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Bleeding Hosts and their Contact Relics in Late Medieval Northern Germany

About 100 cases of bleeding host miracles have been reported for Germany between 1300 and 1550. Received opinion asserts that these are Bavarian and overwhelmingly anti-Semitic. In fact there are a number of northern German cases, not all of them anti-Jewish libels. In several of these cases not only the miraculous hosts but also objects associated with them were displayed in churches, and some of the associated objects (cooking pots, nails, etc.) survived the Reformation, during which the hosts themselves were destroyed. Exploring several cases in which such associated objects figured prominently, this article suggests a number of reasons why they survived, and argues that their survival sheds light on the late medieval desire for, and ambivalence about, ‘holy matter.’