E. M. Rose presents a compelling and thorough investigation of blood libel in medieval Europe. Blood libel is defined as the alleged ritualistic use of Christian children's blood within Judaism. The author clearly demonstrates how the origins of blood libel are tied to specific historical moments, but are not based on any historical facts. Instead, blood libel is founded upon the weaving of complex narratives in particular moments of political and economic unrest. These stories were spread through the successful campaigns of various church and state actors. The central premise is set out by Rose: “No charge has withstood historical scrutiny” (1). The author proves this thesis by revisiting the primary historical sources and offering a revision of the historiography of this charged topic.
Divided into two parts, the first section of the manuscript sets out the particulars of the death of the youth William of Norwich and shows how it was used by Bishop Turbe and Brother Thomas in order to create a cult for the Norwich Cathedral. Dating to the mid-twelfth century, the case of William of Norwich is the earliest known case of alleged blood libel in Europe. In careful detail, Rose discusses how the legal trial of a Christian accused of the murder of his Jewish money-lender turned into an accusation of blood libel. In this trial the clergy charged the entire Jewish community with a parallel death—that of William of Norwich. This shift from the culpability of an individual to that of a community was a watershed moment in the context of medieval treatment of Jews, a revision that is innovative in Rose's text.
Rose bases the research on a variety of sources, foremost being the original Latin Vita: The Life and Passion of William of Norwich, as written by Brother Thomas. The conclusions in The Murder of William Norwich draw upon an original and close reading of this text in five volumes. Through the Vita, Brother Thomas institutionalized William's cult. Rose's analysis is wide reaching in scope as it draws pertinent connections to other disciplines, including contemporary English literature, referring to the impact of blood libel in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and confessional texts including the Hebrew piyyutim. Rose also contextualizes the trial within the scholarship of other historians and religious scholars. Crucially, Rose underscores the historical realities of the period, ultimately attributing the failure of the second crusade and civil war in England as central factors in the accusation of ritual murder.
Another fundamental premise of this text is the centrality of martyrs within medieval Europe. Rose masterfully frames William's case in relation to other accounts of accused ritual murder. The author provides fundamental historical proof and documentation so that a non-specialist can understand how and why historical details shaped the outcome of the treatment of child-martyrs in distinct locales. The creation of Saint William involved moving his body to various locations, which Rose suggests were “repeated attempts to appeal to different people and interests” (110). This cult was centered on a literary text (Brother Thomas's Vita) and ritualized within the Norwich church and repeated in campaigns abroad. This cult was carefully crafted to resonate especially with women and children; “The cult of William appears to have satisfied needs that were personal, local, familial, and pediatric” (112).
William of Norwich's story became the “master narrative of alleged Jewish atrocity” (130). In the second part of The Murder of William of Norwich, Rose carefully connects Norwich to other communities within England and France: Gloucester, Blois, Bury St. Edmunds, and Paris. Rose reveals how the child-saint was promoted through connections within the parish of Norwich as well as tours abroad. This figure became a potent symbol because he was an innocent. This employment of the child-saint as martyr held a pivotal role in the reimaging of the medieval Jewry. In this period, Jews transformed from a people protected under the church to heretics blamed for the death of Christ. Due to blood libel, Bury St. Edmunds became the first community in medieval Europe to expel the Jews, and shortly after, Paris followed suit. Rose states: “Belief in the ritual murder charge was not the cause of expulsion, but the pretext for it” (232). Another important consideration of the text is how Rose shows that, while historians widely celebrate King Phillip for his modern reimagining of the city of Paris, this redevelopment project was based upon the “backward” practice of the expulsion of the Jewish community (230). It is in these crucial details that Rose offers a new understanding of medieval Europe.
The fundamental conclusion of the text is that blood libel is a master narrative explaining mass conversions, expulsion, and murders throughout medieval Europe. Rose makes a compelling and well-reasoned argument for how blood libel began as a fictional story and morphed into an apparent truth as it was repeated and refashioned among different audiences. As it all beganwith the death of William of Norwich, Rose argues that “the first ritual murder accusation therefore was a literary creation, a story composed years after the alleged events” (97). Given the polemical nature of blood libel accusations, this topic has wide implications and continues to resonate with audiences in the present day.
