During the night, when all was still, a Jew named Moses took the child from its bed, and carried it into the vestibule of the synagogue, which formed a part of the house of Samuel, and sitting down on a bench began to strip the infant; a handkerchief being twisted round its throat to prevent it from crying. Then stretching out his limbs in the shape of a cross they began the butchery of the child, cutting the body in several places, and gathering his blood in a basin. The child being half dead, they raised him on his feet, and whilst two of them held him by the arms, the rest pierced his body on all sides with their awls.
When the child was dead, they hid the body in a cellar behind the barrels of wine.
All Friday the parents sought their son, but found him not, and the Jews, alarmed at the proceedings of the magistrates, who had taken the matter up, and were making investigations in all quarters, consulted what had better be done. They could not carry the body away, as every gate was watched, and the perplexity was great. At length they determined to dress the body again and throw it into the stream which ran under Samuel's window, but which was there blocked by an iron cage in which the refuse was caught. Tobias was to go to the bishop and chief magistrates and tell them that there was a child's body entangled in the grate, and he hoped that by thus drawing attention to it all suspicion of having been implicated in the murder would be diverted from him and his co-religionists.
This was done, and when John de Salis, the bishop, and James de Sporo, the governor, heard the report of the Jew, they at once went, and the body was removed before their eyes, and conveyed to the cathedral, followed by a crowd. As, according to a popular mediæval superstition, blood is supposed to flow from the wound when the murderer approaches, the officers of justice examined the body as the crowds passed it; and they noticed that blood exuded as Tobias approached. On the strength of this the house of Samuel and the synagogue were examined, and blood and other traces of the butchery were found in the cellar, and in the place where the deed had been done, and the bowl of blood was discovered in a cupboard. The most eminent physicians were called to investigate the condition of the corpse, and they unanimously decided that the child could not have been drowned, as the body was not swollen, and as there were marks on the throat of strangulation. The wounds they decided were made by sharp instruments like awls and knives, and could not be attributed to the gnawing of water-rats. The popular voice now accusing the Jews, the magistrates seized on the Jews and threw them into prison, and on the accusation of a renegade Jew named John, who had been converted to Christianity seven years before, and who declared that the Jews had often sought to catch and kill a child, and had actually done this elsewhere, more than five of the Jews were sentenced to be broken on the wheel, and then burnt.
The blood found in the basin is preserved in the cathedral of Trent, and the body of the child is also enshrined there in a magnificent mausoleum.
[March 25.]
Memorial of the Crucifixion.
The Penitent Thief, A.D. 33.
S. Quirinus, M. at Rome, A.D. 269.
S. Irenæus, B.M. at Sirmium, A.D. 304.
S. Pelagius, B. of Laodicæa, end of 4th cent.
S. Dula, V.M. at Nicomedia.
S. Camin, Ab. of Iniskeltra, in Ireland, circ. A.D. 653.
S. Humbert, P.C. at Marolles, in Hainault, circ. A.D. 680.
SS. Barontus and Desiderius, HH. at Pistoria, circ. A.D. 725.
S. Hermeland, Ab. of Hindre, in France, 8th cent.
S. Alfwolf, B. of Sherborne, A.D. 1075.
S. William, Child M. at Norwich, A.D. 1144.
S. Richard, Child M. at Paris, A.D. 1179.
S. Ida, Abss. of Argensolles, in the diocese of Soissons, circ. A.D. 1250.