian girls; that is an inevitable
duty, whether it is a sect
of
this people or the whole
race. We do not know where the blood went. That
will have to be cleared up presently. But Hruza was
murdered by a society that lives among us with the
sole object
of
taking our blood from us. . . .
Hilsner, with two other persons, tried to eostr'act as
much blood as jôssible from
this girl, this Christian
virgin. (Great sensation.) It is quite certain that
everything was prepared beforehand
for
the murder
in that synagogue where the blood-stained breeches
were found;
there the actual
proof
of
the ensuing
murder, the grey, blood-stained breeches, was actually
taken. This synagogue is both the beginning-p>oint
and the ending-point
of
the Polna murder. No blood
was found. That means everything. . . . The
murderer wanted the blood. Therefore
according
to the opinion
of
the experts
the blood, ivas not found.

(Prolonged sensation
y
Andafter that Baxa said:
If
the defender declared he had proofs contradicto7'y
of
a
ritual murder,
"
/ have proofs in favour
of
it. Per-
haps the defender knows the books
of
the
Rabbi Eleasar, perhaps also that
of
the Rahbi
Mendel" fSTAATSBURGER-ZEiTUNG, Berlin, 19th
September, No. 438.*)
And both before the legal proceedings and after them
the
"
anti-semite'' newspapers spoke in the same sense.
Das Bayerische Vaterland, Munich, 20th Sep-
tember :
"
The Court
of
Justice . . . has answered
in the
affirmative
[the question
if
it was a Jewish
*
The mentioning of Rabbi Mendel is based upon a gross falsification
of A. Rohling's, as I, as early as August, 1883, pointed out in a
letter to Prof. W. Bacher, of Budapesth v. Jtidischcx lAtteratur-
Blatt, Magdeburg 1883, no. 34). Cf. also /. Eopp.
"
Zur Juden-
frage, "35-7, and J. Block,
"
Acten "I., 157-60. There is certainly,
apart from Hartwig Wessely's Hebrew book of synonyms
"
gan
naul
"
["closed garden," v. Song of Songs, iv.,
12]
another book of
this name; but it is not by Rabbi Mendel, but by Abraham Abul-
afia, and it is not
"
in some twenty editions
"
(as Rohling lies), but
a not even yet printed commentary on the Book Je9ira (Cod. Hebr.
fol. 58 of the Royal Library at Munich).
ritual murder]; it implicitly assumed that it was a
RELIGIOUS CUSTOM OF ORTHODOX JuDAiSM to drink the
blood
of
Jewishly butchered Christian persons.
. . . Auna Hruza was therefore simply butchered
like any cattle, in order to draw
off
her blood! . . .
Hilsner filled the position
of
a Jewish slaughterer
[untrue!
H. Str.\ which is among Jeivs a kind

of
religious office, and into which the Rabbi initiates
the candidate after severe testing. . . . All
the facts point to a ritual murder, in connection
with which it has also to be considered that Hruza
was slaughtered immediately before [untrue!
H.
Str.] the Jewish Easter festival, at which, as is
asserted, the Talmud prescribes the consumption
of
Christian Blood [untrue!
H. Str.]''
The assumption of an actual "ritual murder"
(for using the blood at the Jewish Passover) is deci-
sivety disproved by the simple fact that Agnes Hruza
was, till the evening of 29th March, still in Polna
with the sempstress Prchal, whilst the Jewish Easter
began on 26th March. Furthermore, the accusation
and condemnation are essentially based on the
opinion that Hruza was murdered in the forest in
which her corpse was found. This view, however, is
false. Cf. the works of the Prague Professor Th. G.
Masaryk,
"
Die Nothwendigkeit der Revision des
Polnaer Prozesses," Vienna, 1899
(31),
and "Die
Bedeutung des Polnaer Verbrechens fiir den Ritual-
aberglauben," Be., 1900
(94).
I take the following from him
:
The corpse was
found lying in such a way on the belly that the lower
portion of both legs were bent upwards in an acute
angle, and the trunk was somewhat curved to the
right. This bending of the legs and this curving of
the body could only have been effected after the set-
ting-in of the rigor mortis, or otherwise the body would
not have remained curved and the legs would have
sunk down again. But rigor mortis only begins some
hours after death. Therefore the corpse was brought
where it was found, only after the appearance of
rigor mortis. One alternative is that it was carried
so that the legs were bent over the right shoulder of
the carrier and held by one of his hands, whilst the
other hand drew the trunk of the dead body to him by
means of a rope placed round her neck. It would
also be explained in this way wh}^ only the right side
of the neck showed a strangulation furrow. Had the
girl been strangled with the cord before death, the
furrow would have been visible right round her neck.
The other alternative is that the corpse was brought
into the forest in a wheelbarrow. In that case the
legs would have been bent, otherwise the wheel-
barrow would have been hampered by the length of
the body. It was important to the murderer or
murderers that no blood should drip on the ground
during transport. That explains why the head was
wrapped up in the shift and petticoat. The murder
probably happened in a house, and, indeed, at a late
hour of the night, when Hruza was already partially
undressed. The following circumstances point to it
:
Firstly, the body was clothed only with gaiters, stock-
ings, and the remainder of a shift (the statement
about the breeches are contradictory) ; secondly, her
hair was undone; thirdly, there was only blood, not
dirt, on the palms of the hands and behind the nails
of both hands, although, according to the charge, the
murder took place in the forest on ground soaked
with rain; fourthly, the cleanness of the corpse, no
blood-stains on breast or stomach (the murdered
woman was perhaps washed); fifthly, on dissection
numerous remains of food, especially milk, were
found in the stomach (A. H., who began her return
home after 5 o'clock, seems, before she was murdered,
to have had an evening meal). Six metres from the
place of the crime two cloths belonging to A. H. were
found, "folded together." Had the murderers, who,
according to the charge, did the deed in the greatest
haste, time to fold up these cloths? Hilsner was seen
in Polna a short while before the time of the murder
(about 6 p.m.), as fixed by the charge, in the evening
he was at home. The Viennese Juristische Blatter,
September, 1899, also pronounced a new trial neces-
sary :
*'
He was accused without proofs, condemned
without proofs, and that is a judicial murder in the
eyes of lawyers. . . . An important piece of
counter-evidence, that the criminal alone would not
have been able to overpower the strong girl, led to the
accusation and condemnation for being an accom-
plice, without any intelligible reasons for thinking
there were accomplices being given." It observes
about Hilsner's denials :
"
It is well known to every
practical man that persons belonging to the populace
deny everything, even the most harmless, as soon as
they are aware they are under accusation."
Dr. A rthur Nussbaum
("
Der Polnaer Ritualmord-
process. Eine kriminalpsychologische Untersuch-
ung auf aktenmassiger Grundlage." Be., 1906, 259
pp.)
has now convincingly shown:
(1)
That Agnes
Hruza's neck-wound was not a Jewish butcher's cut,
but more probably inflicted after death in order to
remove the rope tied round the neck;
(2)
that the
amount of blood to be expected under the circum-
stances was present;
(3)
that the reasons given for
Hilsner's guilt are entirely null, that the statements
of the witnesses for the prosecution not merely became
definite only gradually and in the course of time, but
that they also contradict each other, i.e., are in them-
selves unworthy of belief;
(4)
that throughout no
probable motive was adduced by which Hilsner could
have been impelled to murder A. Hruza (either as the
result of blood-thirstiness, or as a deed of perverse
sexuality, or for the purpose of robbery).
In regard to the Klima case Hilsner's alibi is
proved to be credible ; concerning the manner in
which Marie K. met her death, the inspection of the
skeleton found on the 27th of October, 1898, in the
forest north of Polna, no longer afforded a solution.
The identity of the perpetrator, or, as the Public Pro-
secutor asserted, of the perpetrators, was not proved
in any way in either case.
The Court of Justice did not allow the execution
of Hilsner, who had been condemned for the double
murder, but changed the punishment to life-long
imprisonment. That is a clear sign that they did not
trust in the truthfulness of the sworn witnesses.
1900. Konitz (West Prussia). On 11th March,
1900, Ernest Winter, a public school youth
("
gym-
nasiast
")
of eighteen and a half, left his lodgings in
the house of Lange, a master-baker. In the afternoon
he was seen by several people. In the afternoon of
the 13th of March Winter's father (a builder in
Prechlau) and the master-baker found in the water by
the bank of the Monchsee a parcel, the wrapper of
which consisted of packing-paper; it contained in a
sack the upper part of Winter's body, without head
or arms. Quite close by they found the lower portion
of the trunk. On 15th March the right arm was found
in the Evangelical Churchyard ; on the 20th of March
the left upper leg in the Monchsee; and, lastly, on
15th April, in a pit two kilometres from Konitz, the
head wrapped in paper.The anti-semites again
raised the charge that here was a case of ritual murder
committed by the Jews. Not even the shadow of a
proof of this could be adduced. The Royal Medical
College of the province of West Prussia and the
Royal Scientific Medical Committee (in Berlin)
who carefully examined the parts of the body and the
articles of dress which were found, arrived, in two
detailed expert reports, at the following conclusion
(which was indeed very painful to the feelings of those
who had celebrated Ernst W. as a hero in virtue,
especially at the funeral of the parts of his body)
:
*'
(1)
The death of Ernst Winter was the result of suffo-
cation.
(2)
There is no scientific foundation for the
assumption that the cut in the neck discovered on the
mutilated corpse of Winter was perpetrated during
his lifetime, and thus caused death from bleeding.
(3)
The death took place on 11th March, 1900, within
the first six hours after he had enjoyed a meal.
(4)
The evidence of seminal spots on the outside of his
trousers and shirt renders it probable that Winter was
performing the act of coitus, or was trying to do so,
shortly before his death." Cf. "Die Gutachten der
Sachverstandigen liber den Konitzer Mord," Be.,
1903 (87).
XIX. CONTRADICTION OF THE
"
BLOOD-ACCU-
SATION
"
BY PIOUS JEWS AS WELL AS
CHRISTIANS
My intention has been to collect not as many
testimonies as possible, but those that really carry
weight.
A.JEWS
IsAAK Abravanel, well-knowu Bible exegetist (horn
in Poi'tugal 1437,
died in Italy
1508),
on Ezekiel
ooxxvi., 13.
Samuel Usque, in his Portuguese hook printed in 1553,
''Consolations
for
the oppressed among Israel"
("
Consolagam," etc., v. Wolf,
'' Bihliotheca He-
hraea," IIL, 1071-5.)
Jehuda Karmi, ''Be charitate," Amsterdam, 1643, v.
Wolf,
Bihl. Hehr., II., 1131-5.
Manasse ben Israel (horn in Lishon 1604, lived later in
Amsterdam; intercourse with Queen Christina
of
Sweden; hrought ahout permission
for
the Jeivs to
return to England),
"
Vindiciae Judaeorum" [in
English'], originally London, 1656, then in the com-
pilation
"
Phenix," London 1708; in German,
"
Ret-
tung der Juden," by Marcus Herz, with a preface hy
Moses Mendelssohn, as supplement to Chr. W. Dohm's
"
Uher die hilrgerliche Verbesserung der Juden,"
Berlin and Stettin, 1781.The oath of
purification
taken by him in the volume mentioned, runs :
"
//
all
that has been hitherto said is not even then sufficient
to mdlify
this accusation, I am forced,
since the
Contradictions 237
matter on our side is sim2)ly one
of
negation, and
therefore is incapable
of
elucidation by witnesses, to
use another kind
of
proof,
which the Eternal has
ordained (Exodus xxii.), that
of
an oath. I there-
fore
swear, without any deception or trickery
whatever, by the highest God, the Creator
of
heaven
and earth, who revealed His law to the people
of
Israel on Mount Sinai, that I have never, even to this
day, seen such a practice among the people
of
Israel,
that they have never regarded such a practice as a
lawful, divine ordinance, nor as a command or in-
stitution
of
their wise men, and that they have never
(as
far
as I knoiv, as
far
as I have heard in a credible
way, or read in any Jewish author) practised or
attempted such a villainy! And
if
I lie in this, may
all the curses mentioned in the books
of
the Law
(Leviticus and Deuteronomy) visit me; may I never
see the blessing and the solace
of
Zion, nor take jmrt
in the resurrection
of
the dead/"
Moses Men-
delssohn declares himself ready to repeat this oath
verbatim; this oath has been uttered by Salomon
HiRSCHELL, the London Chief Rabbi, and by David
Meldola, the Chakam
of
the Portuguese-Israelite
community in London, on 30th June, 1840; in the
same year the mAssionary G. W. Pieritz (a Jewish
Christian) did the same thing (v. Lbwenstein,
"
Damascia,"^ 203, 237 sq.).
IsAAK Cantarini,
"
Viudcx sanguinis," Amsterdam,
1680; reprinted as supplement to Wiilfer's
"
The-
riaca judaica," Nuremberg, 1681.
Jakob Emden (1698-1776, at Alto'na and Amsterdam)
in a missive, which is attached to his edition
of
the
"Seder olam I'abba wezutta," Hamburg, 1757; v. D.
Hoffmann,
"
Schulchan-Aruch,"^ Be., 1894,
26.
Jonathan Eibeschutz (1690-1764), 'v. supr.
p.
151.
J. Tugendhold (Censor in Warsaw),
"
Der alte Wahn
vom Blutgebrauch der Israeliten am Osterfeste"
[written in 1S31~\. Translated
from the Polish. Be.y
1858
(90).
IsAAK Baer LEYmso^'i^/^'Ephes Damim'' [in Hebrew'],
Wilna, 1837 ; Englished by L. Loewe;
''
Efes Dam-
mim. A series
of
conversations at Jerusalem
between a Patriarch
of
the Greek Church and a Chief
Rabbi
of
the Jews,'' Loridon, 1841; German by A.
Katz: " Die Blutliige," Be., 1892(102).
L. ZuNZ,
"
Damaskus. Ein Wort zur Abwehr,'' Be., 1840
(reprinted in
"
Gesammelte Schriften," II., 160-70).
L. H. LowENSTEiN,
"
Damascia. Die Judenverfolgung zu
Damaskus und ihre Wirkungen
auf
die bffentliche
Meinung." Second revised edition. Rodelheim,
1841
(416).
Supplement to it by the same author:

