UID:
almahu_9949546430202882
Format:
1 online resource (296 p.) :
,
3 bw halftones
ISBN:
9780812298536
,
9783110993899
Series Statement:
The Middle Ages Series
Content:
William of Norwich is the name of a young boy purported to have been killed by Jews in or about 1144, thus becoming the victim of the first recorded case of such a ritual murder in Western Europe and a seminal figure in the long history of antisemitism. His story is first told in Thomas of Monmouth's The Life and Miracles of William of Norwich, a work that elaborates the bizarre allegation, invented in twelfth-century England, that Jews kidnapped Christian children and murdered them in memory and mockery of the crucifixion of Christ.In Inventing William of Norwich Heather Blurton resituates Thomas's account by offering the first full analysis of it as a specifically literary work. The second half of the twelfth century was a time of great literary innovation encompassing an efflorescence of saints' lives and historiography, as well as the emergence of vernacular romance, Blurton observes. She examines The Life and Miracles within the framework of these new textual developments and alongside innovations in liturgical and devotional practices to argue that the origin of the ritual murder accusation is imbricated as much in literary culture as it is in the realities of Christian-Jewish relations or the emergence of racially based discourses of antisemitism. Resisting the urge to interpret this first narrative of the blood libel with the hindsight knowledge of later developments, she considers only the period from about 1150-1200. In so doing, Blurton redirects critical attention away from the social and economic history of the ritual murder accusation to the textual genres and tastes that shaped its forms and themes and provided its immediate context of reception. Thomas of Monmouth's narrative in particular, and the ritual murder accusation more generally, were strongly shaped by literary convention.
Note:
Frontmatter --
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Contents --
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Acknowledgments --
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Introduction. Inventing William of Norwich --
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Chapter 1 The Language of the Liturgy --
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Chapter 2 Ritual Crucifixion in the Age of the Hermit --
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Chapter 3 William at the Age of Twelve --
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Chapter 4 William of Norwich Between History and Fiction --
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Afterword Afterward --
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Notes --
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Bibliography --
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Index
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Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
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In English.
In:
EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English, De Gruyter, 9783110993899
In:
EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022, De Gruyter, 9783110994810
In:
EBOOK PACKAGE Literary, Cultural, Area Studies 2022 English, De Gruyter, 9783110993752
In:
EBOOK PACKAGE Literary, Cultural, Area Studies 2022, De Gruyter, 9783110993738
In:
University of Pennsylvania Complete eBook-Package 2022, De Gruyter, 9783110767674
Language:
English
Subjects:
English Studies
DOI:
10.9783/9780812298536
URL:
https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812298536?locatt=mode:legacy
URL:
https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780812298536
