Sinners on trial [electronic resource] : Jews and sacrilege after the reformation / Magda Teter.
Teter, Magda.
2011
KKP206 .T48 2011eb
Available Online

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Title Sinners on trial [electronic resource] : Jews and sacrilege after the reformation / Magda Teter.
Author Teter, Magda.
ISBN 9780674061330 electronic book
9780674052970
Imprint Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (viii, 331 p.) : ill., maps.
Call Number KKP206 .T48 2011eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 364.1/8809438
Summary In post-Reformation Poland-the largest state in Europe and home to the largest Jewish population in the world-the Catholic Church suffered profound anxiety about its power after the Protestant threat. Magda Teter reveals how criminal law became a key tool in the manipulation of the meaning of the sacred and in the effort to legitimize Church authority. The mishandling of sacred symbols was transformed from a sin that could be absolved into a crime that resulted in harsh sentences of mutilation, hanging, decapitation, and, principally, burning at the stake.Teter casts new light on the most infamous type of sacrilege, the accusation against Jews for desecrating the eucharistic wafer. These sacrilege trials were part of a broader struggle over the meaning of the sacred and of sacred space at a time of religious and political uncertainty, with the eucharist at its center. But host desecration-defined in the law as sacrilege-went beyond anti-Jewish hatred to reflect Catholic-Protestant conflict, changing conditions of ecclesiastic authority and jurisdiction, and competition in the economic marketplace.Recounting dramatic stories of torture, trial, and punishment, this is the first book to consider the sacrilege accusations of the early modern period within the broader context of politics and common crime. Teter draws on previously unexamined trial records to bring out the real-life relationships among Catholics, Jews, and Protestants and challenges the commonly held view that following the Reformation, Poland was a state without stakes-uniquely a country without religious persecution.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on print version record.
Available in Other Form Sinners on trial.
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Introduction : from sin to crime
The meaning of the sacred
Stealing sacred objects
Prosecuting sins, defending faith
The making of a Polish Jerusalem
Protestant heresy and charges against Jews
Christians on trial, Jews expelled
The struggle for power and authority
Justice and the politics of crime.

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