Simon of Trent (Cult suppressed)
Youth, catalyst
Born	Early 1472
Died	21 March 1475
Venerated by	Roman Catholics (formerly)
Feast	March 24 (no longer celebrated)
Attributes	Youth, martyrdom
Patron saint Patron saint A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...  of	Children, kidnap victims, torture victims

Simon of Trent ; also known as Simeon; (1472 – March 21, 1475) was a boy from the city of Trento

Trento

Trento is an Italian city located in the Adige River valley in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. It is the capital of Trentino...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 whose disappearance was blamed on the leaders of the city's Jewish community based on their confessions under torture, causing a major blood libel in Europe.

Background

Shortly before Simon went missing, Bernardine of Feltre

Bernardine of Feltre

The Blessed Bernardine of Feltre was a Friar Minor and missionary, b. at Feltre, Italy, in 1439 and d. at Pavia, 28 September 1494. He is remembered in connexion with the monti di pietà of which he was the reorganizer and, in a certain sense, the founder, together with the Blessed Michele Carcano...

, an itinerant Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

 preacher, had delivered a series of sermons in Trent in which he vilified the local Jewish community. When Simon went missing around Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

, 1475, his father decided that he must have been kidnapped and murdered by Jews. According to his story, the Jews had drained Simon of his blood, supposedly for use in baking their Passover

Passover

Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...

 matzoht and for occult rituals that they allegedly practiced in private.

Giving a succinct background to the story, historian Ronnie Po-chia Hsia wrote: "On Easter Sunday 1475, the dead body of a 2-year-old Christian boy named Simon was found in the cellar of a Jewish family's house in Trent, Italy. Town magistrates arrested 18 Jewish men and five Jewish women on the charge of ritual murder--the killing of a Christian child in order to use his blood in Jewish religious rites. In a series of interrogations that involved liberal use of judicial torture, the magistrates obtained the confessions of the Jewish men. Eight were executed in late June, and another committed suicide in jail".

The entire Jewish community (both men and women) were arrested and forced to confess under torture. Fifteen of them, including Samuel, the head of the community, were sentenced to death and burned at the stake

Burned at the Stake

Burned at the Stake is a 1981 film directed by Bert I. Gordon. It stars Susan Swift and Albert Salmi.-Cast:*Susan Swift as Loreen Graham / Ann Putnam*Albert Salmi as Captaiin Billingham*Guy Stockwell as Dr. Grossinger*Tisha Sterling as Karen Graham...

. The female Jewish victims of this ritual murder accusation were tortured, but freed from prison in 1478 due to papal intervention. The case at Trent also inspired accusations of ritual murder against Jews throughout the surrounding regions. Meanwhile, Simon became the focus of veneration for the local Catholic Church. The local bishop, Hinderbach of Trent, tried to have Simon canonized, producing a large body of documentation of the event and its aftermath. Over one hundred miracles were directly attributed to Saint Simon within a year of his disappearance, and his cult spread across Italy, Austria and Germany. However, there was initial skepticism and Pope Sixtus IV

Pope Sixtus IV

Pope Sixtus IV , born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 1471 to 1484. His accomplishments as Pope included the establishment of the Sistine Chapel; the group of artists that he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance into Rome with the first masterpiece of the city's new artistic age,...

 sent Bishop of Ventimiglia, a learned Dominican, to investigate. The veneration was restored in 1588 by the Franciscan Pope Sixtus V

Pope Sixtus V

Pope Sixtus V , born Felice Peretti di Montalto, was Pope from 1585 to 1590.-Early life:The chronicler Andrija Zmajević states that Felice's family originated from modern-day Montenegro...

. The 'saint' was eventually considered a martyr and a patron of kidnap and torture victims.
His entry in the old Roman Martyrology for March 24 read:

Tridénti pássio sancti Simeónis púeri, a Judǽis sævíssime trucidáti, qui multis póstea miráculis coruscávit.

At Trent, the martyrdom of the boy St. Simeon, who was barbarously murdered by the Jews, but who was afterwards glorified by many miracles.

The Pope removed Simon from the Calendar of Saints in 1965. Simon of Trent does not appear in the new Roman Martyrology of 2000, nor on any modern Catholic calendar.

See also

• Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
  Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
  Hugh of Lincoln was an English boy, whose death prompted a blood libel with ramifications that reach until today. Hugh is known as Little Saint Hugh to distinguish him from Saint Hugh, otherwise Hugh of Lincoln. The style is often corrupted to Little Sir Hugh...
  
  , 1255.
• William of Norwich
  William of Norwich
  William of Norwich was an English boy whose death was, at the time, attributed to the Jewish community of Norwich. It is the first known medieval accusation of ritual murder against Jews....
  
  
• Werner of Oberwesel
  Werner of Oberwesel
  Werner of Oberwesel ; b. 1271 in Womrath, Hunsrück; d. 1287) was a 16-year-old boy whose unexplained death was blamed on Jews, leading to revenge killings of Jews across Europe. He was long worshipped as a Catholic saint, and his memorial day was 19 April...
  
  
• Andreas Oxner
  Andreas Oxner
  Anderl Oxner von Rinn, also known as Andreas Oxner, was a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. According to a blood libel accusation, the three-year old boy was killed by foreign Jews in the village of Rinn .-Initial accusations:In 1475, in the wake of the blood libel of Simon of Trent, the bones...
  
  

External links

• Simon of Trent -- from the Catholic saints index
• Simon of Trent in the Jewish Encyclopedia
  Jewish Encyclopedia
  The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
  
  .
• Toaff Controversy (Haaretz)