Youth, Violence and Cult: An Interdisciplinary Network on the case of William of Norwich, the ritual murder accusation and its historical legacy

1144年，在诺维奇郊外的索普树林里发现了青年威廉的身体，他是一名学徒制革工人。关于他死亡的特殊情况的谣言很快就传开了，诺里奇的犹太人被这位年轻人的家人指控是故意杀害他的。国王在诺里奇的代表治安官保护了犹太人，这段悲伤的插曲几乎被遗忘了。在1150年，大教堂隐修会的新成员，蒙茅斯的托马斯，重新唤起了人们对这个故事的兴趣，重新审视了它的环境，并产生了一个强有力的叙事，将诺里奇的犹太人与青年的死亡联系在一起，谋杀具有深刻的宗教意义，重新设定了十字架。这引发了对犹太人的新一轮指控，并重新埋葬了威廉，现在被认为是烈士。当地的邪教发展起来了，类似的指控很快出现在盎格鲁-诺曼领地的其他城镇：伯里·圣埃德蒙兹、格洛斯特、布卢伊斯、林肯，然后是莱茵兰。这个诞生于诺维奇的故事--我们从12世纪的手稿中很清楚地知道，其中包含了威廉墓中发生的奇迹故事--从那时起，它被上演了数百次，并被反复讲述。在中世纪的欧洲，在天主教的欧洲，甚至在一些穆斯林国家。拟议的工作坊将从历史上探讨年轻人的关注点、对犹太人的态度以及对奇迹般的入侵基督教社区的反应。来自如此多不同学科和历史专业领域的学者汇聚一堂，将使人们对青年与大众情感、情感和奉献之间的联系有更深入、更有意义的了解。它将允许这组学者联合起来，对欧洲和其他地区的基督教神话研讨会进行调查。研讨会将关注诺里奇的威廉的地方和具体情况，并评估它在近800年来所产生的广泛影响。诺维奇的威廉的案件提供了一种对针对青年的暴力行为的集体反应。1144年诺维奇的威廉一案引发了政府和诺维奇市民之间在法律、正义和公共秩序问题上的互动。这引发了人们对宗教权威的质疑：谁来决定威廉是不是烈士？这也促使大教堂的一名僧侣想象一种叙事，将诺维奇案件的所有元素结合到一个总体的基督教叙事中，将犹太人不仅描绘成基督的杀手，而且意图在基督教儿童的身体上重复这种暴力。网络将把拥有广泛专业知识的学者聚集在一起，在几个不同的框架内、在工作人员中和通过一个网站讨论诺维奇的威廉案件。在研讨会I中，诺里奇的历史学家将通过考虑儿童的状况、犹太人的状况、对青年身体的发现的直接反应、创造第一批宗教兴趣的激发以及对仪式谋杀的叙事记述，来帮助将案件置于其背景下；研讨会II将考虑叙事在英国和法国的区域影响和传播，以及随后的“殉难”青年邪教所采用的礼拜仪式和艺术形式；研讨会III将考虑案件的长期影响，包括对早期现代欧洲及其新的宗教划分的影响，以及对现代的影响。讲习班还将参观诺里奇的遗址，观看视觉材料，并将受益于对一些将青年、暴力和邪教联系在一起的叙述的表演朗读。

In 1144 the body of a youth, William, an apprentice tanner, was found on Thorpe wood outside Norwich. Rumours soon circulated about the unusual circumstances of his death, and the Jews of Norwich were accused by the youth's family of having killed him with intent. The king's representative in Norwich, the sheriff, protected the Jews, and the sad episode was all but forgotten. In 1150 a new member of the Cathedral Priory, Thomas of Monmouth, revived interest in the story, revisited its circumstances, and produced a powerful narrative which associated the Jews of Norwich with the death of the youth, murder with deep religious meaning, a re-enactment of the Crucifixion. This prompted the renewed accusation of the Jews, and the re-burial of William, now deemed a martyr. A local cult developed, and similar accusations soon arose in other towns of the Anglo-Norman domain: Bury St Edmunds, Gloucester, Blois, Lincoln, and then in the Rhineland. The narrative born in Norwich - which we know well from the twelfth-century manuscript that contains it alongside stories of the miracles which occurred at William's tomb - was enacted and re-told hundreds of times since then. In medieval Europe, in Catholic Europe, and even in some Muslim countries. The workshops proposed will explore historically the coming together of preoccupations with Youth, attitudes to Jews and the reaction to miraculous incursions into a Christian community. The coming together of scholars from so many different disciplines and areas of historical expertise will allow a deeper and more meaningful understanding to emerge, of the links between Youth and popular sentiment, emotion and devotion. It will allow the group of scholars to combine in an investigation of a seminar Christian myth, in Europe and beyond. The workshops will attend to the local and the specific in the case of William of Norwich and evaluate the wide impact which it has had over almost 800 years. The case of William of Norwich offers an engagement with collective reactions to violence against a Youth. The case of William of Norwich in 1144 prompted interaction between government and Norwich townspeople, over questions of law, justice and public order. It raised questions about religious authority: who was to decide whether William was a 'martyr' or not? It also spurred a monk of the cathedral to imagine a narrative which combined all elements of the Norwich case within an overarching Christian narrative which cast the Jews not only as killers of Christ, but as being intent on repeating that violence on the body of a Christian child.The network will bring together scholars with a wide range of expertises to discuss the case of William of Norwich within several different frames, in workshps and through a website. In Workshop I Historians of Norwich will help place the case within its context by considering the condition of children, the situation of Jews, the immediate reaction to the finding of the Youth's body, and the creation of first stirrings of cultic interest, and the making of the narrative account of ritual murder; Workshop II will consider the regional impact and spread of the narrative, in England and France, and the forms in liturgy and art taken by the ensuing cults of 'martyred' youths; Workshop III will consider the impact of the case in the longer term, into early modern Europe with its new religious delineations, and beyond into modern times. The workshops will also be accompanied by visits to the sites in Norwich, of visual material, and will benefit from a performative reading of the some of the accounts which linked so powerfully Youth, Violence and Cult.