"Acta pro veritate martyrii corporis & cultus publici B. Andreæ Rinnensis pueruli anno MCCCCLXII…", by Adrian Kempter [Kembter]. Innsbruck: Mich. Ant. Wagner, Aulae Reg. & Univers. typogr. & bibl., 1745. Latin and German.
A lengthy, detailed composition by the Christian theologian Adrian Kempter, relating the fabricated story of the brutal killing of the Christian child Andreas "Anderl" Oxner – an infamous blood libel concocted against the Jewish community, accusing them of ritual murder – and the cult that developed around it.
The frontispiece features a richly detailed engraving created by the brothers Johann and Joseph Klauber (signed in the plate). The young boy Anderl appears in the bottom center, propped up against a large stone, while a figure resembling the Grim Reaper stands on top of the rock, holding the murder weapons in its hands. The child is surrounded by a crowd of mourners and angels. In the four corners of the engraving are four miniature illustrations depicting a sequence of events that runs clockwise: the act of the murder; the funeral; the coins, sprouting flowers, representing the payment received by Andreas’s uncle from the Jews (see below); and finally Andreas’s grave, also with flowers sprouting and rising from it.
The "Rinn Blood Libel"
A fabricated story disseminated in the Austrian state of Tyrol in the 15th century to explain the discovery of the body of the child Andreas Oxner near the municipality of Rinn.
According to the blood libel – told in a number of different versions – Andreas Oxner was born to a peasant couple and sold by his uncle to a wandering band of Jewish merchants. The Jews then brutally and sadistically tortured him to death on top of a rock in the woods, and then collected his blood in their pitchers for use in a ritual feast. After the burial of the boy’s body, the bills and coins paid to his uncle sprouted flowers, as did the gravestone itself. These flowers can be seen in the bottom two illustrations in the frontispiece.
Over the years, an antisemitic cult developed in the vicinity of the municipality of Rinn (reminiscent of the cult that developed in relation to the murder in northern Italy of the child Simon of Trent). A large stone was laid at the site where Andreas’s body had originally been discovered. It was meant to represent the stone upon which the boy was murdered. A church named "Judenstein" – "The Jews' Stone" – was built on the site, around the stone.
The church and stone eventually became pilgrimage sites, and in 1752, Pope Benedict XIV granted the deceased child Andreas Oxner the title "Beato" ("Blessed" – the third of four stages in the process of beatification or sanctification).
In 1816, the Brothers Grimm published the first volume in their series titled "Deutsche Sagen" ("German Legends"). Included in this volume is the story of the Rinn Blood Libel; it appears as Legend no. 352 in the first edition and bears the title "Der Judenstein". A work of art showing Andreas being stabbed by the Jews adorned the walls of the Judenstein Church until after the Second World War, when "Nazi Hunter" Simon Wiesenthal managed to convince the authorities to have it removed. Only in the 1980s did the Bishop of Innsbruck take action to abolish the cult surrounding the Rinn Blood Libel.
[8] leaves, 312 pages, [2] leaves + [1] engraving. 20 cm. Good condition. Stains and minor blemishes. Half-leather cardboard binding. Minor blemishes to binding.
Reference: · R. Po-Chia Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988, pp.218-222; · Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher's Tale: Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town. New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2003, Chapter 3, II.
