"Blood Libel" is a term used to describe a false accusation that Jews sacrifice Christian children for a number of reasons. It was a common belief in the Renaissance that Jews would bleed children they had kidnapped and use the blood for
their ritulas or even to cook and bake with. This woodcut depicts the death of Simon of Trent among nine Jews. Several are still wearing their red hats from the day being that Jews were forced to wear in public by pain of the death penalty. All are noticeably wearing the required gold badges of the Jews, also. Their faces are menacingly calm as they take care with their prize--making the offenders even more frightful.
"Judensau":
A religious and institutional form of Renaissance artwork, Judensau portrays Jews going against religious laws that one must not pig, much less touch a pig. Judensau shows Jews in obscene activities with pigs. Jews in the drawings, woodcuts, and scultptures are fornicating with and performing sexual acts on a sow. The Devil is also present in many of the examples that I found, encouraging and pushing the tongues of grown Jewish men to the anuses of the pigs. Even Jewish children and women were included in some. One depicted a Jewish woman having sex with a goat in the background while the men and a child suckled from and fondled a pig in the
presence of the Devil. Not only is this offensive to the beliefs of the Jewish people, but it also implies that they are more susceptible to the ways of the Devil.
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