Editing Host desecration (section)

==Medieval accusations against Jews==
[[File:Host desecration.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.1|Jews depicted torturing the host, on a [[Belgium|Belgian]] tapestry]]
Accusations of host desecration ({{langx|de|Hostienschändung}}) leveled against [[Jews]] were a common pretext for massacres and expulsions throughout the [[Middle Ages]] in Europe.<ref name="je"/> The libel of "[[Jewish deicide]]"—that the Jewish people were responsible for the killing of Jesus, whom Christians regard as God become man—was a generally accepted Christian belief. It was spuriously claimed that Jews stole hosts (objects to which they attached no significance, religious or otherwise), and further spuriously claimed that they abused these hosts to re-enact the [[crucifixion of Jesus]] by stabbing or burning them.

It has been asserted by modern scholars, such as the Catholic priest Gavin Langmuir, that these accusations against Jews represented profound doubt about the truth of Christianity.<ref>Langmuir (1990), p.289</ref> Although the doctrine of [[transubstantiation]] did not imply that, by consuming the host, Christians were eating flesh and drinking blood in the normal sense, the language used to describe the dogma would have been interpreted as completely alien to [[Judaism]] and [[Jewish law]]. For Jews, such a belief system would contradict their strict dietary laws, which forbid the consumption of blood, even when consuming [[kosher animals]].

Jews in the Middle Ages were frequently victims of similar accusations, considered more serious than desecration of other revered items, such as relics or images of Jesus and the saints. The accusations were often supported only by the testimony of the accuser, who may potentially bear a prejudice against the accused Jew or the Jewish people. Despite this, some alleged perpetrators were tried and found guilty, on little evidence or through torture.<ref name="je"/>

The penalties for Jews accused of defiling sacred hosts were severe. Many Jews, after accusations and torture, "confessed" to abusing hosts, and the accused Jews were condemned and burned, sometimes with all the other Jews in the community, as happened in [[Beelitz]] in 1243,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofje00unse|title=Encyclopedia of Jewish knowledge|access-date=22 March 2016|publisher=Behrman's Jewish book house|date= 1934|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> in [[Prague]] in 1389,<ref>"[http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_blib2.htm Blood libel accusations against Jews] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051125102156/http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_blib2.htm |date=2005-11-25 }}", Religious Tolerance Organisation, retrieved 7 May 2007.</ref> and in many German cities, according to Ocker's writings in the ''Harvard Theological Review''.<ref>Ocker (April 1998)</ref> According to William Nichol, over 100 instances of Jews pleading guilty to the desecration of sacred hosts have been recorded.{{citation_needed|date=March 2025}}
[[File:Host desecration, painting, Barcelona.jpg|thumb|250px|Medieval painting of host desecration by [[Jews]], from the [[Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya]]]]
[[File:Burning of the Jews Nuremburg Chronicle 1493, version 2.png|thumb|A colored woodcut in ''[[Nuremberg Chronicle|Liber Chronicarum]]'' (1493) depicts [[Host desecration#Medieval accusations against Jews|Jews being burned alive in Deggendorf]].]]
The first recorded accusation was made in 1243 at [[Beelitz]], south of Potsdam.<ref>{{cite web |title=Desecration of Host |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/host-desecration-of |website=Jewish Virtual Library |access-date=2020-01-10 |archive-date=2020-02-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200215010701/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/host-desecration-of |url-status=live }}</ref> Tradition records that as a consequence the Jews of Beelitz were burned on a hill before the Mill Gate, which was subsequently, and until 1945, called the Judenberg, although there is no contemporary evidence for the burnings in documents of the 13th century.{{Citation needed|date=February 2012}} Another famous case that took place in 1290, in Paris, was commemorated in the [[:fr:Cloître et église des Billettes|Church of the Rue des Billettes]] and in a local confraternity. The case of 1337, at [[Deggendorf]], celebrated locally as part of the {{lang|de|"Deggendorfer Gnad"}} until 1992, led to a series of massacres across the region. In 1370 in Brussels the charge of host desecration, linked to an actual recovered relic of desecrated hosts currently found in the [[Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula]] and long celebrated in a special feast, and to artistic depictions also found in the cathedral, led to the burning of six Jews (other times given twenty) and, reportedly, the expulsion of the town's Jewish population (see [[Brussels massacre]]). In 1510, at [[:de:Knoblauch (Ketzin)|Knoblauch]] in [[Havelland]] 38 Jews were executed and more expelled from [[Brandenburg]].

