“Constant Enemies of the Christian Name”: Tracing the Construction of the Ritual Murder Charge in The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich

Abstract

This paper examines the construction of the blood libel myth in Thomas of Monmouth’s 12th-century manuscript, The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich. Building upon existing scholarship, it analyzes Life as both a martyrdom narrative and an anti-Jewish polemic. Drawing on Elizabeth Castelli’s theory of martyrdom and collective memory, this paper argues that the rhetorical construction of the Jew as a biblical, bloodthirsty enemy of Christ served to reinforce a dubious martyrdom narrative and consolidate a medieval Christian identity perceived as under threat. By deconstructing the rhetorical devices underpinning the account’s blood libel charge–literary foil, biblical metaphor, and the Christ-killer accusation– the paper highlights how Monmouth successfully transformed Jews from victims of conspiracy to perpetrators of violent crime. Monmouth’s use of a literary foil drew on prevailing ideas of Christian-Jewish difference to reinforce notions of Christian piety, while his invocations of biblical metaphor stabilized a tenuous assertion of Jewish guilt and Christian persecution. These anti-Jewish rhetorics culminate in Monmouth’s invocation of the Christ-killer myth. By likening medieval Jews to the biblical betrayers of Christ, Monmouth created a universal framework that rationalized and justified the violent persecution of Jews.