"
Stimmen beriihmter Christen [J. F. v. Meyer, F. J.
Molitor~\ uber den Damaszener Blutprozess,'' Rodel-
heim, 1843
(46).
M. Schlesinger, '' Neki Kapajim.'' "Clean hands.**
Refutes the accusations levelled against the Jews.
(from the Hebrew). Budapesth, 1882
(30).
M. L. RoDKiNSSOHN,
D^H ^b^hv^ nv^p-niip.
"
Das unge-
sduerte Brot und Die Anklage des Blutgebrauchs am
Passah-Feste." [Hebrew with German preface].
Pressburg and Vienna, 1883. (VIII.,
32).
M. H. Friedlander" Z^r Geschichte der Blutbeschiddi-
gungen gegen die Juden im Mittelalter und in der
Netizeit." Briinn, 1883
(32).
M. DuscHAK, "Tor Ester'* [v. Esther ii.,
15]
'' Mittel
gegen die falschen Blutbeschiddigungen." Cracow,
1883
(66).
CoRRADO Guidetti,
"
Pro Judaeis. Riflessione e docu-
menti. Turin,
1884 (386).
Giorgio A. Zaviziani,
"
tin raggio di luce. La per-
secuzione degli Ebrei nella storia," Corfu, 1891,
Tipografia
"
Corai
"
(356).
The statements which occur in poetry, which is
Contradictions 239
only intended for Jewish readers, seem to me of a
epecial importance.* Violent outbursts of bitter
rancour against their merciless persecutors are not
rare, but nowhere is there even a single word which
could be applied to the charge here in question ; the
"blood accusation" is much rather regarded as an
abominable slander, as, for instance, in a
"
Selicha
"
(prayer of penitents) by Salomo ben Abraham (about
1220), V. Zunz,
"
Die synagogale Poesie des Mittelal-
ters," Be., 1855, 27.The Jews, as they say them-
selves, in the last five hundred years of the Middle
Ages, slaughtered, sacrificed childrenbut their own
children, in order to save them from baptism, cf.
Zunz 16, 20, 22 sq., and likewise the moving report of
Salomo bar Simeon about the persecution of the Jews
in Mainz in 1096, v. "QuellenzurGeschichte der Juden
in Deutschland," II. (Be.,
1892), 9, 12, or 101, 107. Cf.
also Salfeld, 105 (note
3),
143, 202.In recent times cf.
G. Dalman,
"
Jlidischdeutsche Volkslieder aus Gali-
zien und Russland," 2nd edition, L., 1891, 49.
B. PROSELYTES
Owing to what happened in Fulda (v. supr.
p.
178
sq.), the German Emperor Frederick 11. set on foot a
thorough investigation of the question, whether the
Jews used human blood.
R. Honiger
("
Zeitschrift
fiir die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland," I.
[1887],
137-44) has published the golden Bull of July,
1236, from the Cologne municipal archives, in whose
second part the Emperor reports as to the result of his
researches
:
*
The contradiction in "Ni99ah6n jashan"
(p.
257 of Wagenseil's
edition in "Tela ignea Satanae "), was also not intended for Chris-
tian readers.
**
Moreover all men now living and going to live should
know : As, in consequence
of
the murder
of
some hoys
at Fulda, a grievous accusation was hrought against
the Jews then living there, and hence a menacing
public opinion arose generally against the rest
of
the
Jews in Germany, on account
of
the sad event,
although the
traffic in secret crime ivas not revealed,
we, in order to clear up the truth in respect
of
the
hefore-mentioned accusation, resolved to summon
before us
from every quarter princes, magnates, and
nobles
of
the Empire, as well as abbots and ecclesi-
astics, and to question them. Now as these were
of
divers opinions about the matter, and could not arrive
at a satisfactory issue in relation thereto, we came
to the conclusion that oiving to the secret action taken
against the Jews accused
of
the aforesaid ci'ime, the
matter coidd not be more suitably dealt with than by
those who had been Jews, and had been converted to
the Christian faith, since these as adversaries would
conceal nothing
of
what they know against those other
Jews, or against the Mosaic books, or the whole series
of
the Old Testament. And although our conscience
regarded the innocence
of
the aforesaid Jews as
adequately proved on the ground
of
several writings,
which had been brought to the knowledge
of
our
Majesty, yet
for
the satisfaction no less
of
the un-
educated populace than
of
the feeling
of
justice,
according to our sound decision, and with the unani-
mous consent
of
the princes, magnates, nobles, abbots,
and ecclesiastics, we sent extraordinary ambassadors
to all the Kings
of
the West, by whom accordingly
many converts experienced in the Jewish law were
sent to our presence
from the various kingdoms. We
commanded these, who sojourned no short time at our
Court, to trace out the truth, so that they might in-
dustriously investigate and inform us, whether there
was any opinion existing among them [the Jews]
Contradictions 241
which would induce them ^perchance to commit another
crime, and which might have induced the Jews them-
selves to commit the aforesaid crime. Their answer
ran :
'
Neither in the Old nor in the New Testament
is it found that the Jews are greedy
for
human hlood.
Rather it is expressly stated in complete
opposition to
such an assertion in the Bible, which is called in
Hebrew
"
Bereschith,"* in the laws given to Moses, in
the Jewish ordinances, which are called in Hebrew
Talmud, that they must altogether beware
of
pollution
with any blood whatever. We add, and it is an
addition which concerns us very closely, that those
who are forbidden the blood, even
of
the animals
allowed them, cannot have any thirst
for
human
blood, because
of
the horror
of
the thing, because
nature forbids it, and because
of
the relationship
of
species which connects them also ivith the Christians
. . and. that they woidd not expose their property and
life
of
pteril.' We have therefore with the agreement
of
the Princes declared the Jews
of
the before-
mentioned place to be entirely acquitted
of
the crime
attributed to them, and the rest
of
the Jews in
Germany
of
so grave an accusation.'' . . .
t
Paulus, de Santa Maria, 1351-1435 (as a Jew,
*
[Bereshith, "In the beginning," the first word of the Hebrew
Bible among the Jews, the ordinary name of Genesis, here signifies
the whole Hebrew Bible.]
+
The sentence that contains the judgment of the Commission runs
verbatim as follows in the copy of the Bull which belongs to the
14th century, but is unhappily not free from mistakes :
"
Quorum
super hoc assercionibus publicatis, quia compertum no^n est in
testamento veteri vel in novo, Judeos avidos esse humani sanguinis
hauriendi, immo [add. : quia], quod est predicto prorsus contrarium,
quod ab omnis omnino sanguinis fedacione caveant in biblia que
dicitur abraice berechet, preceptis Moysi datis, decretis iudaicis que
dicuntur ebrayce talmilloht, expressius habeamus, presumenteseciam
presumpcione non modica, hiis quibus sanguis prohibitus est
et animalium permissorum sitim non posse humani sanguinis super-
esse, rei horribilitate, nature prohibicione ac speciei comoditate qua
Christianos eciam amplectuntur, et quod pro eo quod expositum de
animalibus de virorum municionibus
[?]
habere possent pro nichilo,
Q
Salomo Levi), Bishop
of
Burgos, who was by no means
friendly inclined to the Jews, nevertheless writes in
his additions to the commentary of Nikolaus von
Lyra on Genesis I. :
"
It is therefore not useful for the
conversion of the Jews to ascribe this aberration to
them. For they believe that we are inventing lies
against them, and that affords us no small impedi-
ment in being believed by them." (Ganganelli has
already referred to this passage).
Many persons will be influenced less by actual
reasons given than by the testimony of Johannes
Pfefferkorn,
the enemy of the Talmud and the Jews,
well known through his dispute with Reuchlin (cf.
Wolf,
"
Bibl. Hebr.," No. 1845, in Vols. I. and IV.). In
his pamphlet about the Jewish Passover, which
appeared in 1509, he says nothing about the Jewish
use of Christian blood. And in
"
Speculum Adhorta-
tionis Judaicae ad Christum," Cologne, 1507, he
writes :
"
I should here like to refute a wide-spread,
but worthless piece of gossip against the Jews, in
order that we Christians may not in consequence be-
come ridiculous. It is commonly said among
Christians, that the Jews have need to use Christian
blood as a means of cure, and therefore kill little
Christian children. Dear Christians! Believe it
not! It is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the
law of Nature and reason. Therefore I must defend
the Jews in this matter, but with one limitation. It
is conceivable that Jews are found, and perhaps may
hereafter be found, who secretly persecute Christian
children even to their death, nevertheless not on
account of any necessity for having their blood, but
out of hatred, and in order to revenge themselves on
non esponerent pericalo substancias et personas, Judeos loci predict!
ab obiecto crimine ac alios Judeos Aleniannie a tam gravi infamia
dictante sentencia principum pronunciavit [read: "-avimus"]
penitus absolutes."
Contradictions
243
the Christitans, even as they once, when they had more
power than they have now, publicly persecuted
Christ, the Apostles and his pupils, and followers.
Therefore do not be disquieted about it! ... .
Flee
from and avoid accordingly this ludicrous, menda-
cious talk which, if you wish to consider it closely,
contributes no little to casting contempt on the
Christians. Abide by the truth, whilst abandoning
such delusions, oh Christians! We do not want to
invent anything that is false and brings us no
honour!"
Ant. Margaritha, once lecturer in Hebrew in
Augsburg, Leipsic, and Vienna, says in
"
Der gantze
Jiidische Glaube" (Augsburg, 1530; I possess the
edition of Reineccius, L., 1705),
much wicked stuff
about the Jews and their blindness, but not a word
about the utilisation of Christian, or generally speak-
ing, human blood for superstitious or even ritual
purposes.
Julius Morosini (ob. 1687, as Reader of the
Hebrew language in Rome), author of the anti-Jew
book, "Via della fede nostra mostrata agli Ebrei,"
Rome, 1683, characterised the assertion of the use of
blood as a fiction.
Also the physician, Paolo Medici,
"
Riti e costumi
degli Ebrei confutati," Madrid, 1727, and often, said
not a word about the blood-accusation. Against the
contrary declarations of Rohling and others, v.
J.
Koff,
32-4; Bloch,
"
Acten," I., 152. Cf. about Paolo
Medici, also A. Fiirst, "Christen und Juden," Stras-
burg, 1892,
94-6.
Friedrich Albrecht Christiani, baptized 1674 at
Strasburg,
"
Docent" at the University
of
Leipsic,
a thorough-going eoopert in Rabbinical literature,
says in his work which is by no means friendly to the
Jews,
"
Der Jiiden Glaube und Aberglaube," L., 1705,
Supplement IV., 181-4, amongst other things:
"
Although there is indeed a general slander against
the Jews, that they follow after Christian child?'en,
and when they have got hold
of
them, stab them hor-
ribly, extract the blood
from
them, using it with
certain ceremonies as a remedy,
fartly in the case
of
their wives during the severe
fangs of
labour, and
partly
for
dying persons in their last agonies, I am
able, as a boi'n Jew (who without boasting, know well
all their customs, having 7nyself practised, or at any
rate seen with my eyes, most
of
them) to asseverate
by God, that the whole time I was connected with
Judaism, I never heard among them
of
such dealings
with Christian children, much less that they had ever
had Christian blood or had ever used it in the afore-
said manner''
So
far
as concerns the cases reported
to have occurred at Trent, Frankfort a. M. and else-
where in the latter centuries Christian! believes
"assuredly and veritably, that some wicked Christ-
ians, who were spiteful against the Jews in these
places, committed the deeds out
of
pectdiai'ly bitter
hatred to bring disaster upon them."
Aloysius von Sonnenfels, "Judischer Blut-Eckel,
Oder Das von Gebrauch des unschuldigen Christen-
Bluts angeklagte, untersuchte und unschuldig-befun-
dene Judenthum, Aus Trieb der Wahrheit An Tag
gegeben." Vienna, 1753
(161;
Latin title: "Judaica
sanguinis nausea.") Cf. especially 20 sq. :
"
Now if all
this as it is narrated were to correspond with truth,
Christian authorities would not have to be blamed
for persecuting this so villainous inhuman people
with fire and sword, and tearing them to pieces with
raving dogs, or they might order them to be dismem-
bered by the hangman. I, however, who under
guidance of my father as Chief Rabbi at Berlin and
of the whole electorate of Brandenburg, got to know,
even in my tenderest youth, the most precise and
hidden secrets of the whole of Judaism, even to th&
Contradictions
245
smallest detail, because at one time he desired to
make of me a man of his profession. I can bear wit-
ness before God, on my soul and conscience, that this
is one of the greatest untruths which has ever been
heard in the world."
Joh. Heinr. Raph. Biesfnthal (missionary, died 25th
June, 1886, in Berlin), "Ueber den Ursprung der wider
die Juden erhobenen Beschuldigung, bei der Feier
ihrer Ostern sich des Blutes zu bedienen, nebst kurzer
Darstellung des jiidischen Rituals in Beziehung auf
den Genuss des Blutes. Historisch-kritischer Versuch
von Dr. Karl Ignaz Corve
"
[pseudonjmi]. Be., 184:0
(66).
Johann Emanuel Veith, Cathedral preacher at St.
Stephen in Vienna, baptised 1816, died 1876. F. J.
Molitor writes in his professional account (mentioned
p.
192): "This pious priest, who was at one time a
Jew, uttered [1840]
in the pulpit, crucifix in hand, a
high and holy oath, that there was no single word of
truth in the charge against the Jews."
Since then both Jews and Christians have very often
appealed to this testimonyy e.g. the Roman Catholic
clergyman and Bavarian Landtag Deputy,
F. Frank,
"
Die Kirche und die Juden,'' Regenshurg,
1892, 53. But on IJfth March, 1892, the Viennese
Deutsche Volksblatt (and following it, other
'papers) 'published an article called
"
Eine millionen-
mal gedruckte Judenliige
"
(''a
million-tijiies-printed
Jewish lie,") in which it is observed: ''The
Wiener Kirchen-Zeitung, in 1854 and 1856, at the
time ivhen Dr. Veith was a collaborator and
articles signed by him appeared in that journal,
published at Veith's instigation a declaration that
the whole story
of
the oath-taking in the pidp)it was
a 'contemptible slander,' and that Dr. Veith had
never said a word in the pulpit on the subject." On
which I remark:
(1)
The years mentioned in connec-
nection with the Wiener Kirchen-Zeitung show no
articles with Veith's signature.
(2)
The declaration
(1854,
No. 19; repeated in 1856, No.
80)
was not
published at Veith's instigation.
(3)
The state-
ments, which, as can he easily recognised by the crude
manner
of
expression
f
" lying in the most contempt-
ible way,^' ^' lies thick as your
fist,"
"unparalleled
impudence," ) were drawn up by Sebastian Brunner,
the publisher
of
the Wiener Kirchen-Zeitung, are
untrue in substance, and Molitor's statement is
far
more correct.
1. The Israelite religious com^munity in Vienna possesses
the following holograph
of
Dr. med. Joh. Veith,
University Professor, a piece
of
testimony notarially
authenticated on 17th June, 1882, which has lain
before me in the original : ''At the request
of
Herr L.
A.FrankeL I declare that the article contained in the
Illustriertes Extrablatt
of [5]
June,^ about a
statement made at the end
of
a sermon by my late
brother. Canon John Emanuel Veith, regarding the
* [lUnsfn'erfes Wiener ExtrahhiU, Vienna, Monday, 5th June, 1882,
no. 153. This is the chief passage in the article,
"
A timely remin-
iscence
"
: "It was on Ascension Day of that year [1840 ; accordingly
on 28th May] when the famous pulpit-preacher spoke the following
remarkable words at the end of his sermon, in the presence of thou-
sands of pious Christians :
'
You all know, my pious hearers, and
those, who perhaps do not know it, may learn, that I was born a
Jew, and, enlightened by the Grace of God, have become a Christian,
further, I have given faithful expression to this conviction attained
to by me in Christian mission, and on every occasion have given
testimony for the truth
'
And then the excellent
man raised the crucifix, and went on in impassioned tones :
'
And so
I swear here, in the name of the triune God, whom we all acknow-
ledge, before you and all the world, that the falsehood which ha'a
been disseminated by cruel cunning, to the effect that the Jews use
the blood of a Christian in the celebration of their Easter festival
(Pesach) is a malicious, blasphemous slander, and is contained
neither in the books of the Old Testament, nor in the writings ot"
the Talmud, which I know thoroughly and have zealously examined.
So may God help me and be a merciful Saviour to me in my last
hour!' What a deep impression, what a thrilling effect this solemn
testimony produced within and without the cathedral arc
indescribable."]
Contradictions 247
absolute untruth
of
the rumour oj the Jewish custom
at the Passover feast
of
using the blood
of
a Chi'istian
child was truly delivered by my late brother, accord-
ing to my recollection. Vienna, on 12th June,
'82.
Prof.
Veith, m.'p.'' (The uneven structure
of
the
sentences, which is not strange in a man
of
advanced
years, proves that Prof.
Veith immediately and
readily complied with the request
for
him to write
down what he remembered, that therefore no attempt
was perchance made to induce him to sign a declara-
tion he had not himself written).
The Israelite religious community in Vienna possesses the
following writing, which Dr. Eduard Kafka, the
celebrated barrister, addressed to Dr. Alois Milller,
the University Librarian at Graz, on 30 August,
1883. (The original has lain before me) :
"It is a notorious
fact,
and therefore needs no
iôof,
that
Dr. Veith said in the [Viennese'] City Church am
Peter, before a congregation as crowded as usual
[and one]
of
a most highly educated public, as was
always the case, at the period when
for
the first time
for
centuries the absurdity that the Jews used
Christian blood at Easter again cropped up, and was
being used as a pretext by the populace
for
plunder-
ing the Jews : Dear Christians! I was myself born a
Jew, and have a most thorough knoivledge
of
their
laws, and esteem myself happy to have become a
Christian, but on my word
of
honour, and with the
clearest conscience, I declare and confirm it to you
that Judaism possesses no such law and no such in-
terpretation
of
law, nor has ever followed such.'
/
myself, who never omitted a sermon
of
Veith, was one
of
those who heard him say this. He always pub-
lished his sermons systematically in book form;
whether he included this episode in his next book I do
not know. . . . So far as I am concerned, I do not go
into the question
of
the Talmud and its interpreters^
because I do not possess the necessary knowledge
for
it,
but I judge merely according to the course
of
history,
and say :
If
the need
of
Christian blood were a com-
mand or a custom
of
Judaism, all orthodox Jews
would he bound to know, and to practise it. How-
ever, we hear
of
nothing
of
the kind either from
Jerusalem nor from
Poland, where the greatest
Jewish fanatics live; only the poor, small ignorant
community
of
Tisza-Eszlar is alleged to have been an
exception. Why, Christian blood might be got from
America, China, etc., and it would be a very costly
article
of
traffic, of
ivhich nobody has ever heard."
So
far
Dr.
Kafka.
As the declaration
of
Veith ivas only
an ''episode," it is quite natural that it was 7iot re-
produced in the collections
of
sermons, at least, as
far
as I have been able to ascertain. According to
the three independent testimonies
of
Prof.
Molitor,
Prof. Veith, and Dr. Kafka is it nevertheless to be
considered certain, that J. E. Veith publicly and
solemnly spoke out against the blood-accusation.
Dan. Chwolson (Prof, of Oriental Languages in St.
Petersburg),
"
Die Blutanklage und sonstige mittel-
alterliche Beschuldigungen der Juden." Frankfort
a. M. 1901
(362).
Christ. H. Kalkar, Dr. theol., Pastor (in Copen-
hagen, ob. 1886), son of a distinguished Rabbi, in a
declaration on 22nd October, 1882 (v.
"
Christliche
Zeugnisse gegen die Blutbeschuldigung der Juden,"
Be., 1882, 23 sq.).
Alex. Mc.Caul, "Reasons," 45 sq., 57 sq., pub-
lished the following statement signed by 58 j^f'oselytes
:
"We, the undersigned, by nation Jews, and having
lived to the years of maturity in the faith and prac-
tice of modern Judaism, but now by the peace of God
members of ihe Church of Christ, do solemnly protest
that we have never directly nor indirectly heard of,
much less known amongst the Jews, of the practice of
Contradictions
249
killing Christians or using Christian blood, and that
we believe this charge, so often brought against them
formerly, and now lately revived, to be a foul and
Satanic falsehood."The first of the signatories, M.
S. Alexander, at that time Professor of Hebrew and of
Rabbinical
Literature, was once llabbi at Norwich
and Plymouth, and became later Anglican Bishop of
Jerusalem (d. 23 November, 1845).
And also every
one acquainted with the history of the mission to the
Jews knows about most of the others, that they
proved
themselves upright Christians in their lives
and teaching.
A similar declaration (in the German language)
was made on 16th November, 1899, by more than
thirty Jewish Christians living in Jerusalem. It lies
before me in two despatches attested by the English
missionary, A. Hastings Kelk. The chief sentences
run: "As born Jew^s, who are intimate with all the
ritual prescriptions, uses, and traditions of the Jews,
and all Jewish sects, and as Christians who believe in
Him who is the truth and the light, we hereby testify
solemnly before the All-knowing Triune God, by the
salvation of our souls and by our honour and con-
science, that the accusation against the Jews in
general or any Jewish sect whatever, that they are
either compelled to use or have used at any time
Christian blood or human blood for ritual purposes, is
an absolutely mistaken, false calumny, lacking in all
foundation, and is nothing but a calumny."
The signatures (I put them in alphabetical order) are:
Lazar Ah-amovich, Samuel Alkalay, J. Th. Alta-
resky, Samuel Amada (f), Hermann Axler, Vitali
Behor, Salomon Beinisch, Simon Bortnikoff,
A dolph
Datzi, Joseph Datzi, Samuel Feldmann, John Morris
Goldmann, Nathan Grossmann, J. Haddas, Bern-
hard Heilpern, Lucas
Huff,
Peppi John Karp,
Johannes Kroiter, Paul Levertoff, J. Lyons, Isidor
Metzger, M. Perahas, Jaca Peiâhia, P. Reinstein,
Joseph J. Silbermann, Josef
Stern, S. Wisemann,
Franz Zimmermann, Hermann Zimmermann, jr.
C. POPES.
The peculiarly high position of the Popes justifies
me in devoting a special section to them. The utter-
ances of the Popes are the more significant, in that
they shared the mistaken notions of their age in
regard to magic, witchcraft, etc. (Cf. Graf von
Hoensbroech, "Das Papsttum in seiner sozial-kul-
turellen Wirksamkeit," vol. i., L. 1900). The anony-
mously published work, "Die Papstlichen Bullen
liber die Blutbeschuldigung," Be., 1893, and
Munich (Aug. Schupp), 1900
(151),
contains on
pp.
1-36 the Bulls of Innocent IV. of 28th May
(2)
and 5th
July, 1247, and of 25th September, 1253; Gregory X.'s
of 7th October, 1272, Martin V.'s of 20th February,
1422; and Paul III.'s of 12th May, 1540; and further
on
pp.
37-133, the expert report of Lor. Ganganelli in
1759 (infr.
p.
259.).Cf. also Moritz Stern,
"
Urkund-
liche Beifcrage iiber die Stellung der Papste zu den
Juden," 2 vols., Kiel, 1893, 95 (192 and 72
pp.,
unfor-
tunately not completed).
Besides the Bulls that expressly rebut the blood
accusation, there is also importance in the numerous
"Bulls of protection," especially those in which the
ritual
of
the Jews is also taken under protection. The
oldest of the
"
Sicut Judaeis
"
Bulls that have been
preserved is that of Alexander III. (1159-81) who ex-
plicitly announces his intention of walking, in this
respect, in the footsteps of his predecessors, Calixtus
II. (1119-24, and Eugene III. (1145-53)
(Mansi,
"
Con-
ciliorum nova et amplissima collectio," XXII., 355
Contradictions 251
sq. ; Stern, "Beitrage," No. 171). Under threat of
excommunication, he forbids forcing Jews to be
baptized, killing or wounding them without judicial
trial, robbing them of their money, disturbing* them
in the celebration of their festivals with cudgels or
stone-throwing, or damaging their churchyards.
Clement III., 1187-91 (Stern, No. 172),
Coelestinus
III., 1191-8 (No. 173),
Innocent III., 1198-1216 (No.
174),
Honorius III. 1216-27 (No. 178),
Gregory IX.,
1227-41 (No. 195),
Innocent IV., 1243-54 (Nos. 204, 208,
212), Urban IV., 1261-4, Gregory X. (10th September
1274; Cf. Potthast,
"
Regesta Romanorum Pontifi-
cum," 20915),
Nicholas III., 1277-80; Honorius IV.,
1285-7; Nicholas IV., 1288-92; Clement VI.,
1342-52
(4th Julv, 1348);
Urban V., 1362-70 (7th July, 1365);
Boniface IX., 1389-1404 (2nd July, 1389);
Martin V.,
1417-31 (Stern, No.
11);
Eugene IV., 1431-47 (No.
34),
renewed this Bull.
Among other Bulls of protection that belong here
let the following be mentioned. On 6th April, 1233,
Gregory IX. commanded the Archbishops and
Bishops of France to take care that the Jews should
not be maltreated, despoiled, or banished without
proper reason or proved guilt, but they should be let
live according to their Law in the customary way
("
secundum legem suam vivere in solito statu permit-
tant.") He closes with words worth taking to heart:
"
The same kindness, however, should be shown Jews
by Christians as we wish should be shown to
Christians living amongst the heathens" (Stern, No.
192).t
In two Bulls of 5th September, 1236, the same
Pope demands that compensation be given the perse-
cuted and plundered Jews of France (Nos. 196, 197).
* "
Praesertim in festivitatum suarum celebratione quisquam fustibiw
vel lapidibus nullatenus perturbet."
+
"
Est autem Judeis a Christianis exhibenda benignitas, quam
Christianis in paganismo existentibus cupimus exhiberi."
Martin V., 1417-31, confirmed on 12th February, 1418,
the privileges and marks of favour (No.
9)
granted by
previous Popes to all Jews in Germany, Savoy, and
Bresse, and explains this on 22nd February amongst
other things by the sentence, that they should be
troubled by nobody in their synagogues, festivals,
houses, books, churchyards, property, on account of
their observance of the law
("
propter eorum obser-
vantiam legis a nemine valeant aggravari," No. 10).
Confirmation of the privileges on 1st January, 1421,
occasioned by the complaints of some Austrian and
Venetian Jews (No. 16). On 13th February, 1429, the
Dominican friars are forbidden to incite the populace
in Italy against the Jews; the Jews are, in particular,
not to be compelled to work on Sabbaths and other
days on which they are accustomed to practise their
ceremonies and laws, and they must not be prevented
by a far-fetched pretext from observing their cere-
monies, rites, laws, and ordinances, and rejoicing in
them ("quominus eorum ceremonias, ritus, leges, et
statuta observare illisque uti et gaudere valeant," No.
31).
This prohibition was repeated, in great part
verbatim (v. infr.
p.
257 sq.), by Nicholas V., on 2nd
November, 1447.Julius III., 1550-5, expressly men-
tions in his confirmation of the privileges of the Jews
at Ancona the liberty to live according to their ritual
("ritu Vivendi," No.' 106).
Pius II., 1458-64, wrote, shortly before his elevation to
the Papacy, whilst he was Enea Silvio de' Piccolo-
mini, the history
of
Bohemia. In that hook he
expresses himself about the persecution
of
the Jev)s,
which took place in Prague in 1389, as follows
"
Ilisfoi'ta Bohemica,'' Ch.
34;
Works, Helmstddt,
1699, 48: ''Inter haec Pragenses populari tiimuUu
incitati atque in furorem acti Judaeorum domus in-
oadunt, bona eorum diripiunt, domos incendunt atque
inter duas horas non sexui non aetati parcentes
Contradictions
253
infelicem
gentem gladio caedunt. Periisse aliquot
milia feruntur,
servati comj^lurimi infantes miseri-
cordia honorum civium haptismi gratiam acceperunt.
Calamitosum genus hominum Judaei inter Christia-
nas agentes, qui ubi paululum abundare creduntur
mox, tamquam Jesu Christi Dei nostri majestatem
contempserunt aut religioni illuserunt, non fortunas
tantum sed vitam quoque amittunt. Impune apud
Pragenses flagitium fuit,
turn quia populi haud
facile cor?nguntur scelera, turn quia Venceslaus
desidia corruptus praesenti rerum statu contentus
neque praeterita corrigere neque futura
curavit.
Fuit enim Venceslaus longe patri absimilis, volup-
tatum sequax ac laboribus refugiens,
vini prorsus
quam regni curiosior.''^*
Bulls printed directly against the ''blood-charge'*
Innocent IV. The two Bulls of 28th May, 1247,
resulting from the
"
Valreas case" (v. supr.
pp.
179
sq.) are printed : Bulls 2-9 ; Stern, Nos. 206, 207. The
Bull of 5th July is represented by : Bulls 10-13
;
Stern,
No. 210; the single despatch of 18th August for
Vienne, Stern, No. 211. The beginning of this
original document of 5 July, 1247, repeats in detail
the complaint of the Jews,
"
that certain spiritual and
temporal princes, in order unjustly to
appropriate
their belongings, are meditating godless attacks on
them, and inventing manifold occasions
Although the Holy Scriptures say, 'Thou shalt not
kill,' and forbids them to touch anything dead at their
Passover festival, they are falsely accused of dividing
among themselves, precisely at the Passover festival,
the heart of a murdered boy And they are
*
About this persecution, Cf. F. Palacky,
"
Geschichte von Bohmen,"
III., 54: Pelzel,
"
Lebensgeschichte Wenzel's I." 214 sq. ;
Gratz,
"Gesch. der Juden2," VIII., 50, and the "Passio Judeorum Pragen-
sium secundum Johannem Rusticum Quadratum," published by
Tomek, in "Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. Bohm. Gesellschaft der Wia-
senschaften," 1877 [Prague, 1878].
malevolently charged with murder, when a d6ad boy-
is found anywhere." The judgment then runs :
"
We
do not wish the aforesaid Jews to be unjustly tor-
mented ('injuste vexari,') and therefore command
you, that showing yourselves kindly and affable to
them, you restore legal conditions whenever any
thoughtless action has been taken against the Jews by
the aforesaid prelates, nobles, and magnates, and do
not tolerate that the Jews should be further unduly
molested
('
indebite molestari
')
on account of these or
similar points." Several persons have inferred from
the words
"
injuste
"
and
"
indebite
"
that this Pope
did not discountenance the blood-accusation in itself,
but only when it was unjustified, and made without
proof. This conclusion, however, is shown to be
false, firstly, by the context of the three Bulls sent to
France in 1247, secondly, by the despatch at least
three times of a
"
Sicut Judaeis " Bull, thirdly
by the Bull of the same Pope of 25th September, 1253,
V. Rossler,
"
Deutsche Rechtsdenkmaler aus Bohmen
undMahren," I. (Prague, 1845),
178 sq. ; Bulls 14-17;
Stern, No. 212. The chief sentence of the Bull of Sep-
tember, 1253, runs:
*' Ad haec malorum hominum pravitati
[etl*
avaritiae
obviantes decrevimus ut nemo cimiterium Judaeorum
inutilitare vel minuere audeat seu ohtentu pecuniae
corpora humata
effodere,
nec etiam aliquis eis
OBIICIAT, QUOD IN RITU SUO HUMANO UTANTUR
sanguine, cum tamen in veteri testamento praecep-
tum sit eis, ut de humane sanguine taceamus, quod
quolihet sanguine non utantur, cum apud Fuldam
\y.
supr.
p.
1 78 sq^ et in plurihus aliis locis propter
hujusmodi suspicionem multi Judaei sint occisi,
quod auctoritate praesentium, ne deinde
fiat,
distric-
tius inhibemus.''
'*
"
Et" is wanting in the MS.
Contradictions
255
The attitude of Innocent IV. deserves the more
consideration, because that Pope was by no meana
well-disposed towards the Jews, CF. his ordinances of
23rd October, 1245, on the imposition of the Jewish
mark, and 7th July, 1248, about the burning of the
Talmud, dated 8th May, 1244, and the Bull of 5th
January, 1245, directed against the Jews.
Gregory Z.,
1271-6. Dr. Moritz Stern was, so far
as I know, the first to call attention to his Bull of 7th
October, 1272. I owe my knowledge of its wording to
the courtesy of Prof. M. Flunk, S.J., of Innsbruck
(now also in Stern, "Beitrage," No. 1;
Bulls 18-23).
The original document, preserved in a 15th century
copy, is at the present moment in the Government
archives at Innsbruck ; in the margin are three notes
by the hand of Bishop Hinderbach, well-known
through the proceedings in respect to Simon of Trent
(v. supr.
p.
193). The substance of the older Bulls of
protection is renewed at the beginning and end
;
be-
tween them occurs the following pronouncement:
"
Statuimus eciam, lit testimonium Christianorum contra
Judeos non valeat, nisi sit Judeus aliquis inter eos
Christianos ad testimonium* perhibendum, cum
Judei non possint contra Christianos
f
testimonium
perhiiere, quia con'tingit interdum, quod aliqui
Christiani perdunt eorum pueros christianos et im-
pingitur in Judeos ipsos per inimicos eorum, ut
pueros ipsos christianos furtim
subtrahant et occi-
dant, et quod de corde et sanguine sacrificent
eorundem, ac patres eorundem puerorum vel
CHRISTIANI ALII JUDEORUM IPSORUM EMULI CLAM
ABSCONDUNT IPSOS PUEROS, UT POSSINT JuDEOS IPSOS
OFFENDERS et pro corum vexacionibus redimendis
*
Hinderbach says indignantly in the margin :
"
Istud videtur esse
iniquum et non servatum."
The manuscript has "Judeos"; Hinderbach correctly: "Christianos
vult dicere, ut credimus."
possint a Judeis ipsis extorquere aliquam pecunie
quantitatem asserantque falsissime, quod Judei
ipsi' PUEROS ipsos claim et furtim subtraxerunt et
OCCIDERUNT et QUOD JUDEI EX CORDE ET SAN-
GUINE eorum sacrificent puerorum, cum lex eorum
hoc piêcise inhiheat et expresse, quod Judei ipsi
tangant* non sacrificent, non comedant sanguinem
neque hihant nee eciam comedant de carnibus ani-
malium hadentium ungues scissas, et hoc per Judeos
ad christianam fidem conversos in nostra curia
pluries probatum, hac occasions huiusmodi Judex
PLURIMI PLURIES CONTRA lUSTITIAM CAPTI FUERUNT ET
DETENTi. Statuimus, quod Chinstiani in casu
{et'jf
huiusmodi occasione contra Judeos audiri non
del)eant et mandamus, quod Judei capti huiusmodi
OCCASIONE FRIVOLA A CARCERE LIBERENTUR NEC
DEINCEPS huiusmodi OCCASIONE FRIVOLA CAPIANTUR,
nisi forte, quod non credimus^\ in flagranti crimine
co/perentur
"
The Bull issued hy Martin V., 1417-31, on 20th
February, 1422, repeats much out of the old protective
Bulls, to which reference is expressly made at the
beginning. Here the following may find room,
according to the "Analecta juris pontificii," XII.
(1873),
column 387 sq. (now also in Bulls 24-9, Stern,
No. 21) :
"
Sane quei'elam quorundam Judaeorum nuper accepimus
continentevi quod nonnulli praedicatores verbi Dei
tarn mendicantium ordinum quam aliorum ad popu-
lum 2)raedicantes inter alia Chrisiianis exhibent per
expressurn (praeceptum) ut fugiant et evitent con-
sortia Judaeorum nee cum eis quoquo modo partici-
pent nee coquere aut ignem 'Gel aliquid ad laborandum
ministrare seu ab illis recipere seu Judaeorum pueros
*
Dele "tangaut," or read "non tangant."
+ The word "et" is wanting in the manuscript.
X Hinderbach :
"
Prout est compertum hie in civitate Tridentina."
Contradictions 257
lactare et alere audeant vel praesumant quodque
faci-
entes contra sint jure ipso gravihus excommunica-
tionis sententiis et censuris ecclesiasticis innodati.
Propter quae nonnunquam inter eos et Christianos
dissensiones et scandala oriuntur daturque materia
ipsis Judaeis, qui forte ad christianam
fidem
conwr-
terentur, si pie et humane tractarentur, in eorundem
perfidia perdurandi. Nonnumquam etiam plurimi
Chrisiiani, ut dictos Judaeos redimi facere et eos
bonis et substantiis spoliare et lapidihus caedere
pOSSint, FICTIS OCCASIONIBUS ET COLORIBUS ASSERUNT
mortalitatum et aliaruin calamitatum temporihus
Judaeos ipsos venenum in fontibus injecisse et
eorum azymis humanum sanguinem immiscuisse; oh
quae scelera eis sic injuste objecta talia asserunt ad
perniciem hominum pervenire. Eoc quibus occasioni-
bus popidi commoventur contra Judaeos ipsosque
caedunt et variis persecutionibus et maleficiis
affi-
ciunt et
affligunt.''
Nicholas V., 1447-55, in consequence of a com-
plaint of the Jews in Spain, repeated on 2nd
November, 1447, the substance of the old Bull
"
Sicut
Judaeis," and added: "In order to make the Jews
more readily hateful to the Christians, some persons
have presumed, and daily presume to assert falsely,
and persuade Christians, that the Jews are unable to
celebrate and do not celebrate certain festivals with-
out the liver and heart of a Christian. . . . We forbid
in the strictest way by this permanent and immutable
ordinance. ... all believers in Christ, in the future,
either themselves or through others, publicly or
privately, directly or indirectly, to take such action
against the Jews or against any one of them."* The
* "
Nonnulli ut facilius Judeos ipsos ad Christian-
orum odium deducere possint, eisdem Christianis quod dicti Judei
aliquas festivitates absque iecore seu corde alicujus Christiani cel>
brare nequeunt neque celebrant falso asscrere illisque persuadere
presumpserunt et dietim presumunt."
prohibitions issued by Martin V. on 13th February,
1429, are then repeated (v. supr.
p.
252 sq.). The
wording of this Bull was first made public in the
Israelitische Monatschrift, 1893, No. 6 sq. (supplement
to the Md. Presse, 1893, Nos. 22, 77),
"Regest," Stern,
No. 39.
Paul III., 1534-49, says in the protective Bull of
12th May, 1540, in which he alludes to Martin V., and
many other predecessors, and confirms and declares
permanent all the privileges granted to the Jews (v.
Bulls 30-36. In the Evangel. Kirchen-Zeitung, 1900,
No. 50, the wording is copied from the draft preserved
in the Vatican archives)
:
"
Sane universorum Judeorum in jmrtihus istis com-
mo7'antium conquestionem displicenter accepimus,
quod a nonnullis annis citra certi oppidorum domini
ac nonnulle universitates et alii potentiores quidam in
eisdem partibus degentes lemuli capitalesque ut
ajunt eorundem Judeorum inimici odio et invidia
aut quod verisimilius videtur avaricia obcecati ut
IPSORUM HeBRAEORUM BONA CUM ALIQUO COLORE
USURPARE VALEANT, quod PARVULOS INFANTES OCCI-
DUNT UT EORUM SANGUINEM BIBANT ET ALIA VARIA ET
DivERSA ENORMIA CRiMiNA praesevtim contra dictam
fidem
nostram tendentia eis falso impingunt sicque
conantur simplicium Christianorum animos contra
eos irritare, quo
fit
ut saepe non solum bonis sed
propria vita injuste priventur."
Clement XIII., 1758-69, the "unchangeable friend
of the Jesuits," spoke out twice, 9th February, 1760,
and 21st March, 1763, against the blood-accusation
(Bulls 144-151). On the former date he made
Cardinal Corsini write to the Nuncio of the Apostolic
See in Warsaw :
"
The Jews have often been accused
of murder because of the ill-founded popular convic-
tion ('
sulla mal fondata persuazione del volgo,') that
Contradictions 259
they mix human blood, especially that of Christians,
in the dough of the unleavened loaves."
Lorenzo Ganganelli (as Pope Clement XIV.,
1769-74), when he was adviser to the Holy Office in
Rome, had, as the result of a petition by a Jew, Jacob
Selek, to express himself professionally about the
^'
blood-accusations." It is true he holds two cases of
murder from hatred of the Christian faith to be his-
torical (Simon of Trent, 1475, and Andreas, of Rinn,
1462, V. supr.
pp.
193 sq., 191 sq.), but states that no
general conclusion can be drawn from these
particular cases, and very decisively opposes the
-assertion of the use of Christian blood for Jewish
ritual purposes. He makes the excellent point that
no single Pope has regarded the "blood-accusation"
as justified. This fact seems to me significant because
not a few Popes, in the matter of belief in witches, were
not superior to the delusions of their contemporaries,
e.g. the five Popes between 1484 and 1523: Innocent
VIII., Alexander VI., Julius II., Leo X., Adrian VI.
The original Italian text
of
the report, which ivas com-
pleted in 1759, was
first
published by Is. Loeb in the
"
Revue des Etudes juives," XVIH. (Paris, 1889),
185-211. A German translation was
first
given by
A. Berliner,
"
Gutachten Ganganelli'
s
Clemens
XIV.
in Angelegenheit der Blutbeschuldigung der

