Simon of Trent
| Simon of Trent | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1472 Trento, Italy |
| Died | March 21, 1475 Trent, Prince-Bishopric of Trent |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Canonized | 1575 (approximate) |
| Feast | March 24 |
| Attributes | Youth, martyrdom |
| Patronage | Children, kidnap victims, torture victims |
| Controversy | Blood libel |
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Catholic cult suppressed
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After the Congregation |
Simon of Trent (German: Simon Unverdorben ("Simon Immaculate"); Italian: Simonino di Trento); also known as Simeon; (1472 – March 21, 1475) was a boy from the city of Trent, Prince-Bishopric of Trent, whose disappearance and murder was blamed on the leaders of the city's Jewish community, based on his dead body allegedly being found in the cellar of a Jewish family's house.
The story of Simon of Trent belongs to the reign of Prince-Bishop Johannes IV Hinderbach, an Austrian noble, under the jurisdiction of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. Shortly before Simon went missing, Bernardine of Feltre, an itinerant Franciscan preacher, had delivered a series of sermons in Trent in which he vilified the local Jewish community.
The Jewish community in Trent was composed of three households: Samuel, Tobias, and Engel, who were recent immigrants with Samuel first arriving in 1461. With Samuel was a money lender and Tobias as a physician, the Jews remained distinctly separate not only due to their profession, but their apparent wealth in a community of artisans and sharecroppers in Trent. Prince-Bishop Hinderbach specifically granted the Jewish community permission to reside and practice their professions in Trent. This dependence on the protection of the authorities, later forced the Jews, upon discovery of Simon's body, but to report the incident.
Simon went missing on March 24, 1475 and was discovered by Seligman, a cook, in the cellar of Samuel on Easter Sunday 1475.
According to historian Ronnie Po-chia Hsia:
The exact place where the boy's body was found seems to be unclear. According to the Catholic historian Cölestin Wolfsgrüber, the body was found in a ditch.
The consequences, however, are well documented. The entire Jewish community (both men and women) were arrested and forced to confess under torture. Not only were they coerced to admit to crimes of murdering the child, but also to blood libel, or the accusation that due to Jewish contempt for Christianity, Jews murder Christian children in order to use their blood for rituals. The historian Po-Chia Hsia argues that this was the first documentation of a Christian ethnography of Judaism. The forced confessions was a way for the magistrates to document the history of Jewish rituals and meanings, providing evidence for Christian belief of Jewish hatred for Christianity.
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