Study paper from 2007 in the field of History Europe - and. Countries - Middle Ages, Early Modern Period, Grade: 2.7, Humboldt University of Berlin, Language: German, Abstract: Throughout European history, Jews have repeatedly been victims of persecution and social exclusion. As early as the 3rd century, the theory of deicide altered the social fabric between the Jewish and Christian communities. A century after the accusation that the Jews had killed Jesus Christ, there were renewed allegations from authors of Christian sources. It was claimed that Jewish conspirators attempted to defame and torture the image of God as represented by Jesus. Characteristic of the host desecration miracles of the early period, the host began to bleed during the "desecration," prompting the Jewish perpetrators to convert to Christianity. The origins of such legends seemingly did not intend to denounce the Jewish community or even Judaism as a whole, but rather to reinforce the sacred role of relics. Nevertheless, these legends laid the groundwork for the persecutions of Jews in the High and Late Middle Ages, to which numerous Jews fell victim. The question now arises as to when this transformation process began and to what extent the Christian belief in the host shaped the image of the Jew. In the following chapters, I will discuss whether the desecration of the host was merely a justification for the expulsion, expropriation, and killing of Jews. To illustrate this, I will refer to an example from 1478 in Passau. I will pay particular attention to the motivations behind the expulsions, clarifying whether they were driven by economic or religious motives and how they were intertwined. The regional and temporal differences in the settlement history of Jews in Europe particularly complicate the creation of a general profile of the motivations behind the accusations. In the second chapter, I will...