INFORMATION ON THE WILLIAM OF NORWICH BOOK

Was an innocent boy in 12th-century England brutally murdered by bloodthirsty fanatics? This book is the full manuscript of Benedictine monk Thomas of Monmouth who, in A.D. 1173, chronicled the murder of William of Norwich. Thomas claimed William, a 12-year-old tanner’s apprentice, had been ritually murdered by Jews in contempt of the Christian faith. It’s the first such account, specifically that of Jewish ritual murder of a child, in the historical record. Let each reader decide based on all the available evidence. This edition is complete and unabridged as translated by Cambridge academicians Jessopp & James in 1896, and includes a restored page.

It was brought to my attention by a reader of this site that there is an area where Jessopp & James left out a crucial bit of information regarding the justification for believing that it was specifically Jews who did this nefarious murder, and possibly ritually.

Book I, ch. xi, "...and becoming aware that he had been treated with unusual cruelty, he now began to suspect, from the manner of his treatment, that it was no Christian but in very truth a Jew who had ventured to slaughter an innocent child of this kind with such horrible barbarity."

But this is not exactly what the original Latin says. In the Jessopp & James book, they transcribed the Latin as:

"Inusitatis uero attrectatum penis conspiciens ex ipso penarum modo suspicari nimirum iam cepit, quoniam non christianus sed reuera iudeus fuerit qui eiusmodi innocentem tam temerario <ausu> mactare presumpsit."

Note how the child's male organ was expressly mentioned. Also, "bold temerity" or "audacity" corresponds better to "temerario".

Thus, a suggested better translation of this is:

"Seeing how unusually the penis had been violated, he now began to suspect, from the manner of his treatment, that it was no Christian but in very truth a Jew who had ventured to slaughter an innocent child of this kind with such audacity."