"Since I have learned of these evil tidings, I have been heartsick and I am unable to sleep": The Old Yiddish and Hebrew letters from 1476 in the shadow of blood libels in Northern Italy and Germany

The city archive of Trento contains four private letters pertaining to the investigation and court proceedings of the Trent blood libel of 1475. Two of them were written in Hebrew, and two in Old Yiddish, the oldest private letters in Old Yiddish presently known. The letters were found on the Catholic priest Paolo da Novara, an official transcriber of court proceedings, arrested in Brescia in 1476, who (for a fee) had helped establish contact between those arrested and their relatives in Northern Italy. The letters mention the blood libel in Trent, and one in Regensburg in 1476. Discusses the language and epistolary style of the letters. Pp. 11-17 contain English translations of three of the four letters.