Juden," Berlin, 1888
(48).
M. Stern discovered a
better copy at Mantua, and at Verona the supple-
ments as well, which till then were not known, and in
1893 he published it all, with valuable notes and a new
translation, in
"
Die Pdpstlichen Bullen iiber die
Blutbeschuldigung,'' Be., 1893, and Munich (Aug.
Schupp), 1900, 37-143.
D. TEMPORAL PRINCES.
German Emperors, too, have declared themselves
against the
"
blood-accusation," as well as Bohemian^
Polish, Silesian, French, English, Italian, Hun-
garian, Russian, Turkish, and other rulers. I
consider these declarations extremely significant ; for
nothing was easier then, by stating this accusation,
to inaugurate persecutions of the Jews and lucrative
confiscations of Jewish property. So I give here at
any rate a selection, referring the reader for yet
further material to H. Hildesheimer's essay in the Jiid.
Presse, 1892, Nos. 16-19, 21.
1. Ger?nan Rulers. Emperor Frederick II., v.
supr.
p.
239 sq.
Rudolph I. of Habsburg, 1273-91, confirmed on 4th
July, 1275, the Bull of Innocent IV. of 5th July, 1247,
and its renewal by Gregory X. on 7th July, 1274, v.
Ennen and Eckertz,
"
Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt
Koln," III. (Cologne, 1867), No. 107. He added that
Jews must and should altogether only be punished for
a charge of the kind, if they are convicted by the legal
evidence of Jews and Christians.* Rudolph's decrees
in connection with the "good Werner" are in har-
mony with this, V. supr.
p.
184.
Frederick III., 1440-93, owing to the Endingen
trial, forbade in 1470 the accusation that Jews must
have Christian blood, v. /. Ch. Wagenseil, "Widerle-
gung," L., 1705, 169-72; /. Kracauer, "L'affaire des
Juifs d'Endingen de
1470,"
in "Revue des Etudes
juives," xvi (Paris,
1888),
236-45.
Charles V., 1519-56. In the edict issued at Spe3êr
on 3rd April, 1544, it is stated (Limnaeus, "Juris
*
"Adicimus ut nulla omnino causa dampnari possint vel debeant, nisi
legitimo Judeorum et Christianorum testimonio convincantur." Cf.
the Jewish ordinance of Ottokar II. of Bohemia, infr.
p.
262.
Contradictions
261
public! Imperii Romano-Germanici, Vol. I., addi-
tiones al libr. III., cap.
2;"
Jiid. Presse, 1892, No. 17):
"
After the Jewish community
inform us how that they are
frequently accused by their adversaries that they must
have Christian blood
for
their needs, and are there-
fore said
for their purposes to pt'^'ocure it
from
Christian beings, not (being accused) because
of
public or known deeds, or because
of sufficient proof
and information, but because
of
imaginary causes
and suspicions, on the mere charge
of
their haters
(not considering that our Holy Fathers, the Popes,
have made declarations about this, and have forbid-
den it to be believed, and likewise our dear lord and
ancestor, the Empreror Frederick,
of
most famous
memory, in consequence
of
such Papal declaration,
despatched grave letters
of
instruction to all ranks
of
the Holy Empire, addressing some
of
them in par-
ticular command that they should abstain
from such
actions, also prevent others
from doing them, and not
alloiv such things, but gravely commanded that, where
such things happened the same should be communicated
to His Majesty as supreme lord and judge, to whom
the Jeivish community are directly attached. Also,
again, that the liberties and ancient traditions
of
the
Jews are in the highest degree oppressed; they are
imprisoned, tortured, brought
from life to death, and
their goods and property are ravished
from them by
force, and yet we learn
from such Papal declarations,
and the decrees pronounced by our ancestor, the late
Emperor Frederick, so much information that such
treatment must not be accorded to the Jews ; therefore,
and also because
of
other causes and motives, we resolve
and will that in
future no one, ivhatsoever his stand-
ing be, shall commit such actions against any Jew or
Jewess, and without previous
sufficient information
or
proof
of
credible witnesses, or discovery
of
the
deed, punish and torture them, or sentence them
from
life to death; hut when such complaint or conduct
occu7's the same must be C07nmunicated
first of
all to
us or our posterity, Roman Emperors and Kings, as
the supreme authority over the Jewish community in
the Empire, and must there await decision.^'
This document was renewed by Maximilian II.
(8th March, 1566), Rudolph II. (15th June,
1577),
Matthias (13th November,
1612), Ferdinand II. (2nd
March, 1621), Ferdinand III. (12th January, 1645),
Leopold I. (22nd September, 1665).
2. Bohemia. Ottokar II., the rival of Rudolph
of Habsburg, issued on 29th March, 1254, a decree
about the Jews, whose 31st article runs
:
"
In accordance with the ordinances
of
the Pop>e [Innocent
IV., Bull
of
S5th September, 1253, v. supr.
j^-
253 sq.^
in the name
of
our Holy Father, we most strictly pro-
hibit that Jews divelling in our dominions should
fur-
ther be accused
of
using human blood, since, according
to the 27resc7nption
of
their law, all Jews must abso-
lutely 7'efrain /rom any blood whatever. When, how-
ever, a Jew is accused by a Christia7i
of
the mu7'der
of
a Christian child, he must be convicted by th7'ee Chris-
tians and an equal number
of
Jews ; a7id after he has
bee7i convicted, the Jew i7i questio7i unist himself he
punished, and then only with the 2)U7iish7nent estab-
lished
for
the crime committed. But
if
the aforesaid
witnesses do not convict hi7n, and his innocence comes
to light, the pimishment shall deservedly be meted out
to the Christian which the Jew would have had to
suffer.***
* "
Item iuxta constitutiones Pape in nomine sancti Patris nostri
districtius prohibemus, ne de cetero Judaei singuli in nostro dominio
constituti culpari debeant, quod humano utantur sanguine, cum
iuxta preceptum legis ab omni prorsus sanguine se Judaei contin-
eant universi. kSed si aliquis Judaeus de occisione alicuius pueri
christiani per Christianuin fuerit inculpatus, tribus Christianis et
totidem Judaeis convinci debet ; et postquam convictus fuerit, tuno
ipse Judaeus tantumraodo poena, quae sequitur, puniatur criroine
pro commisso. Si vero ipsura testes supradicti [non convincant] efc
Contradictions 263
The main sentence of this decree (up to "any
blood whatever,") was renewed on 23rd August, 1268.
Wencelaus II. confirmed this briefer version about
1300; John of Luxemburg, Charles I., on 30th Sep-
tember, 1356 (as German Emperor Charles IV.), and
Wladislaw IV., on 14th May, 1454, renewed the ver-
sion of 1254.
3. Poland. Boleslaus V. Pius, Duke of Kalisch,
repeated verbatim the 31st article of Ottokar's Jewish
decree in the
"
Privilegium libertatis," issued in 1264
for the Jews of Great Poland. Renewal by Casimir
III. the Great on 9th October, 1334. Casimir IV. on
14th August, 1453, added to it, that, if a Christian in
his audacity accused a Jew of the use of Christian
blood, he must prove the charge by three trustworthy
Jewish witnesses living in the kingdom [and four
Christians of the same kind (thus the Codex Bandtki-
anus)]. If nobles or burghers do violence to Jews in
such matter, their property shall be sequestrated, the
omission of the death penalty depend on especial
royal mercy. Confirmation of this severer version by
eleven later kings, e.g. by Stephen Bathory on 5th
July, 1576, and the last King of Poland, Stanislaus
Augustus, on 24th April, 1765. Cf. Bandtkie, "Jus
Poionicum," Warsaw, 1831; Tugendhold, "Wahn,"
57-9 ; H. Sternberg,
"
Geschichte der Juden in Polen
unter den Piasten und Jagiellonen," L., 1878
(191).
4. Silesia. Of the ancient Jewish "Privilegia," that of Duke
Henry III. of Glogau, in 1299, and thatof Duke BolkoII.of
Schweidnitz, on 6th December, 1328, are preserved (reproduced
in Sommersberg, "Silesiorum rei historicae et genealogicae
accessiones," L., 1732, 105 sq. and 91 sq.) ; they are derived
from the protective letters of llenry IV. and Henry V. of Bres-
sua innocentia expurgabit, poenam Christianus, quam Judaeus pati
debuerat, non immerito sustinebit." Cf. Riissler, "Deutsche
Rechtsdenkmaler aus Bohmen und Mahren
"
I. (Prague 1845), 180
sq. ; H. Jirecek, "Codex juris Bohemiae
"
I. (Prague 1867), 134;
/. Emler,
"
Regesta diplomatica nee non epistolaria jôhemiae et
Moraviae," Part II., 9 (Prague 1882), no. 17.
lau, the latter from the Jew ordinance of Ottokar IV.
of Bohemia, using at the same time the penal ordinances in
Boleslaus V.'s "Privilegium
"
(v, M. Brann, "Geschichte der
Juden in Schlesien I." Supplement I, in the Jahresbericht
DES JUDISCH-THEOLOG. SEMINARS IN BrESLAU, 1896).
5. France. Philip IV., the Fair, 1285-1314, was
certainly very hostile to the Jews, but did not con-
sider the blood-charge had any foundation. For,
three weeks after thirteen Jews had been burnt, on
24th April, 1288, by the Inquisition at Troyes,
in Champagne, owing to the alleged murder
of a Christian, he prohibited the persons of the Order
in the strictest way from arresting Jews without previ-
ous information to the judicial authorities. Cf. A. Dar-
mesteter, "Deux elegies du Vatican," in "Romania,"
III. (1874),
443-86, and
"
L'autodafe de Troyes," in
"Revue des Etudes juives," II. (1881),
199-247;
S. Salfeld, 162 sq. Moreover, in the edict of 21st
January, 1306, by which he ordered the expulsion of
all Jews from France, neither the murder of
Christians nor the use of blood is given as a reason.
Louis XIV. decreed, in consequence of the pro-
ceedings against Raphael Levi (Glatigny, between
Metz and Boulay), who had been burnt January,
1670, that such charges against Jews should always
be submitted to the King's High Council, v. Grdtz,
"Geschichte,
"2
X., 271.
6. England. Henry III., 1216-72, said in answer
to the request of the German Emperor Frederick 11.
,
to send him some proselytes for the purpose of testing
thoroughly the blood-accusation (Cf. supr.
p.
260) :
he
would gladly send two of his most trustworthy con-
verts
("
duo de discretioribus neophytis qui reperiri
potuerunt in regno nostro,") but a case like that of
Fulda was unheard of in England ("casum a nobis
inauditum.") Cf. Huillard-Breholles,
"Historia dip-
lomatica Friderici II." (Paris, 1852), IV., 809.
7. Italy. The documentary record of Count
Contradictions
265
Edward of Savoy of 20th Juh', 1329 (Cf. supr.
p.
190
sq.) was first called attention to in Germany by //.
Hildesheimer (Jud. Presse, 1892, No. 18, p. 211);
the
complete wôrding is to be seen in M. Stern,
"
Bei-
trage," I., No. 2. The Jews are not only declared not
guilty of the employment of human blood for ritual
objects in the particular case, but also in general; for
the corroboration of this judgment reference is made
also to the Bulls of Innocent IV., of 5th July, 1247,
and Gregory X., of 7th October, 1272.
Decree of the Doge of Venice, Petrus Mocenigo, 22nd April, 1475;
decree of the Dukes of Milan, Bona and Johannes Galleazzo
Sforza, 19th May, 1479; judgment of the Podesta of Verona,
Justinian Contareno, 28th February, 1603; prohibition of the
Duke of Mantua and Montferrat, 26th July, 1603; decree of
the Senate of Venice, 8th April, 1705; v. Guidetti, "Pro
Judaeis"; Jud. Presse, 1892, No.
18, p.
211 sq., and No. 19,
pp.
224-6; Ganganelli (ed. Stern), 96-100.
8. Hungary. The Royal Constitution of 1791
says in article 38 :
"
Th"e Royal Government has. . .
.
to enjoin it upon all the counties, that a point should
be made of extirpating from the minds of the people
the prejudice that human blood is sacrificed at the
religious service of the Jews, in the way best suited to
local circumstances. . . . and of teaching the people
that this revolting offence .... is contrary to the
Mosaic law; consequently, in the case of a murder,
which has been committed by some Jew or other,
even if it was shown that it wâs committed from
superstitious intention, it could with as little justice
be imputed to the whole Jewish religion, as the whole
of Christendom could not be accused on account of
such cases, when they happen among Christians.
(Jud. Presse, 1892, No. 19, p.
226, following Wert-
heimer's Jahrbuch fiir
Israeliten, Vienna, 1862, 37 sq.)
9. Russia. At the behest of the Emperor Alex-
ander I., Prince Alexander Galizyn, Head of the
Department of the Religious Affairs of Foreign Con-
fessions in Russia, sent an edict to the Governor of
Grodno, in which it is stated :
"
On the ground of the
suspicion that they use Christian blood for their
Pesach
(Passover) cakes, the Jews, at the time of the
Polish
Dominion, were repeatedly accused of the
murder of Christian children.
Investigations have
not corroborated the charge. ... In consequence of
accusations, which are now being raised
against the
Jews in some formerly Polish, now Russian, Govern-
ments, that murders of Christian
children have
happened for this object, and considering that such
accusations have already been refuted before by
unbiassed
investigations and Royal decrees.
His
Imperial Majesty is pleased to command me to make
known to all Governors as his will: that the Jews
must no longer be accused without proofs, and merely
owing to prejudice, of wanting
Christian blood;
should, however, a murder occur, and suspicion fall
on Jews, apart from the prejudice that they employ
Christian blood for ritual purposes, the inquiry must
take place on a legal basis according to the same
ordinances as hold good for persons belonging to
other beliefs when they are charged with murder."
6th March, 1817. {Tugendhold, 89 sq. ; /. B. Levinstein,
"Blutliige," 101 sq.)
"
10. Turkey. Sultan Soliman II. (1520-66),
in
consequence of an accusation, admitted to be false,
gave orders that henceforth any accusation that the
Jews use blood for their mazzoth should not be tried
before any Judge, but before the Divan (i.e. the Sultan
himself).
Abdul Medjid issued on 6th November, 1840, the
following firman :
"
An ancient prejudice has pre-
vailed against the Jews. Ignorant people believed
the Jews were accustomed to sacrifice a human being
in order to employ the blood in the celebration of their
Passover. Owing to this prejudice, the Jews of
Contradictions
267
Damascus [v. supr.
p. 207] and Rhodes. . . . have
been persecuted. . . . The charges levelled against
them and their religion are sheer calumnies. . . . We
forbid that the Jewish nation, whose innocence has
been acknowledged, should be disturbed or tortured
on account of a baseless accusation of the kind ; rather
should . . . indivduals of that religion enjoy equal
rights with all the members of other nations subject
to our power." {Jiid. Presse, 1892, No.
19, p. 227).
E. OTHER BORN-CHRISTIANS (SCHOLARS
AND ECCLESIASTICS).
Andreas slander [a clergyman in Nuremberg]
"
Ob
es war und glaublich sey, dass die Juden der Christen
Kinder heymlich erwiirgen und ir blut gebrauchen
[appeared anonymously 1540, caused by the Posing
case in 1529, v. supr.
p.
204 sq.] "Andreas Osianders
Schrift liber die Blutbeschuldigung, wieder aufgefun-
den, im Neudruck herausgegeben und erlautert von
Moritz Stern," Kiel, 1900
(66).
The General of Dominicans, John Baptist de
Marinis writes from Rome on 9th February, 1664, to
the Provincial of the Order at Cracow, in order to
protect the Jews against the charge of employing
Christian blood for their unleavened bread
:
Moved by just sympathy, we enjoin on your Reverence that you and
yours should come to the help of so unhappy a people against
all slanders. . . . Especially may Your Reverence com-
mand all preachers of the Divine Word to admonish the people
not to persecute this unfortunate people by unallowable hatred,
false accusations, fictitious rumours, and thereby to insult God,
who is our and their (the Jews') Legislator, by foolishly thinking
thereby to show the Supreme Being welcome obedience,
although the Christian law and natural ethics teach otherwise.
. We trust to your insight . . . that the Jews shall
learn by your action that we do not desire their destruction, but
their salvation."
Johann Christoph Wagenseil, 1633-1705, Professor
of Jurisprudence and Oriental languages at Altdorf,
near Nuremberg, a thorough scholar in Jewish
Contradictions
269
writings and customs, who published several works
written by Jews against
Christianity under the title
"Tela ignea satanae
"
(Altdorf, 1681),
and therefore
cannot be
reproached with partisanship in favour of
the Jews, wrote a book whose title runs :
"
Der Denen
Juden falschlich beygemessene Gebrauch des Chris-
ten-Bluts. Das ist
Unwidersprechliche Widerlegung
der entsetzlichen Unwarheit, Dass die Juden zu ihrer
Bediirffnis Christen-Blut haben miissen, Welche so
viel tausend dieser unschuldigen Leute um Haab,
Gut, Leib und Leben gebracht " (in W.'s "Benach-
richtigungen Wegen einiger die Judenschafft
angehenden wichtigen Sachen," 1st Part, L., 1705,
126-206; also in
"
Hofnung der Erlosung Israelis,
editio altera," Nuremberg and Altdorf, 1707. Supple-
ment, 45-140).
Johann J. Schudt, who was far from friendly dis-
posed to the Jews, co-Rector of the Gymnasium at
Frankfort a. M., in several passages of his thick
volumes,
"
Jiidische
Merckwiirdigkeiten," Frankfort
and L., 1714 sq., e.g. Bk. VI. Ch. 36,

