Accusation of host desecration, massacre

An accusation of host desecration was brought against the community of Deggendorf, in Bavaria. The inhabitants massacred it and the city received from the duke a remission of debts; a chapel was erected on the site of the synagogue.

The so-called desecrated hosts were displayed there, and an annual pilgrimage, the *Deggendorfer Gnad*, was held each year around them. The sanctuary's paintings told the story in images, and the printed account was sold to pilgrims.

The pilgrimage was celebrated until the end of the twentieth century; the bishopric of Regensburg suppressed it, acknowledging that the founding narrative was a slander. It is one of the rare cases where an accusation can be followed from the massacre to its official retraction, six and a half centuries later.