An alleged host desecration in 1410, at [[Segovia]], was said to have brought about an earthquake; as a result, leading Jews in the city were executed and the local synagogue was seized and re-dedicated as the convent and Church of Corpus Christi.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Markman |first=Sidney David |year=2003 |title=Jewish Remnants in Spain: Wanderings in a Lost World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=62SGDeU0CzcC&pg=PA50 |location=Mesa, AZ |publisher=Scribe Publishers |pages=50–51 |isbn=0972723706 |access-date=2017-04-14 |archive-date=2017-04-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170414090120/https://books.google.com/books?id=62SGDeU0CzcC&pg=PA50 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Similar accusations, resulting in extensive persecution of Jews, were brought forward in 1294, at [[Laa an der Thaya|Laa]], Austria; 1298, at [[Röttingen]], near [[Würzburg]], and at Korneuburg, near [[Vienna]]; 1299, at [[Ratisbon]]; 1306, at [[St. Pölten]]; 1330, at [[Güstrow]]; 1338, at [[Pulkau]]; 1388, at [[Prague]]; 1401, at [[Glogau]]; 1420, at [[Enns (town)|Enns]]; 1453, at [[Breslau]]; 1478, at [[Passau]]; 1492, at [[Sternberg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern|Sternberg]], in [[Mecklenburg]]; 1514, at Mittelberg, in [[Alsace]]; 1556, at [[Sochaczew]], in Poland. The last Jew burned for stealing a host died in 1631, according to [[Jacques Basnage]], quoting from [[Menasseh Ben Israel]]. In some cases host desecration legends emerged without actual accusations, as was the case of the host desecration legend of Poznan (Posen).<ref>{{cite book|author=Magda Teter |title=Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2011|isbn=978-0-674-05297-0}}</ref>

[[File:Uccelo host burning.jpg|thumb|287px|The second panel of [[Paolo Uccello]]'s ''Miracle of the Profaned Host'' ({{circa|1467–1469}}) from the Urbino Confraternity of Corpus Domini predella. Based on the Paris 1290 legend, a Jewish moneylender is cooking the host, which emanates blood. The wife and children look on in terror as the blood pours into the street in rivers while soldiers break through the door.]]

The accusation of host desecration gradually ceased after the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]] as more Christian denominations no longer believe in hosts being the body and blood of Christ. However, sporadic instances of host desecration libel occurred even in the 18th and 19th century. In 1761 in [[Nancy, France|Nancy]], several Jews from [[Alsace]] were executed on a charge of sacred host desecration. The last recorded accusation was brought up in [[Berlad]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Loeb |first=Isidore |title=La situation des israélites en Turquie, en Serbie et en Roumanie |publisher=J. Baer |page=[https://archive.org/details/lasituationdesi01loebgoog/page/n164 143] |url=https://archive.org/details/lasituationdesi01loebgoog |year=1877}}</ref> [[Romania]], in 1836.<ref name="je"/>

While not levelling the charge against contemporary Jews, the Fascist publications ''[[Der Stürmer]]''<ref>{{cite journal|author=David I. Kertzer, Gunnar Mokosch|journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies|title=The Medieval in the Modern: Nazi and Italian Fascist Use of the Ritual Murder Charge|volume=33|issue=2|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2019|page=179|DOI=10.1093/hgs/dcz023}}</ref> and ''[[La Difesa della Razza]]''<ref>{{cite journal|author=David I. Kertzer, Gunnar Mokosch|journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History|title=In the Name of the Cross: Christianity and Anti-Semitic Propaganda in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|volume=62|issue=3|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2020|page=471|DOI=10.1017/S0010417520000146}}</ref> both referenced the host desecration libel for purposes of antisemitic propaganda.