4,
decisively
declared the assertion false that Christian blood is
required for an}^ object of the Jewish ritual.
The professional opinion of the Theological Faculty
at Leipsic,
of
8th May, 1714
(author G.
Olearius),
is
printed in Ch. F. Borner's
"
Auserlesene
Bedenken
der theologischen Facultat zu Leipzig," L., 1751,
613-22, also in Lowenstein's
"Damascia,"^
352-62.
F.
Haselbauer, 1736 (v. supr.
p.
152): "Since I. the undersigned,
have been entreated by Jonathan Eybeschiitz, the Jewish
preacher of Prague, in the name of the whole Jewish com-
munity, to give an answer in the form of testimony to the
question: Whether the Jews have need of Christian blood
according to their Talmud and Rabbinical customs? I here-
with declare that I have found neither in any of the Jewish
or Rabbinical writings, nor in other Hebrew books that have
been printed, that such a thing is enjoined on the Jews therein;
rather is all use of blood absolutely forbidden them as an
abomination ;
likewise in the writing of Christians
learned in
Judaism, such as BuxdorflFer,* Eisenmenger,t and others, who
have examined closely the errors and superstitions of the Jews
and brought them to light, there is no reason to be found for
this accusation, and, lastly, the whole body of Jews who
entered the Christian faith before, as well as since the twenty-
six years of my professorship, and have frankl)' revealed the
weakness of their nation, have unanimously affirmed that this
accusation of Christian blood being needed is a purely invented
charge, which I herewith attest as a contribution to truth, and
corroborate by signing my name and the printed seal of Tessers
Collegium. Prague, the 20th October, 1736. Franciscus
Haselbauer e Societate Jesu Librorum Hebr. Censor mpa."
The copy in the possession of the Israelite Religious Community

