Jews of Sternberg represented as transfixing hosts

Jews of Sternberg represented as transfixing hosts. Anti-semitic woodcut from Lubeck 1492.( Defiling the host or sacred wafer of the mass. In the Middle Ages the Jews were frequently accused of desecrating the host, an accusation equal in gravity to that of desecrating relics and images of Jesus and the saints. This accusation has brought thousands of Jews to the stake. The Jews were alleged to steal the host or to acquire it by purchase or bribery, to break it or seethe it, and to stick needles into it or transfix it, whereupon it began to bleed.) Anti- Jewish libels Judisches Geshichte p. 119