Magical Thinking in Medieval Anti-Semitism: Usury and the Blood Libel

This article examines the specific charges against Jews in the Middle Ages that they killed Christians to use their blood in religious rituals and that they practiced usury. It argues that these and other charges were connected in the web of delusional mental associations that accompanies magical thinking. The article looks at a number of these associative links between usury and the blood libel in medieval and early Renaissance theology, philosophy, and literature, with special reference to Dante and Shakespeare.