in Vienna is authenticated by the Imperial-Royal book-
controller and censor, Karl Fischer. The document was read
by the Deputy Dr. Jos. Bloch in the Austrian Reichsrat at
Vienna on 11th February, 1890, v. Oesterreich. Wochens-
CHRIFT, 180, No. 18.
Christian Benedikt Michaelis (1680-1764)
and
Johann Salomo Semler (1725-91) on 21st February, 1760,
V. supr.
p.
152.Semler's report is first printed in
S/s
"
Historisch-theologische
Abhandlungen," 2nd
series, ^nd part, Halle, 1762.
Joh. Friedr. von Meyer,
"
Erklarung liber den
angeblichen Blutgebrauch der Juden " (1841),
in
Lowenstein's
"
Damascia,"^ appendix
pp.
5-10; also
in "Neuer Pitaval," II.
(1842), pp.
xxv. sq.
Franz Joseph Molitor (a learned Catholic, author
of the "Philosophic der Geschichte "), "Erklarung
iiber die Blutfrage im Judentum
"
(1841),
in Lowen-
stein's "Damascia,"2
Appendix
pp.
11-16; also in
"Neuer Pitaval," II.
(1842), pp.
xxx. sq.
BiNTERiM [a Catholic priest],
"
Uber den Gehrauch des
Christenhlutes hei den Juden,'' Diisseldorf, 1834
(29)
and 1891 (SO).
WiEDENFELD [an Evangelical pastor],
"
TVas von der
Behauptung,
'
dass die Juden
ChristenUut. genie-
ssen
'
zu halten sei? Bin Wort der Belehrung und
*
There is probably especial reference to Joh. Buxtorff, senior's (1564
i
v to 1629)
"
Synagoga Judaica," Bale 1603 and frequently.
+
[Cf. however supr.
p.
169 note.]
Contradictions
271
Warnung," Elber'feld, 1834 (S9).
Cf.
supr.
p.
206 sq.
Alexander McCaul, who is proved by his work
"The Old Paths" [NHhiboth'olam," or "The True
Israelite "]
to be not only thoroughly acquainted with
Pharisaic Judaism, but also to be a penetrating, even
too incisive a critic of it, published in 1840 :
"
Reasons
for believing that the charge lately revived against the
Jewish people is a baseless falsehood," London
(58).
Franz Delitzsch (ob. 4th March,
1890). Cf. supr.
p.
157, and "Christliche Zeugnisse," etc., 12-18.
H. Oort,
"
Der Ursprung der Blutbeschuldigung
gegen die Juden," Leyden and L., 1883
(31).
Alois Mailer (Catholic), "Brauchen die Juden
Christenblut?
"
Vienna, 1884
(16).
Gustaf H. Dalman, "Die Totung Unglaubiger nach
talmudisch-rabbinischem Recht.," L., 1885
(48).
J. J. J. V. DoLLiNGER in his speech delivered at the Munich
Academy on 25th July, 1881, v.
''
Akademische Vor-
trage,"^ I. (Munich,
1890), 208 sq.: "Accustomed to
the idea that every Jew was the born enemy and debtor
of
the Christian, the nations, at a time which, more-
over, credulously grasped at the horrible and
unnatural by preference, nay, even with greediness,
held the Jews capable
of
any crime, even the most
improbable or impossible. . . .
If
there was a
corpse anywhere, on which there appeared traces
of
violence, or a dead child was found, a Jew was bound
to be the murderer ; as a rule it was assumed the crime
was committed by several people together, and torture
was continued until they made confession. Then
followed horrible executions, and in many cases a
killing
of
the whole Jewish population in town and
country en masse. An orderly, unprejudiced trial
was not to be imagined. The judge or magistrate
themselves trembled at the rage
of
the populace, who
were convinced beforehand,
for
it was now an estab-
lished presumption that the worst villainous deeds
were to he expected from each member
of
the murder-
ous nation.''
DiONYSius Latas, Greek Archbishop
of
Zante, at the
International Congress
of
Religions at Chicago,
made the following statement on 22rd September,
1893, V. OesTerr. Wochenschr., 1893, No.
44, p.
864
'
"
The belief is widespread in the Orient among
the ignorant masses
of
the population that Jews use
the blood
of
Christian children
for
the objects
of
their
religious ritual, and, in order to procure such, do
not shrink
from
committing murders. Persecutions
of
the Jews freqîently break out because
of
this belief,
and the innocent victims are exposed to many deeds
of
violence and dangers. Considering the fact
that
such erroneous ideas are also widespread among the
ignorant masses
of
other countries and that in the last
decade Germany and Austria were the scene
of
mal-
treatment
of
innocent Jews, who were charged with
having perpetrated such ritual murders, I, as a
Christian priest, demand
of
this Co7igress that we
record our coiiviction that Judaism forbids murder
of
any kind, and that none
of
its sacred authorities or
books commands or pei^mits murder or the use
of
human blood
for
ritual purposes or religious cere-
monies. The spread
of
such a calumny against the
believers in a monotheistic religion is unchristian.
It is irreconcilable with a Christian' s duty to leave
so terrible an accusation uncontradicted, and the
good name
of
Christendom requires that I should beg
this parliament to declare that Judaism and the Jews
are as guiltless
of
the crime imputed to them as were
the Christians
of
the first centuries."
Nathanael, Greek Archbishop
of
Brussa, Pastoral
Letter
of
15th Apinl, 1893. ''A
few
days before
Easter a young man
of
Ghemlek, by name Chara-
lambos Spanon, was found dead near the village
of
Contradictions 273
Cazikli, near Brussa. . . . The doctor examined
the body, and after finding neither wounds nor other
marks
of
violence, came to the conclusion that the
young man, who was not normal mentally, had spent
the night at the spot, and finally been frozen to death.
. . We do not understand how his death can be
attributed to the Jews. This absurd assertion, which
was disseminated by malicious persons, provoked
the inhabitants
of
Ghemlek against the Jews, several
of
whom were maltreated. These deed.s
of
violence
have been repeated in other places in our diocese.
. . . These barbaric actions have filled us with
great pain and sorrow. . . . Nothing is less in
consonance with the spirit
of
our holy religion than
the racial hatred and the blind fanaticism which
provoke the lower passions
of
the populace. There-
fore, and because we consider absurd and mad the
belief that the Jews slaughter Christian children in
order to tise them
for
secret rituals, we advise you
herewith paternally to refrain from any deed
of
violence against the Jews. Those who act contrarily
will incur censure
from
us and punishment
from
the
Imperial [Turkish'] Government. . . . We beg
you to live in freedom and accord with all your fellow-
burghers, as the Holy Scriptures prescribe in the
words :
'
Blessed are the peace-makers : for
they shall
be called the children
of
God." We also entreat
for
you the mercy
of
our Saviour, and give you our
Archiepiscopal blessing."
Cf.
Oesterr. Wochen-
SCHRIFT, 1893, No. 30, p.
563 sq.
Fr. Frank [a Catholic priest], "Der Ritualmord vor
den Gorichtshofen der Wahrheit und der Gerechtig-
keit," Regensb-rg, 1901
(327),
"Nachtrage," 1903
(100).
"
Christliche Zeugnisse gegen die Blutbeschuldi-
gung der Juden," Be., 1882
(58)
[22
declarations and
professional reports by Faculties (Amsterdam,
Utrecht, Copenhagen, Upsala, Christiania), bishops,
and scholars, among others by Franz Delitzsch, Paul
de Lagarde, Ad. Merx, Th. Noldeke, C. Siegfried of
Jena, H. L. Strack and A. Wiinsche of Dresden, drawn
up apropos of the Tisza-Eszlar proceedings].
A similar compilation, which, however, also goes
back to former times, is,
"
Die Blutbeschuldigung
gegen die Juden. Von christlicher Seite beurtheilt,"
Vienna (Steyrermiihl), 1883.
The International Orientalist Congresses at Lei-
den, 1883, and Rome, 1899, also declared themselves
against the blood accusation.
XX. ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF THE
"
BLOOD-
ACCUSATION
"
The blood-accusation in its narrower sense, i.e.,
the assertion that the Jews need Christian blood, is
not yet seven centuries old. The monk Rudolph of
Mainz, who incited against the Jews in 1146, certainly-
described them as enemies of the Christian religion,
but without mentioning the blood-accusation. And
it is as little mentioned by
Bernhard of Clairvaux
(1091-1153), who, contrary to this Rudolph, warned
against murder of the Jews. Agobard, Archbishop of
Lyons (ob. 840),
made the most violent attacks on the
Jews in his works
"
De Insolentia Judaeorum
"
and
"De Judaicis superstitionibus," in order to keep the
Christians as far as possible away from the Jews.
He, however, makes not the slightest allusion to the
employment of Christian blood by Jews ; he does not
even say that Jews had committed murders of Chris-
tians. His silence is therefore a strong proof that he
knew nothing whatever about the
"
blood-accusa-
tion." Aug. Rohling accordingly uttered a gross
untruth when he wrote in
"
Meine Antworten an die
Rabbiner,"
p. 56, that Agobard had, in the two above-
named works,
"
published the more ancient facts of
the case."
1. The most ancient accusation against the Jews
connected with our work is that out of hatred against
Christianity and the Christians they crucify Christian
children at the time of the Christian Easter (Inmestar
416, William of Norwich 1144, v. supr.
p.
176 sq.).
2. On a line with this and connected with it w&
find the blood-superstition operative, i.e., the convic-
tion that an especial magical and cure-working power
is a quality peculiar to the human blood. It is
easy to assume that one's fellow-man also shares a
superstition in which one is oneself entangled; one
is particularly disposed thereto in the case of those
with whom one lives in the same country, but whose
language, religion and custom one does not know.
Now, there can scarcely be any doubt that the Jews,
on the average, knew more about the people in whose
midst they lived than the latter about the Jews.* It
is therefore, on the whole, easier to assume a trans-
ference of folklorist (popular-medical, superstitious,
etc.) notions from the ruling peoples to the Jews than
the inverse. We have now seen that the belief in the
efficacy of the blood, apart from the purely religious
offering, was widespread almost universally since
very ancient times, but is relatively very rare precisely
in the case of the Jews. Accordingly it is probable
that the view which was first expressed in the thir-
teenth century, that the Jews make use of Christian
blood as a means of cure (Fulda 1235, Thomas of
Cantimpre, v. supr.
p.
178 sq.), springs from the belief
which was widespread among the Jews in the Middle
Ages in the great effectiveness of blood. So far as a
judgment is possible after a critical testing of the
tradition, this belief has only been imputed to the
Jews of the Middle Ages and of later times, but they
did not themselves possess it.
*
Thence, it is also explained, that the Jews became in many ways the
object
of
superstitious ideas, Cf. supr.
p. 23, 25 sq,
; p.
33 sq.
; p.
75, 76 : p. 94, 8 sq. and 18 ; p. 101, 22 sq. and 102, 22. Likewise,
Wuttke"^ (v. index); Ur-Quell 1892, 51, 53, 54,
126-8, 150, 151, and
1897, 52. According to Grimm,
"
Mythologie," Supplement
p.
Ixx., Ixxxii., Ixxxv., no. 473, there is a ghost dangerous to children
called "Judel." In essentially evangelical country places, the
Catholic priest is not seldom regarded as a wonderworker, or vice
versa.
Origin of the Accusation 277
3. Blood-ritual. The Alexandrine grammarian
Apion (first half of the first century a.d.) accused the
Jews according to Josephus
("
Contra Apionem," II.,
8),
that every year they fattened up a Greek in the
temple, and then made of him a victim for sacrifice,
and consumed part of his entrails, whilst they swore
to be enemies of the Greeks
("
occidere hominem et
ejus corpus sacrificare secundum suas sollemnitates
etgustare ex ejus visceribus et jusjurandum facere in
immolatione Graeci, ut inimicitias contra Graecos
haberent
").
According to Suidias ("Lexicon," s.v.
â/xd/cptro?) a certain Damocritos asserted that the Jews
"
Kara eTTTaeriav îvov aypevovre^ 7rpocr(f>epov Kal /card
XeTTTo, raq crdpKa<; ^leâivov kol ovtgj? duyjpovv.
'
We read nothing about a Jewish blood-ritual for
much longer than a thousand years, till right into the
thirteenth century. It is mentioned for the first time
in 1236 on the occasion of the Fulda case (v.
pp.
178, 239, 276),
but then already as being generally
believed in Germany. The Emperor Frederick II.
asks "utrum, sicut fama communis habet, Judei
christianum sanguinem in parasceve necessarium
haberent." King Henry III. of England w^rites in
regard to the question put him by the Emperor:
*' Casum a nobis inauditum." Whence came this
''
fama communis ?
"
I think it very probable that it
was due to such notions as Thomas Cantimpre put
forward (v. supr.
pp.
178,
239),
partly on the authority
of a proselyte who was hostile to the Jew^s.The
Christian Easter festival is almost simultaneously
mentioned.
In 1247 the Jews tortured at Valreas (v.
p. 179),
"confessed
"
on 4th April, after sufficiently long tor-
turing, especially the following (a) Bendig: Out of
fear of the populace, the blood had been poured into
the privy.* With part of the blood they wanted to
hold communion on the Saturday in Passion Week,
because they believed they would thereby be relieved
of sin. That was a custom among the Jews, and
where there many of them it took place yearly, espe-
cially in Spain, and if no Christian could be procured,
they bought a Saracen.
f
(b) Burcellas, in answer to
the question what they wanted to do with the blood,
said: That in olden times the high priest had
sprinkled the altar with the blood, (c) Lucius : That
if a child could be got, they wanted to make out of the
blood a sacrifice as it were,
J
and that they were under
obligation to send some of the blood to other Jews^
and that the child ought really to have been crucified
on Good Friday (v. supr.
p. 178),
but they had not been
able to conceal it so long, and therefore already killed
it on the Wednesday night. All had touched the girl^
in order to obtain atonement.
In the same year,

