ABSTRACT
As is evident from the previous chapters, accusations of illegal wrongdoing surface from settings that somehow confuse and disrupt taken-for-granted meanings. Though invariably a contingent matter, subjects who make sense of such circumstances through accusation typically do so by vocalizing their suspicions and pointing fingers of blame. This chapter explores, through an early twelfth-century example of a blood libel accusation, selected meaning-forming processes at the heart of what it is to accuse others of doing wrong. It does so by charting what might be termed a ‘cultural grammar’ that delimits idioms of accusation in context. This grammar specifies basic and contextually emergent ideas about: how to distinguish a true accusation from a calumny; what rituals must be followed to accuse another of wrongdoing correctly; what counts as evidence for a valid accusation; what makes an effective accuser; what to do as an accused; and so on.
