The Nuremberg Memorbuch records six members of a Widdern family among those killed on י״ט באב ה׳נ״ח 19th 𝑜𝑓 Av, AM 5058: Asher, Bona, their son Samuel, Samuel’s wife and two boys. This is the date the memorial book assigns to the killings, not an independent reconstruction.1

The wider chronology follows the spread of attacks by Christian mobs and the host-desecration accusations used to justify them. The local register preserves the people murdered; it does not identify every attacker or establish that Rintfleisch personally led this attack.2]

What does the complete
memorial register preserve?

The complete surviving applicable register is presented from Siegmund Salfeld’s 1898 edition of the Nürnberger Memorbuch. Each עברית IVRIT passage is followed by a TJD English translation checked against the facsimile and Salfeld’s German rendering. This is a normalized reading transcription: printed wrapping, pointing and note numbers are omitted; abbreviation punctuation is normalized. Names, order, unnamed relatives and textual gaps are retained. Brackets in the original reproduce editorial restorations; English explanatory brackets are TJD’s. Medieval vernacular names sometimes admit more than one reading. R. preserves an honorific without assuming rabbinic ordination; Mistress renders the respectful title for women.

ᴏʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟ:

הרוגי ווידרן י״ט באב נח לפרט:

ר׳ אשר בר שמואל ואשתו מרת בונא ובנו ר׳ שמואל וזוגתו ושני בניו נערים:3

ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴ:

Those killed at Widdern, 19 Av, [50]58 in the abbreviated reckoning:

R. Asher son of Samuel, his wife Mistress Bona, his son R. Samuel and his wife, and his two sons, boys.4

What does the list establish?

The family spans three generations. The unnamed wife and two boys account for half of the people remembered, making a list of only the three surviving personal names an incomplete account of the massacre. Widdern lies on the Jagst; the historical atlas places it within the settlement geography of this persecution.5]

Salfeld identifies the entry as a supplement and compares its victims with another witness:

ᴏʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟ:

Nachtrag zu den Totenlisten aus der Verfolgungszeit von 1298. Die hier erwähnten Märtyrer nennt sämtlich auch das oben citierte und verwertete Memorbuch von Sontheim.6

ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴ:

A supplement to the death lists from the persecution of 1298. All the martyrs mentioned here are also named in the memorial book of Sontheim cited and used above.7

The same family in two memorial books is corroborating transmission, not two groups of six victims. The heading restores the entry’s chronological position among the Av massacres.

How is this dated?

The Hebrew heading in the Nuremberg Memorbuch assigns the Widdern deaths to 19 Av 5058. Salfeld’s German edition pairs it with Tuesday, 29 July 1298. Those dates are equivalent when 29 July is read in the Julian calendar. This conversion does not add evidence about the killings. Friedrich Lotter describes the Nuremberg martyr lists as contemporary and places the Jagst-region attacks in a wider 18 July–1 August wave. His overview gives context, but does not independently confirm Widdern’s exact day. Salfeld also says Sontheim’s memorial book names these victims, though the cited passage supplies no second date. The strongest basis for 19 Av is therefore the Nuremberg entry itself. It supports the date as the memorial book’s report, while leaving the exact day dependent on that witness.8910]

Guided reflections

  • What would a count restricted to named individuals omit from this three-generation family?
  • Why does a supplement’s place in a book fail to establish its place in the historical sequence?

Footnotes

  1. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, Hebrew p. 58; German p. 214 ↩
  2. Lotter, Rintfleisch-Verfolgung, 1298, ↩
  3. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, Hebrew p. 58; German pp. 214–215 ↩
  4. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, Hebrew p. 58; German pp. 214–215; TJD translation ↩
  5. Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, C4.3: Verfolgungen und Vertreibungen 1251–1300, ↩
  6. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, German pp. 214–215 ↩
  7. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, German pp. 214–215; TJD translation ↩
  8. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, Hebrew p. 58; German pp. 214–215 ↩
  9. Lotter, Rintfleisch-Verfolgung, 1298, ↩
  10. Hebcal, 19 Av 5058, ↩

Works cited

  1. Salfeld, Siegmund. Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches. Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, vol. 3, Berlin, 1898. Rockenhausen entry, pp. 144–145; Pforzheim entry and date analysis, pp. 128–130; Munich entry, p. 21; Nuremberg entry and victim list, pp. 170–180; Rothenburg entry and victim list, pp. 185–190; Weissensee entry and victim list, pp. 215–217; place lists, pp. 231–235; related elegy, pp. 332–334. https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/freimann/content/titleinfo/535. Accessed 2026 Aug. 27.
  2. Lotter, Friedrich. Rintfleisch-Verfolgung, 1298. Historisches Lexikon Bayerns, published 26 Oct. 2009. https://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/Lexikon/Rintfleisch-Verfolgung%2C_1298. Accessed 2026 Aug. 21.
  3. Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg. C4.3: Verfolgungen und Vertreibungen 1251–1300. LEO-BW, Jüdisches Leben im Südwesten. Historical map. https://www.leo-bw.de/documents/10157/19391930/C4_3.pdf/f34acbf3-6e17-601f-3259-332a1eba7534?t=1689077336081. Accessed 2026 Sep. 7.
  4. 19th of Av, 5058. Converts 19 Av 5058 to proleptic Gregorian 5 August 1298, the same absolute day as Julian 29 July 1298. This is conversion evidence only, not evidence of the historical event. Hebcal. https://www.hebcal.com/converter?h2g=1&hd=19&hm=Av&hy=5058. Accessed 2026 Sept. 26.