He who wants blood and is accustomed ("consuetude ") to murder
for the sake of blood, is sure (there can be no doubt about it) to
think before every murder about a safe place for keeping the costly
stuff, and will not be ready to throw away the blood from fear of
discovery.
t
"
Quod de dicto sanguine debebant communicare die sabbati sancto
[30th March] nuper preterito et credebant salvari. Item dixit idem
Bendi^, quod consuetudo est inter Judeos et ubicunque maxima sit
multitddo Judeorum, facere factum simile annuatim et maxime in
partibus Yspanie quia ibi est maxima multitude Judeorum, et
quando nou possunt habere Christianum, emunt Saracenum." Tho
absurdity of the
"
confessions
"
is here, too, a proof, that the
martyred men finally said everything that was expected to be heard
from them. Rightly does btern remark,
"
Beitrage
"
II., 50, on
Bendig's statement :
"
But in Valreas there was precisely a quite
small Jev/ish community. So, how many Christian children must
have been killed at Easter every year ! In spite of zealous examina-
tion of authoritative sources no case of such an accusation has yet
come to light before 1247. Neither in Spain, nor in the countries
of Islam, did even a single accusation of a ritual murder of a Saracea
occur during the whole of the Middle Ages."
J
"Quasi sacrificium." This phrase is explained by L. by the addi-
tional statement that the Jews could not offer a real sacrifice, be-
cause they had no temple.
Cf. the laying-on of hands at the sin-offering, Leviticus TV., 15.

