THE PA GE OF NA TURE. 149 



ignorance and superstition, appeared prodigies of fatal 

 presage. 



There is an instructive resume of Ehrenberg's paper 

 on this curious subject in Cfiambers's Journal, from 

 which the following paragraph of portents is extracted : 

 " Appearances of blood flowing from bread when 

 bitten, are recorded as occurring at Tours in 583 ; at 

 Spires in 1104; at Namur in 1193; at Rochelle in 

 1163, and at many other places. At Augsburg, in 1199, 

 a person having kept the consecrated wafer in his mouth, 

 brought it at a later period to the priest changed into flesh 

 and blood. Pilgrimages were not unfrequently made to 

 witness bleeding hosts, as that of Doberan in 1201 ; 

 and that of Balitz, near Berlin, which had been sacrile- 

 giously sold by a girl to a Jew. In 1296, the Jews at 

 Rotil, near Frankfort, having been reported to have 

 caused a host to bleed which they had bought, a fana- 

 tical persecution of these people took place, whereby 

 10,000 were said to have been slaughtered. Several 

 Jews were burned at Giistrow, in Mecklenburg, for a 

 similar offence. In 1492, a priest, one Peter Dove, re- 

 siding in Mecklenburg, sold two hosts to a Jew for the 

 purpose of redeeming a pawn ; and they having pierced 

 them, abundance of blood flowed out. The priest, now 

 tormented with remorse, confessed the transaction, and 

 betrayed the Jews ; twenty of their number were burned 

 on an eminence at Sternberg, since called Judenberg, 

 and at this very Judenberg did the Mecklenburg deputies 

 recently commence their sittings. In 1510, thirty- 

 eight Jews were executed and then burned, for ' having 

 tormented a consecrated host until the blood came.' 



