Little Werner is dead
His body was found. Did we see an ethereal light shine in the sky that led to his corpse? Did his wet nurse sell him to the Jews for ritual murder? Was little Werner taken on Gründonnerstag (or is it Weiß-, or Heiliger?) right after he received the host at the eucharist celebration because they wanted to do reconnaissance for their host desecration project? Are we green with envy or pure and white or is little Werner a holy victim? We think he was from Womrath in Oberwesel. But then his body was found in Bacherach hidden in a shoddy manner by his killers. Were these his Jewish employers? He was a good boy. He was Good Werner, the Christian boy. Years later, a maid in Oberwesel would claim to have known Good Werner and had ideas about the identity of his tormentors. Her statement was forced by others. It’s a Frevel! Where were his parents, though? Did he come from God himself? He must be a martyr. We will build him a chapel (more than one!) and make pilgrimages there. These are the strange 1280s. The cult of Good Werner.
The Mainz city council tried to stop the sham investigations into the death of little Werner, favored by the archbishop. The people reacted with pogroms. It spread like fire to Bacherach and Rockenhausen and probably also Koblenz. All over the central Rhine. Oppenheim, Worms, Speyer, the Wetterau region. Kings and archbishops fought with city councils over who was in charge. The Frankfurt city council reacted preemptively to protect its Jews. The pogroms followed along rivers, the Mosel, the Nahe, the lower Rhine all the way to the Ruhr.
These were the places where viticulture was the peoples’ livelihood. And small and large Jewish communities were everywhere since as long as we can remember. And wine has a primary religious significance to the Jews—boray pri hagafen. And the weather in these Weintäler was good enough for the crops but very unreliable. Crop failures, calamity, debts and credits. And who kept the industry alive in times of crisis? The Jews who were the investors. If the crops failed and the only way to replant was to get into more debt, then it was time to go after the Jews because the man or men the Jews represented (the little kings and princes and archbishops) were nowhere to be found. Frederick II who forbade such “groundless” ritual murder accusations in the Empire was dead. Untouchable. The marketplace of crops and speculation is cruel. And so is Mother Nature. And what was it that was so special that made the Jews so interested in the wine, anyway? Huh?
Viticulture loves its martyrs. Its sacrificed gods. Just make us rich so we can make it through the winter. The Romans who brought the wine here also brought the Jews. Where are those Romans now? Vintners’ hands are coated in red from the grapes or is it blood? From hard work and murder.
[Last summer, while walking around Worms looking for an old Jewish cemetery, I ran into a rabbi from Montreal and a cantor from Stuttgart on my way. We were all looking for the same place and the signs were not helpful. We started to ask the locals where the cemetery was and they all knew and were happy to tell us but everyone had a conflicting story about the directions. Even if they were unhelpful, these were very friendly conversations. “You see?” said the cantor from Stuttgart to her rabbi colleague from Montreal, “I told you the people here are much friendlier than the average German. It’s because of the wine in this region. It makes them content.”]