A medieval crime sheds light on the history of Ashkenazi Jews

The heart of Louis XVII, the coast of Joan of Arc or the remains of Richard III: genetic analyzes aimed at solving historical crimes do not have a very good reputation in the academic world. “They are most often anecdotal, studies of curiositiessays Lluis Quintana-Murci, professor of population genetics at the College de France. This cold case there, on the other hand, seems really interesting. It brings new information about the history of Ashkenazi Jewry. »

An international team led by Ian Barnes of the Natural History Museum in London and Mark Thomas of University College London has just published in review Current Biology a study of skeletons found in an ancient well in Norwich, Great Britain. After several analyses, this research sheds light on a pogrom that took place at the end of the 12th century. But it also sheds light on the foundations of Ashkenazi Judaism, one of the two main branches of the Jewish religion.

It all started in 2004, during the construction of a huge shopping center in Norwich, a large city in the east of England. When the diggers discover human skeletons, an emergency excavation is undertaken. Bones, piled up at the bottom of an old well, are discreetly unearthed. But, in 2011, the affair became public. “I was contacted by the televisionrecalls Ian Barnes, geneticist and DNA specialist. Journalists wondered if these skeletons could not be the result of an anti-Semitic crime. »

disturbing clues

Quickly carried out, the statements of the first archaeologists and the analyzes of the bodies already offer disturbing clues. At least seventeen people appear to have been thrown there, six adults and eleven children. The skeletons were found upside down, as if thrown to the bottom of the well. Those of the adults are badly damaged, those of the children almost intact, which leads to the conclusion that the bodies of the former crashed against the ground and then cushioned the fall of the latter. No trace of disease, leprosy, plague or tuberculosis. In addition, the well is located on the edge of the medieval Jewish quarter. Finally, a carbon-14 analysis dates the bodies approximately to the end of the 12th, beginning of the 13th century. “ This intersected with known episodes of anti-Semitic violence, recalls Ian Barnes. You add the fact that the bodies were outside any listed cemetery, we concluded by triangulation that they could bear witness to one of the collective crimes suffered by English Jews. »

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