Copy of the protocol in Stern,
"
Beitrage," no. 205.
Origin of the
Accusation
279
1247, the Jews of Germany and France complain to
Pope Innocent IV. that they are accused of communi-
cating at the Passover Feast with the heart of a
slaughtered
child
*
It is extremely
probable also that several factors
were
operative in the swift
dissemination of the
charge, and no doubt in difTerent ways in different
places and times. At any rate, hatred and envy
co-operated
ever^^where,
even as they were the
principal motives for the accusation that the Jews
poisoned the wells.f
The general
imagination
excited
in some way (e.g., by the Crusades, by the Black
Death) may also have received an impulse from the
following facts:(1)
The
circumstance
that the
Easter loaves (Mac^^coth) were produced with special
solemnities,
unintelligible to the Christians.
(2)
The
superstitious value once set upon the Easter loaves
by many Jews, and still set upon them.(3)
The Jews
remembered in their Easter Festival the
Israelite
children destroyed, according to the legend (supr.
p.
"
Quod in ipsa solempnitate se corde pueri communicant interfecti."
Bull of 5th July, 1247, v. supr.
p.
253.
-j-
This accusation
occurs in 12th century in Bohemia. 1308 in the
Waadt, 1321 in France, l548 and 1349 in Germany. It was said
the poison was prepared out of poisonous plants, human blood,
urine, and a consecrated wafer [cf. supr. p. 58]
and then thrown
in a bag into the well. Cf. Gratz, "Geschichte" VII., 369 sq.Kon-
rad von Megenberg writes in his "Buch der Natur,"
p.
112 :
"Verit-
ably whether some Jews did it, I know not . . .
But I know
well, that there were more of them in Vienna than any other city
that I knew in German lands, and that they died there in such
large numbers that they had greatly to enlarge their churchyard
there, and had to buy two houses. Now if they had poisoned them-
selves, it would have been a foolishness." Clement VI., 1342-52
declared in his Bull of 20th September, 1348, that the Jews were
unjustly reproached with well-poisoning, since they wei'e carried off
by the" plague just like Christians; he therefore forbade, under
penalty of excommunication, the persecution of the Jews under this
pretext, v. Raynaldus,
"
Annalen
"
1348, no. 33. Martin V. v.
supr. p.
256 sq.It is curious that this accusation was also levelled
against foreigners during the disturbances in China, v. "Globus"
1890, p.
384.
62 sq.), by the leprous Pharaoh, and likewise the other
murdered Jews, and they therefore liked to choose
red wine for the
"
four cups,"
"
arbaa' kosoth," which
were commanded to be drunk on the two commencing
evenings. That ignorance has actually made out of
this the consumption of blood is testified by the Polish
Rabbi David ha-Levi ben Samuel (born c. 1600) in his
highly-prized commentary,
"
Ture Zahab," on the
"
Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hajjim," 472, 8,
and he asks
that this usage should be given up on account of the
lies connected with it.
(4)
The want of knowledge of
the "Drachenblut,"* which is used for the healing of
the wound of circumcision, has also given rise to the
"blood-accusation."
(5)
It is possible that in single
cases the Hebrew word
"
Damim " (plural only),
"money," has been confounded with "Dam," also
often in the plural, "Damim," "blood," and thereby
the gaining of money has been converted into thirst
for blood (Cf. Schudt,
"
Jiid. Merckwiirdigkeiten," I.,
468.)Cf. also supr.
p.
178, and H. Oort, "Ursprung
der Blutbeschuldigung gegen die Juden," Leiden,
1883.
A serious warning as to the bringing forward of
the imputation that Christian blood is employed for a
rite of the Jewish religion is also afforded by history.
History shows that imputations of the kind have
repeatedly been a terrible weapon against innocent
persons (innocent, at least, in that connection). The
Christians of the second and third centuries suffered
"Drachenblut" ("dragon's blood") is the dark, blood-red resin,
e.g., of the Calamus Draco (Willd.), a palm native of Central India,
also of the Pterocarpus Draco (L.), native of the West Indies, the
Dracaena Draco (L.), etc. Cf. H. Lojander, "Beitrage zur
Kenntniss des Drachenblutes," Strassburg i. E. 1887
(73).
Origin of the Accusation
281
severel}^ under them. The celebration of Holy Com-
munion, the mention of
partakinfjj of the body and
the blood of the Lord afforded a point of connection
*
Already the younger Pliny, 111 sq., Pro-consul of the
province of Bithynia in Avsia Minor, appears to have
cherished suspicion and to have started an inquiry.!
At any rate, he writes
("
Epist," X. 97 to the
Emperor
Trajan) that the persons accused of belonging to
the Christian belief, and therefore summoned by him
for inquiry, had assured him that they had bound
themselves by an oath, not indeed for any vicious
purpose, but not to commit theft or adultery, to keep
their
promises, and not to disown what was entrusted
to
them. At their meetings they had enjoyed
*The 13th Frasinent of Irenaeus in Stieren's edition (I., 832)
relates
that the heathens had forced heathen slaves, serving in Christian
houses, to give evidence about the Christians. In their fear, these
slaves, who had heard of the receiving of the body and blood in the
holy communiou, had given information about this,
"
aurot vo/xi'craj'Te?
T<3 ovTL al/Ma Koi (TiipKa eTvat, tovto i$eiirov toIs iK^rjrovatv.'
Cf. Justin,
"Apol." ii. 12(v.
p. 282).
f
Who or what aroused this suspicion in him is not known to us.
But we know well that the Jews were not guiltless of the spreading-
abroad of this untrue "blood-accusation." On't/en., "Contra Cel-
sum, VI., 27, writes :
"
i(3ov\rj0r} yap
[6
KcXtros] Toiis ciTrcipous rlLv
iffieriptav
cvTv;(ovTa5 auroC rg ypacf>rj TroXe/iwo-at tt/dos i]fia<; ws utov Karrjpa-
fievov
Xeyovra^ tov rovhe tou Koafiov koKov Br]fJnovpy6v.
Kai ooKel fiot
TrapaTrXr'ja-tov 'louSaibts TrenonjKevai, Tots Kara rrjv ap)(iiv ttjs tov ^piaTiavuTfiov
SiSao-KaXtas Karao-KeSao-ao-t Bv(T<f)r]ûav tou Aoyov, <I)S apa KaraOva-avTi^
TraiSiov /LttToAa/xySavoucriv avTOu rwv crapKwv, Kal 7ra\iv on oi airo tov Xoyov
Tci TOV aKOTOV irpaTTeiv fiovXafxevoL afêvvvovcri. fiiv to <^ws, ckucttos oe ttj
iraparvxoicrrj fxiyvvraC t/tis Svcr(f>r]fxia
TrapaX6yio<; TrdXai /jlIv TrXeia-rajv oawv
i<paTL TTCiOovcra tovs aXXoTpcov; tov Xoyov otl tolovtol elcn Xpia-riavoi,
Kol vvv 8e Tt aTraTtt Tivas
dTroTpeo/icVou; Sia tu TOtavTa kuv /s KoLVOJViav
oTrXovoTTCpav Xoywi' tjkhv Trpbs Xpiortavovs.
About the attitude of the Jews towards Jewish Christians and
Christians in the first two centuries, Cf. Acts of Apostles IV. sq.
;
Justin,
"
Dialogue with Trypho," 17 and 108 (the Christians were a
"
a'peo-is aêo? Kal avoixo^
")
;
"
First Apologia,"
31,
36 :
"
The
Martyrdom of Polycarp
"
XIII., 1,
and XVII., 2 ;
Tertullian, "Ad
nationes," 1, 17. But the Christians had no right to disregard the
warning of the Apostle, I. Thessal., V. 15.
282
ordinary
and innocent meals together ; even this they
had
omitted after my edict in which I had forbidden
all public
gatherings.
/w5^m Martyr
(150-60) was
obliged thus to depend his
fellow-believers in the so-
called
"Second Apologia,"
Ch. 12: "What man, greedy
of pleasure or intemperate, and finding satisfaction in
the eating
of human flesh, would call indeed death
welcome and would not sacrifice everything in order
to continue his usual mode of life
unobserved and as
long as possible
? If you have extorted by means of
tortures some single
confessions from our slaves,
wives and children, they are no proofs of our guilt.
It is not we w^ho do that which is laid to our charge
;
but you who did it, and yet worse do ye. We there-
fore needed not at all to deny it, if we did such things.
We might term our meetings
mysteries of Cronos;
we might, if we filled ourselves with blood, as the talk
goes, declare it to be a worship after the manner of
your Juppiter Latiaris,
and would be justified in your
eyes." Cf. also "First Apologia," Ch. 26; "Dialogue
with Trypho,"
Ch. 10. Athenagoras
(177) writes in his
"Apology" for the Christians addressed to Marcus
Aurelius, Ch. 3: "Three main reproaches are levelled
at us: atheism,
Thyestean meals, and Oedipodean
intercourse.
. . . And yet even animals
do not
touch animals of the same family," and he then pro-
ceeds to confute these reproaches in detail (the second
in Ch.
35 sq.). Theophilus of Antioch
(180 sq.), "To
Autolycus,"
Book III., 4 sq. In the letter of the
Christians at Lyons and Vienne,
preserved by
Eusebius,
"History of the Church," V., 1, the same
accusations are mentioned. The following phrase is
attributed to the woman martyr Byblias :
"
How could
children ])e eaten by such people, who are not allowed
to eat even the blood of senseless animals!" The
theme is handled in especial detail in the
"
Octavius
"
(written perhaps in 180 a.d.) of Minucius Felix ("The
Origin
of
the
Accusation
283
heathen
Caecilius,"
Chs., 9, 30, 31).
Tertulhan,
too
is
obliged
to
defend
the
Christians
as
compared
with
the
heathens,
who
in
reality
do
worse
than
they
falsely
assert
about
the
Christians.
I
quote
these
words
worth
takina to
heart,
from
the
beginning
of
the 7th Ch. of the
"
Apologeticum
"
(c. 200)
;
"
We
arc
called
the
most
villainous
of
mortals
because
of
the
secret
practice
of
killing
and
eating
children.
. . .
We
are
called
thus;
but you do not
seek to
prove it.
Prove
it then,
if
you
believe
it, or
lelieve
it not, as
you
have
not
proved
it."
Likewise
Origen,
^Contra
Celsum
"
VI
40. Cf.
further:
K.
Semisch,
Justin
der
M^rtyrer,"
II.
(Breslau,
1842),
105-13,
and
Kortholt,
"
De
calumniis
paganorum
m
veteres
thri-
stianos
sparsis,"
Kiel, 1668,
157
sq.
Unfortunately
Christians,
after
the
Christian
religion
had
become
dominant,
directed
against
others
the
calumny
once
directed
against
têmse
ves
firstiv
against
the
Montanists,
m
the
latter
Midale
\ges
frequentlv
against
heretics,
and,
as
is
here
shown
in Ch. 18,
since
the
13th
century
against
the
Jews.
Sectarians,
who
separated
from
the
Church
were
altogether
thought
capable
of any
shameful
deed.
In
regard
to
the
Montanists
cf.
St.
Jerome,
"
Epist
"
xli
4-
"
Praetermitto
scelerata
mysteria
quae
dicuntur
de
lactente
puero
et
victuro
martyre
con-
farrata.
Malo
inquam
non
credere ;
sit
falsum
omne
quod
sanguinis
est."
Augustine,
''De
haeres." 26:
"
Sacramenta
perhibentur
habere
funesta.
Nam
de
infantis
anniculi
sanguine
quem
de toto
ejus
corpore
minutis
punctionum
vulneribus
extorquent
quasi
eucharistiam
suam
conficere
perhibentur,
miscentes
eum
farinae
panemque
inde
facientes:
qui
puer si
mortuus
fuerit,
habetur
apud
eos
pro
martyre,
si
autem
vixerit,
pro
magno
sacerdote
"
(Cf.
ibid.
Cti.
27). In his book on predestination Augustine observes
that Tertullian, in the lost work against Apollonius
about ecstasy, defended the Montanists against the
accusation "de sanguine infantis."Epiphanius,
"Haeres." xlviii. 14, also charges the Mon-
tanists with using the blood of a child for their
sacrifices, whose body the}^ had stabbed with needles.
Respecting the Gnostics and the Manichaeans, v.
supr.
pp.
34-7.
Concerning the later Middle Ages, as at present
leisure fails me to compile the facts myself, I refer the
reader to Chr. U. Hahn, "Geschichte der Ketzer im
Mittelalter," 3 vols., Stuttgart, 1845-50. He quotes
III., 382 (following the "Brevis notitia
"
in
"
Biblio-
theca maxima veterum patrum et antiquorum scri-
ptorum," XXV., 308 (Lugdun.
1677),
that the Catha-
rians were upbraided because
"
Adorant Luciferum,"
and "pueros eorum ei immolant."About religious
concubitus
("
omnibus exstinctis luminaribus, quam
quisque primam poterat mulierem quae ad manum
sibi veniebat ad abutendum arripiebat," following
D'Achery
"
Spicilegium," I. [Paris,
1724], 605),
ibid.
III., 380, Cf. also 384, and I., 89 sq. Just the same
accusation was brought against the Waldenses in
Piedmont, v. J. P. Perrin, "Histoire des Vaudois,"
Geneva, 1619, 10 sq., in Hahn II., 148.
The last proceedings taken in the Middle Ages
against Christian heretics on the ground of the
"
blood-
accusation
"
is, so far as I know, the "Processus
contra haereticos de opinione dampnata," against the
"
Fraticelli de opinione
"
existing in the march of An-
cona and the neighbouring Romagna in 1466, cf.
"
Vier
Documente aus romischen Archiven," L., 1843
(130),
1-48. Partly owing to the tortures applied, partly
from fear of them, the majority of those brought up
for examination confess, apart frorn deviations from
the Church doctrine (e.g., the authority of the Pope),
Origin of the Accusation 285
the following
:
" In fine dictarum missarum lumina

extinxerimt et dixerunt: Alleluja, Alleluja, Cias-
cuno se pigli la sua [quilibet capiat suam!]; et
quod his verbis dictis quilibet eorum unam accipiebat
mulierem. . . Quod ... in unum coadunati
. . . magnum ignem aliquando accenderunt . .
et unum puerum inter eos natum in adulteriis prae-
dictis genitum ceperunt et circum dictum ignem de
uno ad alium duxerunt, usque quo mortuus et
desecatus [read
"
desiccatus"] extitit. Et deinde ex
illo pulveres fecerunt et in uno flascone vini posuerunt
et . . . de hujusmodi vino, loco sacratissimi
Christi corporis et verae communionis, ad bibendum
semet praebuerunt et dederunt praebereque et dare
consueverunt." Cf. too, the "Octavius" of Minu-
cius Felix, Ch. 9, and Origen
"
Contra Celsum," VI.,
27 (supr.
p.
281 note).
Lastly, it may he mentioned that such accusations have
often been directed not only against hated religious
'parties, but also against political
foes.
Eliot
Warburton, in the
"
Memoirs
of
Pr'ince Rupert and
the Cavaliers
"
(London,
1849), I., 17, II., 89, relates
that the Puritans had spread the rumour that
Charles I.'s cavaliers butchered and ate little chil-
dren, and in consequence mothers used to overawe
their children with the terror
of
the name
of
Rupert
of
the Palatinate.
Thackeray, in
"
The Four
Georges
"
C
Works,'' London, 1876, Vol. X., 329):
"
/ came
from India as a child, and our ship touched
at an island on the way home, where my black servant
took me a long walk, over rocks and hills, until we
reached a garden, where ive saw a man walking.
*
That is he," said the black man,
'
that is Bonaparte!
He eats three sheep every day, and all the little chil-
dren he can lay hands on!''"
Leo Taxil's (the

notorious inventor
of
'the devil Bitru) pamphlet,
"
Der
Meuchelmord in der Freimaurerei
"
(Paris), is
known to me only through a review; according to it,
he makes the stalling
of
the traitor Ritus take 'place
upon his elevation to the grade
of
a Kadosch-Knight.
For China and Madagascar, v. swpr.

