between circumcision and crucifixion.66 As noted above, Wendover and Paris wrote simply that “Jews hid a certain boy from Christian view for a year and circumcised him, wanting to crucify him at Easter.”67 Paris’s additional, more detailed account stated merely that “Jews circumcised a Christian boy. Having circumcised him, they called him Jurnin. They kept him, however, to crucify him, as an insult to Jesus Christ crucified.”68
It is possible that Wendover and Paris did not envision any particular logical connection between circumcision and crucifixion. Perhaps, In portraying the Norwich circumcision case as an attempted ritual murder, they conflated it with one of the earliest documented allegations of ritual murder in medieval Europe, which arose in Norwich, too, a century prior—the charge that, In 1144, Norwich Jews murdered a young Christian boy named William.69 Such a conflation, however, seems unlikely. Paris demonstrated a keen interest in alleged Jewish crimes, writing in detail about incidents in Berkhampstead in 1150, London in 1244, and Lincoln in 1255.70 Amid all of Wendover’s and Paris’s writings, however, there is only one vague and brief reference to William. In his continuation of Wendover’s Flores historiarum, Paris noted succinctly that, In 1144, “a certain boy was crucified by the Jews at Norwich.”71 Moreover, Paris appears to have composed this part of his continuation of Wendover’s Flores historiarum after he and Wendover wrote their accounts of the Norwich circumcision case. It is possible that Wendover and Paris did not even know about William when they wrote about the circumcision case.72 This would not be surprising. Although William of Norwich is well known today—much better known than Edward—word of William did not circulate widely during the Middle Ages. Prior to the fifteenth century, Thomas of Monmouth’s vita of William (which survives in a single manuscript from the last quarter of the twelfth century) was virtually unknown outside Norwich. Information about William that was independent of Thomas’s vita spread slowly.73
Alternatively, the portrayal of the Norwich circumcision case as an attempted ritual murder may have been reflexive. By the 1230s, the charge of ritual murder was well known across western Europe, and accusations that Jews harmed Christian children in a variety of ways commonly evolved into tales of crucifixion. For instance, whereas in 1232 the Hampshire Eyre Rolls specified that Winchester Jews mutilated and strangled a one-year-old,74 the Annals of Winchester later stated that Winchester Jews “crucified” this boy.75 Indicating that crucifixion came to dominate some anti-Jewish narratives in subsequent centuries, as well, some later authors who wrote about the Norwich circumcision case—including the Roman legal scholar Marquardus de Susannis (d. 1578), the English chronicler Raphael Holinshed (d. 1580), and the French essayist Albert Monniot (d. 1938)—omitted any reference to circumcision and mentioned only crucifixion. Marquardus de Susannis even contended that Norwich Jews not only planned to crucify Edward but actually accomplished the deed.76
It is also possible, especially in light of Christian views of circumcision as cruel, that Wendover, Paris, and their readers imagined circumcision in the context of a ritual murder as a form of torture. As such, circumcision fit particularly well in a ritual murder narrative. Thirteenth-century Christians depicted Jews as subjecting their alleged ritual murder victims to a wide array of torments, Including a variety of kinds of mutilation. As noted above, according to a manuscript from the second half of the thirteenth century, In 1183 Jews in Bristol cut off the nose and upper lip of a boy named Adam whom they subsequently crucified in a latrine. According to the History of the Monastery of St. Peters at Gloucester, In 1168, Gloucester Jews tortured a boy named Harold “with extreme cruelty”: “Placing him between two fires, they severely burned his sides, his back and buttocks…. They put molten wax in his eyes as well as his ears…. They also knocked out his front teeth.”77 During the thirteenth century, moreover, Christians increasingly claimed that Jews maimed or disemboweled their purported victims, often in the same ways that were used in judicial punishments and reported of the bodily sufferings of saints. It is striking that, In the very same decade as the Norwich circumcision case, genital mutilation surfaced in an English ritual murder accusation: According to the Hampshire Eyre Rolls, In 1232, Winchester Jews gouged out the eyes and heart and “removed the testicles” of the boy whom they strangled.78 In sum, contemporaneous Christian perceptions of circumcision and trends in tales of ritual murder indicate that it is possible that some Christians imagined circumcision in the context of a ritual murder narrative as a characteristic form of Jewish abuse.
Wendover’s and Paris’s interweaving of circumcision and crucifixion also invites consideration of contemporaneous developments in Christian thought and devotional practices. As a prelude to crucifixion, circumcision could have powerful Christian meaning. In medieval Christian theology, the circumcision of Christ—which the Gospel of Luke portrays as the occasion for Christ’s naming (2:21)—was understood as demonstrating that Christ was fully human and as adumbrating, and even initiating, Christ’s passion.79 During the thirteenth century, In the context of increasing theological investment in Christ’s humanity and the flourishing of affective piety, Christ’s circumcision assumed heightened devotional importance. Alleged fragments of the foreskin of Christ were venerated as holy relics,80 and Christ’s circumcision began to figure in devotional meditation as the first of the seven sorrows of Mary.81 The collection of saints’ lives and verse homilies known as the South English Legendary (composed ca. 1270–85) presented the feast of Christ’s circumcision (January 1) as its first festal narrative, emphasizing that Christ was born into the Old Law even as he ushered in a new era in salvation history.82 Around 1260, Jacobus de Voragine affirmed in the Golden Legend that Christians celebrated the feast of Christ’s circumcision because it marked, among other things, the first time Christ shed his blood for humanity and, thus, the start of redemption.83 By the early fourteenth century, In texts and images, the arma Christi (instruments of Christ’s passion) had begun to include not only nails and pliers but also the knife used in Christ’s circumcision.84
Christians often imagined that, when Jews committed ritual murder, they sought closely to parody the passion of Christ. In addition to accusing Jews of crucifying their purported victims, they envisioned Jews as reenacting other aspects of Christ’s passion. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle noted, for instance, In regard to the case of William of Norwich, that Jews tortured William “with all the tortures with which our Lord was tortured.”85 In his Chronica majora, Matthew Paris described the precise correspondence between the tortures that Jews allegedly inflicted on Hugh of Lincoln and those endured by Christ. Paris wrote that Lincoln Jews appointed one Jew to serve as a judge, “like Pilate,” and that the Jews scourged Hugh “till the blood flowed,” crowned him with thorns, mocked him, spat upon him, Insulted him, and, finally, crucified him and pierced his heart with a spear.86
In the context of a parody of Christ’s passion, circumcision could have served as a parody of Christ’s circumcision, understood as the first step in Christ’s passion. This is, In fact, how, In the late fifteenth century, the alleged circumcision of two-year-old Simon of Trent, whom Jews were accused of murdering, was explained in the Geschichte des zu Trient ermordeten Christenkindes (History of the Murdered Trent Christ Child, printed by Albertus Duderstadt/Albrecht Kunne in 1475). In this work, the text accompanying a woodcut depicting a Jew cutting Simon’s penis stated that the Jew performed a “circumcision” in mockery of Christ’s “first bloodshed.”87 In the thirteenth century, Wendover’s and Paris’s accounts of the Norwich circumcision case, too, could have been understood as casting circumcision as the first stage in a reenactment of Christ’s passion. This interpretation leaves questions unanswered, however. For instance, If, In the narratives of Wendover and Paris, circumcision was a parody of the first step in Christ’s passion, where were the other elements of the passion leading up to crucifixion? And why did Wendover, Paris, and other thirteenth- and fourteenth-century authors not cast Jews as circumcising other ritual murder victims, as well?
It is possible that Matthew Paris did imagine that Jews circumcised at least one other purported ritual murder victim. In the nineteenth century,
