352 host desecration libel
believed by Christians to be the body of Christ. Tales
about the desecration of the host by doubting Christians
or unbelievers circulated in medieval Europe, particu-
larly after the year 1200, as devotion to the Eucharist
grew. From 1215 the doctrine of transubstantiation was
propagated throughout CHRISTENDOM. It made the claim
that after the consecration during the MASSthe host actu-
ally became Christ’s real flesh and blood, the historic
body that suffered on the cross. Liturgy, THEOLOGY, and
popular preaching disseminated and expounded these
ideas, often using miracles to illustrate the powers of a
consecrated host or Eucharist. Stories began to circulate
of the accidental abuse or even the intended desecration
of the host by Jews, heretics such as the CATHARS,or
unbelieving or skeptical Christians. These then resulted
always in a miraculous demonstration of the host’s
power and gave proof of the doctrine of the real physical
presence of Christ in the host.
PROFANATION AS A
PRETENSE FOR ANTI-SEMITISM
A narrative developed in the late 13th century about the
profanation of the host by the Jews. From the 1280s
there were accusations of a Jew’s obtaining a host
through theft, purchase, or bribery and then inflicting
torture on it with boiling water, knives, axes, or needles.
The Jew supposedly did this to ridicule Christ or to
reimpose the pain of the Passion. An early accusation
took place in PARISin 1290 and became exemplary. Jew
was accused and executed. At the same time his wife and
children and other Jews supposedly converted. Similar
tales also developed in German-speaking lands, espe-
cially in the Rhineland, where RITUAL MURDERaccusa-
tions were well entrenched in the 13th century.
The accusation of host desecration, spread in preach-
ing, the recounting of religious tales, the iconography of
religious art, and vernacular drama. By 1300 it was wellThe exterior of the 15th-century Hospital of Beaune, now the Musée de L’Hôtel-Dieu, in the city of Beaune in Burgundy in France
and founded in 1443 by Nicholas Rolin, the chancellor of the duke of Burgundy(Courtesy Edward English)