f.
83 sq.
INDEX
OF THE MOST IMPORTANT NAMES AND SUBJECTS
<An asterisk attached to the page-nnmber signifies that a bibliography is to be
found on that page. The important dates are added in the parentheses.)
Albertus Magnusi. 21.*
Alexander I. of Russia, 265.
Amicus and Amelius, 64.
Andreas (of Riun, 1462), 191 sq.
Anthropophagy, 57.*
Areolae, 88.
Athenagoras, 282.
Bacau (1892), 222.
"Bahrrecht" (ordeal of the bier), 49,* 138.
Bathori, Elis., 89 sq.
Benedict XII. (against the fabrication of
miracles), 60.
Berent (1894),
226.
Bernard de Clairvaux, 275.
Berne (1294),
186 sq.
Bernstein, Max, 144 sq.
Bier, Ordeal of the, 49,* 138.
Biesenthal, J. H. R., 245.*
Bloch, Jos., 158 sq.*
Blois (1171), 177.
Blood-brotherhood, 43 sq.*
Blood-letting, 132, note.
Blood of asses, 86, 133, 134.
Blood of bats, 86, 87, 133.
Blood of circumcision, 129, 136, 140.
Blood of executed criminals, 70 sq.
Blood, partaking of. Jewish Law. 123 sq.*
Blood, transfusion of,
50.*
Bohemian rulers, 262.
Boleslaus V. of Poland, 263.
Boleslaw (1829), 209.
Brenz (S. F.), 148.
Brimann, A., 156 sq.
"Buoh der Frommen," 137 sq.
Buck, M. R.,
20*.
Building-sacrifice, 31 sq.,* 138.
Bulls of protection, 250 sq.
Bulls, The Papal, 250.*
Cainites, 35.
Carpocratians, 35.
Casimir IV. of Poland, 263 sq.
Cassel, P., 18 note.*
Catholics, objects of superstition, 101 sq.,
276, note.
Charles V., Emperor, 260.
Chajjim Vital, 161.
China, 74, 83, 279, note.
Chinon (1317), 189.
Christian!, F. A., 243.
Chwolson, D., 248.*
Clement XIII. (1760, 1763), 258.
Clement XIV., 259.
Clemens Victor = Rohling, 159.
Con^tantine the Great, 63 sq.
Corfu (1891), 213 sq.
Corpses as "pain-reraovers, " 77 sq., 143.
Corp.ses, dissection of (among Jews), 130,
note.
Crucifixions (in odium Christi), 177.
Dam, damim, 280.
Damascus
(1840), 207 sq.*
Dau, Claus, 114.
Daumer, G. F.,
33.*
Dead person's hand, 80, 135, 141, 143.
Dead persons, utilisation of, forbidden
the Jews, 130 sq.*
Deckert, Josef, 193,* 224 sq.
Delitzsch, Franz, 157.*
Desportes, H.,
170.*
V. Dollinger, J., 271 sq.
Donin, Nikolaus, 175.
Dragon's-blood, 280.
Dreck-Apotheke,
25.*
Easter-loaves (Mazzoth), 279.
Ebers, Papyrus. 24.*
Edward of Savoy, 190.
Ehrenberg, Chr. G., 59.
Eibesehiitz, Jon., 151.
Eisenmenger, J. A., 156, 169, note.
Eisleben (1892),
218 sq.
Elder-tree, 67.
Elephantiasis, 62.
Emden, Jakob, 130 note, 237.
Endingcn (1470), 260.
Epilepsy, 50, 66, 70 sq., 87, 92.
Esther Solymosi (1882),
212 sq.
288
Index
Fern,
Athanasius,
170.*
Flugel,
20.*
Fossel, v.,
20.*
Fox's tooth, 135.
Frank,
executioner, 112, note.
Frankfort a. M. (1504),
203 sq.
Frankists, 149 sq.
Fratieelli de opinione, 284 sq.
Frederick III.,
Emperor, 260.
Frischbier, H.,
20.*
Fulda (1235),
178 sq., 239 sq., 276.
Galen, 24.
Gan na"ûl, 230,
note.
Ganganelli, L., 259 sq.
German rulers, 260 sq.
Glatigny (1669),
264.
Gnostics,
immoral, 35.
Good Friday, 86.
Graves,
desecration of, 92 sq.
Gregory IX. (1233, 1236),
251.
Gregory X. (1272),
255 sq.
Grimm (''Armer Heinrich"),
62.*
Guardia (1490),
201.*
Guy de
Chauliae,
56.*
Hahn, Chr. U., 284.
Haselbauer, F., 269.
Hauss-Apothee, 19.
Hearts, eaten, 92; of unborn
cbildren,
106,
110-115.
Henri de Mondeville, 55 sq.*
Henry III. of England. 264.
Hildegard, Abbess,
52.*
Hildesheimer, H.,
178.*
Hindcrbach, J., 193, 199, 255.
Hirlanda, 64.
Hofer, Andreas, 74.
Hoffmann, Friedr., the elder,
27.*
Hofler, M.,
20.*
Holleschau (1893),
223 sq.
Human flesh, 57 sq.*
Human sacrifice, 30 sq.*
Hundssattler, 111.
Hungary,
constitution of, 265.
Hydrophobia (remedy for), 56,
134.
Ingrandes (1892),
220.
Innocent IV. (May, 1247), 180 eq.
(July,
1247. September, 1253), 253 sq.
Innocent VIII., his death, 138 eq.
Isaak Luria, 161.
Italy, rulers of, 246 sq.
Jahn, U.,
20.*
Jakob Emden, 130, note, 237.
Jews and Christians in the first centuries,
280 sq.
Jews, superstitions of, 123 sq.* ; food-law,
124 sq.*; utilisation of a dead body,
129 sq.*
Jews, the object of superstition, 276, note.
Johannes de Santo Amando,
88.*
Jubilee Year, 194.
"
Judenspiegel," 161, note.
"Juden u. das Christenbiut," 170.
Julius III., 252.
Justin Martyr, 282 sq.
Justus, Dr. A. Brimanu, 161, note.
Karpoeratians, 35.
Kirchner. P. Chr.,
148.*
Kolin (1893), 222 sq.
Kosehwitz, G. D.,
27.*
Krauss. F. S.,
21.*
Krems ;1293), 185.
Lammert, G.,
20.*
Lemke, E.,
20.*
Liver, 74, 95.
Lombroso, C,
58.*
Louis XI. of France, 65.
Louis XIV. of France, 264 sq.
Love-potion, 28, 54 sq.
Lowenstein, L. H.,
238.*
Lowenstimm, A., 23.*
Luria, Isaak, 161.
Maohleid, J. C, 28.
Madagascar, 84,
46.*
Mahrisch-Triibau (1896), 226 sq.
Mainz (1283),
184.
Manasse ben Israel, 236 sq.
Maiiichaeans, 37.
Mannhardt, W.,
21.*
Margaritha, Ant., 243.
Martin V. (1418, 1421, 1429), 250 eq. {U'
256 sq.
Mazzoth, 279.
Medicine, popular (among modern Jtws'
139 sq.,* 141 sq.*
Melusine,
22.*
Mendel, "Rabbi," 230, note.
Menstrual blood, 19, 25, 28, 51 sq.,* 142.
Mesusa, 75.
Meyer, Faulus, 148, 224 sq.
Micrococcus prodigiosus, 59 sq.*
Minueius, Felix. 282.
Mnich, Franziska (1881),
212.
Molitor, F. J., 270, 245.
Montanists, 283 sq.
Morosini, Jul., 243.
"Miillerin. verkaufte" (song),
108.*
Munich (1285), 184, (1345),
191.
V. Muralt, J., 65.
Nagy-Bzokol (1891),
215.
Nails (coffin, gallows), 73, 76, 80, 135.
Napoleon I., 285.
Neuenhoven (1834), 206 sq.
Niezdow (1839),
210.
Nicholas V. (1447), 257 sq.
Norwich (1144), 177. (1240),
173.
Nose-bleeding, 68 sq., 140.
Oberwesel (1286), 184 eq.
V. Onody, G., 169.*
Orcuta (1764),
205 sq.
Index
2B9
Drigen, 281, note.
3siauder, A., '2G8.*
'Osservatore Cattolico," 170 sq.
3ttok!Vi- II. of Bohemia, 262.
Padlock, magic us of 68, 143.
Paolo Medici, 243.
Paracelsus, 65.
i*aschrtsius Eadbertus, 34, 59.
:>aullini. K. F., 26.*
'aul HI. (1540), 258.
'auliis of Burgos, 241.
le Tawlikowski. Ch., 169.*
:*enance- books, 51 sq.*
'eter, Marg., 119 sq.
'fefferkorn, J., 242 sq.
Pforzheim
(1261), 182.
'hiiip IV. of France, 264.
'ieritz, G. W., 208.
>ius II., 252.
>liiiy the Elder, 24, 50, 62, 70.
*liny the Younger, 281.
'oisoniug of wells, 279.
*olish rulers. 263.
olna (1899). 228 sq.
>ontoise
(1179), 177.
>6sing
(1529), 204 sq., 268.
'rague
(1305). 189. (1389) 252. (1893) 224.
'ravers (incantations), 80 sq., 87.
*uri3urmonade, 59 sq.*
6 Rais, Gilles, 122.
tgensburg (1468-1476), 200 sq.
lichard I. of England, 64.
linn
(1462), 191 sq.
titter, Moses
(1881), 212.
loehholz, E. L.,
19.*
lohling. A., 155 sq.,* 230, note.
lope of a hanged person, 74 sq., 141.
ludolph I. of Hapsburg. 185, 260.
ludolph (of Berne, 1294), 186 sq.
lupert of the Palatinate, 285.
lussian sects, 37 sq.*
lacramental wine, 58.
acred wafers, 58 sq.,* 279, note,
laints, their blood, 58.
lalamander, 134.
lalfeld, S., 179.*
lavoy
(1329), 190.
Schachtschnitt," 153.
Ichafer Thomas, 21.*
chneider, in the Austrian Reichsrat, 168.
chrodcr, Joh. Chr., 26.*
ichudt, J. J., 269.*
emler, J. R., 151, 270.
lepher ha-liqqutin, 161.*
Shahat," 165 sq.
icut Judaeis, 250 sq.
ignatures with blood, 49.
Silesian rulers, 263.
Simon of Trent, 193 sq.
S. James's Day, 85.
Skaisgirreu
(1898), 227.
Skull, 79 sq.*
Sohar, 161.
Spleen, diseases of, 135.
Steiermark, 82 sq., 99 sq.
Stern, Beitriige, " 250.*
Strackerjan, L., 20.*
Suggestion, 154.
Superstition in Judaism, 123 sq.*
Tarnow
(1844), 209.
Tasnad
(1791), 206.
Taxil, Leo, 285.
Tertullian, 283 sq.
V. Tettau and Temme, 20.*
Thieves' Candle, 105 sq., 108.*
Thomas Cantipratensis, 277.
Tisza-Eszlar
(1882), 212.
Toothache. 67 sq., 81 sq.
Toppen, M., 20.*
Treasures, hidden. 100 eq., 103.*
Trent
(1475), 193 sq.
Triller, D. W., 28.*
Troyes
(1288), 264.
Tugendhold, J., 237.*
Turf, tread under the, 47.*
Turkish rulers, 266 sq.
Tyrnan
(1494),
201.*
tjberlingen (1332). 191.
Unger, Th., 114.
Urine, 19, 25, 27.
'Ûr-Quell,-' 21.*
Valreas
(1247), 179 sq., 277 eq.
Vampires, 96.
Vechta, A Jew at, 109.
Veith, J. E., 245 sq.
Virgins, outrages on, 95 sq.
Vital, Chajjim, 161.
Wagenseil, J. Ch., 268 sq.*
Warts. 53, 77. 82, 87.
Weissenburg
(1270), 183.
Weissensee
(1303), 188.
Werewolf, 58, 96, note,* 203, note.
Werner, "the good," 184 sq.
Wildisbuch, 119 .sq.
Witches, 97 sq.. 259 (Popes).
V. Wlislocki, H., 23.*
"Wunderblut von Wilsnack," 59.
Wuttke, A., 19.*
Xanten (1891), 215 sq.
Xenocrates of Aphrodisias, 24.
Ypres, 86.
1 1012 01011 0353

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\^,3.

vide especially chapters xviii

Vols. V. and VI. : A. Haas,

In Book v., the

/., 118 sq.y,

There is more in Daumer-

" Poenitentiale Cum-

"The smearing of warts

" For itch, wear a shirt, in which a woman has

The same thing was done by Leila d'Errico, in order to

R. Andree, "Die Anthropophagie," L., 1887

What a capacity for production ! What a power

i.e., he had become leprous, and a leprous

" If anyone has toothache, let him take a nail

Strackerjan I., 83 sq.

Rochholz I, 230: "The Benedictine monastery

"Preussen," FrischUer 103: "The custom is uni-

He could by daylight unseen go."

11th March: 'probably

2. Human blood is rabbini-

"Against one-sided headache take a woodcock,

" but in order that the public may be eager

Rudimentary element of the building-offering

[Also Burkhard's diary has here a hiatus, as Gregorovius mentiona

In the Palest. Talmud "Berakhoth" vi., fol.

that this question is to be answered in the negative,

The manuscript which contains these three

The imitative impulse altogether plays a great part in criminology,

" When I was an Am ha-areg, I said

Rab Hisda says :

and the mother says, my son shall be brought up

he is left with his mother, and not with

Eisenmenger IT., 220-7, gives a long list of Christians (especially

Also the quotation taken from Desportes,

"Quod ex maledictioiie parentum currat adhuc in filios vena facino-

(Salfeld, 128-30, holds the year to be 1267 : but Thomas's book, bo

" A child is de-

His predecessors in correctly judging the affair were J. E. Eopp^

Not before the 18th century comes the statement of

"Johannis Vitodurani Chronicon," published by G. v. Wyss,

"Die Chronik Johann's von Winterthur," done

Further denials would have been

A Hebrew elegy on an empty sheet of a Hebrew MS. in Cracow be-

The judicial establishment of the facts of the murder

The word "has" should be noticed, in contradiction of the follow-

Et a la dem.ande du Consul de France en

On the respective side (known to

The three defending barristers corroborate the trustworthiness of

the blood, ivas not found.

H. Str.\ which is among Jeivs a kind

Supplement to it by the same author:

in Angelegenheit der Blutbeschuldigung der

The copy in the possession of the Israelite Religious Community

In the same year,

Cf. the laying-on of hands at the sin-offering, Leviticus TV., 15.

" In fine dictarum missarum lumina

Leo Taxil's (the

For China and Madagascar, v. swpr.

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