Editing Simon of Trent (section)

==Events==
At the time of the events, Prince-Bishop [[Johannes Hinderbach]] reigned in Trent under the ultimate jurisdiction of [[Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III]]. In March 1475, an itinerant [[Franciscan]] preacher, [[Bernardine of Feltre]], delivered a series of sermons in Trent that vilified the local Jews, essentially three households headed by Samuel (who arrived in 1461), Tobias, and Engel.<ref>{{harv|Hsia|1992|pp=14–15}}</ref> They formed a distinct community marked by their professions and by their apparent wealth in comparison with the artisans and [[Sharecropping|sharecroppers]] of the city: Samuel was a moneylender and Tobias a physician.<ref>{{harv|Hsia|1992|p=25}}</ref> The Prince-Bishop had renewed the Jewish community's permission to reside and practice their professions in Trent a few years previously, in 1469.<ref name="Hsia 1992 16">{{harv|Hsia|1992|p=16}}</ref> This dependence on the protection of the authorities later inclined the Jews, upon finding Simon's body, to report the discovery.<ref name="finding">{{harv|Hsia|1992|pp=26–27}}</ref>

The events themselves have been reconstructed from a careful study of [[Prozess gegen die Juden von Trient|the trial records]] by American historian [[Ronnie Hsia]]. Simon, almost two and a half years old, went missing about 5 p.m. on the evening of Thursday, 23 March 1475. The following day, [[Good Friday]], Simon's father approached the prince-bishop to ask for help in finding his missing child.<ref name="searches">{{harv|Hsia|1992|pp=1–3}}</ref> The [[podestà]], Giovanni de Salis, had his men spread a description of Simon through the city. Over the following couple of days, searches were carried out by Simon's family and neighbours, by the servants of the podestà, and also by the Jewish community, who had been alerted to a rumour that they had taken the child and were concerned about the possibility of being framed.<ref name=searches /><ref name=finding /> On Saturday, 25 March, Simon's father appealed to the podestà specifically to search the Jews' houses, saying he had been advised they might have taken his child.<ref name=searches /> Despite these searches, no sign of the child was found. Samuel's property was extensive, including a hall that functioned as a synagogue, and a water cellar that was also used for [[Mikvah|ritual bathing]] and was supplied with water from a channel that ran beneath the property.<ref name="Hsia 1992 16"/> According to the trial record, on Easter Sunday, 26 March, a cook named Seligman went to Samuel's cellar to fetch water to prepare the evening meal and found Simon's body in the water. Samuel himself, accompanied by two other Jews, went to the podestà to report the discovery.<ref name=finding /> Later that evening, the podestà and some of his men retrieved the body, with his servant Ulrich being ordered to carry it to the hospital.<ref>{{harv|Hsia|1992|p=29}}</ref> The narrative summary based on the trial documents, drafted in 1478–1479, omitted the fact that the Jews had themselves reported finding the body, stating only that Ulrich had found Simon's body in a ditch next to Samuel's house.<ref name=searches />

Following the report of the body's discovery, the entire Jewish community (both men and women) were arrested and forced under torture to confess to having murdered Simon to use his blood for ritual purposes (a classic example of the [[blood libel]] that Jews used Christian blood in their rituals). An examination of the corpse by city doctors determined that Simon had not died of natural causes but had been [[Exsanguination|exsanguinated]]. In Hsia's view, "the narrative imperative, the official story of ritual murder, the trial record of 1475–76, represents nothing less than a Christian [[ethnography]] of Jewish rites".<ref>{{harv|Hsia|1992|p=94}}</ref>

Fifteen of the Jews, including Samuel, the head of the community, were sentenced to death and [[burnt at the stake]]. The Jewish women were accused as accomplices but argued [[women in Judaism|their gender did not allow them]] to participate in the rituals restricted to men. They were freed from prison in 1478 due to papal intervention. One Jew, Israel, was allowed to convert to Christianity for a short while, but he was arrested again after other Jews confessed he was part of the [[Passover Seder]]. After a long period of torture he was also sentenced to death on 19 January.<ref>{{harv|Hsia|1992|pp=95–104}}</ref> The Trent trial's notoriety inspired a rise in Christian violence towards Jews in the surrounding areas of [[Veneto]], [[Lombardy]], and [[Tyrol]], along with accusations of ritual murder, culminating in [[Vicenza]] with the prohibition of Jewish moneylending in 1479 and the expulsion of all Jews in 1486.<ref>{{harv|Hsia|1992|pp=128–129}}</ref>