13th–14th centuries
Accusation of host desecration at Easter
1338·Pulkau
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
Jews burned at Pulkau, then at Retz, Znaim, Horn, Eggenburg, Klosterneuburg and Zwettl
At Easter, the discovery of a bloodstain on a stone in Pulkau was attributed to a host that Jews had pierced. The community was burned.
The accusation did not remain local: it spread to Retz, Znaïm, Horn, Eggenburg, Klosterneuburg, and Zwettl, where entire communities were put to death within a few weeks. Duke Albert II of Austria forbade the violence and had those he could protected; he also obtained from Pope Benedict XII an inquiry, which concluded the accusation was fabricated.
A Church of the Holy Blood was nonetheless built at Pulkau and became a place of pilgrimage; its altarpiece, carved in the following century, is today a listed monument.
- Period :
- 13th–14th centuries
- Type :
- Trials and executions
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- Autriche
Chroniques autrichiennes ; *Continuatio Novimontensis* ; actes d'Albert II.