In Religion and the Decline of Magic, historian Keith Thomas notes how the Eucharist had become “an object of supernatural potency” in the Renaissance. It was believed capable of everything from curing the blind, to keeping caterpillars out of the garden. The priests fancied themselves white magicians battling black magicians, who would line up in the Church to steal the literal body and blood of Jesus, intending to repurpose it for their own nefarious ends. According to one sixteenth-century commentator, the Eucharist had fallen into the hands of not only witches like Lucretia but also
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