Paris, 1290, An Early-Fourteenth-Century Christian Narrative

Medieval W. Christendom
In the year of the Lord 1290, on the very day of Easter, the second of April, in
Paris, a city long celebrated by all, a young woman of most meager means deposited her
garments with a Jew as a pawn for the sum of thirty solidi. When she requested them
from him, so that she might appear better dressed to her neighbors, the Jew offered to
have them returned at no charge, if she would bring to him that thing the young woman
claimed to be her God. When the avaricious young woman promised and had received
the sacrosanct corpus Christi with those truly prepared to do so, she gave it—hidden in
her mouth—to the Jew, from whom she received her garments free of charge.

Thus said the crude merchant- “I know in truth that those things Christians say
about this thing [the host wafer] are absurd.” He thus seized a small knife from a pen box
and with it pierced the sacrosanct corpus Christi, placed on a chest, with fearsome
thrusts. When he saw the sacred blood flow from it, he made this known to his wife and
children. The wife stood astonished at the sight of this remarkable miracle. However,
the Jew, terrified but not remorseful, slashed with a scourge the host, which was
transfixed with hammer and nail, and the blood flowed as before. The wife had urged the
Jew from the outset to desist. [The Jew], made more intense by her urgings, threw the
sacrosanct host into the fire. Escaping the fire intact, it flitted about the house. He [the
Jew] tried foolishly to cut it again into pieces with a knife, but it remained whole. Near
the privy, he pierced it—hung on a leather thong—with all his strength, whence as before
blood flowed abundantly. When it had been thrown into a pot of boiling water, the water
was made red. Raised from below by virtue of its majesty, it caused itself to be seen by
the Jew in the form of the crucified body of the Lord. At this sight, the wife and crying
children were worn away by the amazing event. The Jew—completely mad and in
flight—entered his room.

Those who weigh carefully these things will with wonder praise divine mercy and
affirm the further near-resurrection of the Lord—although arising from the dead he did
not die. For believers can look with physical eyes upon that sacrosanct host, which—
after puncturing, transfixing, flagellation, the heat of flames, being ripped apart, being
pierced, and being thrown into a pot of boiling water—is intact and undiminished in the
Church of Saint Jean de Greves, sequestered with honor, wrapped in a small portion of
the vesture of the Lord, and decorated for greater glory with a small portion of the divine
cross. [They can also look with physical eyes upon] the aforesaid small knife and pen
box, the blood that flowed from the puncture, and the wooden box into which it flowed in
the Church of the Friars of Blessed Mary in the same neighborhood.

These events at the [Jew’s] house eventuated in awareness among the populace in
the following way. At the hour of the major mass, when the sign was given by the bell in
the Church of the Crusaders that the populace should gather to worship the sacrosanct
corpus Christi, the son of the Jew, proceeding outdoors, asked passersby where they were
hurrying. They said- “To worship the mysteries of the sacrosanct corpus Christi.” He
said that Christians sought in error in that church their God, whom—beaten, afflicted
with injuries, and maltreated—his father had killed. Hearing this, a certain young
woman, eager to find out, entering the home of the Jew that was full of horror but
protected by the sign of the cross, perceived the renewed martyrdom of the divine flesh.
Immediately, the sacrosanct host—sacred and unimpaired—jumped into the wooden box
that the young woman had brought for its use. [The young woman] concealed it in her
bosom and gave it to the priest of Saint Jean de Greves to be preserved. This young
woman, as though bound with chains, tried to leave the aforesaid church but could not,
until she showed to the aforesaid priest the host she had brought, with many who had
gathered already at the rumor viewing it. The young woman told the incident, as she had
seen it. Then the priest took care to report to the bishop of Paris. The entire city rushed
to the spectacle.

The Jew with his wife and children were joined together in chains. Summoned
before the bishop and men invested with ecclesiastical dignity, the Jew confessed his
crime. He was advised to repent, since it is written- “I do not wish the death of the
sinner, but rather that he repent and live.” He hoped for mercy, as God himself had once
prayed for those responsible for his crucifixion. His wife and children were converted to
the Christian faith. However, the obstinate Jew was condemned to be burned in fire and
was led to the site of supplication, where the executioner sought to put the fire in place.
He exclaimed- “O unfortunate me! I was so suddenly apprehended that I could not take
my weapons with me.” When the provost asked what these weapons were, the Jew
responded- “I have a book in my home. If I had it with me, your God could not have me
burned.” When the book had been brought by aides, bound up with the Jew, and placed
in the fire, it was able to be reduced to cinders as easily as it was difficult for the Jew to
be converted from his disbelief. Then, surrounded by a circle of the people, the bishop of
Paris, where the miracle took place as has been told, anointed the wife of the Jew, his
son, and his daughter—cleansed through baptism—with the unction of the sacred chrism.
Indeed, many Jews, moved by this manifest miracle and converted to the Christian faith,
accepted the sacrament of baptism.

On that site, where such an enormous event took place, Raynerius Flamingus, a
burgher of Paris, arranged the construction in 1294—from his own resources—of a
chapel, which is called [The Chapel] of the Miracles. Subsequently, he turned it over to
the friars of the Charity of Blessed Mary. Philip, King of France, known as le Bel, added
a house in the neighborhood to the aforesaid chapel in 1299. The friars of the aforesaid
order stipulated that the commemoration of this great miracle be solemnly celebrated
every year on Whitsunday.