Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation
In post-Reformation Poland--the largest state in Europe and home to the largest Jewish population in the world--the Catholic Church suffered profound anxiety about its power after the Protestant threat. Magda Teter reveals how criminal law became a key tool in the manipulation of the meaning of the sacred and in the effort to legitimize Church authority. The mishandling of sacred symbols was transformed from a sin that could be absolved into a crime that resulted in harsh sentences of mutilation, hanging, decapitation, and, principally, burning at the stake. Teter casts new light on the most infamous type of sacrilege, the accusation against Jews for desecrating the eucharistic wafer. These sacrilege trials were part of a broader struggle over the meaning of the sacred and of sacred space at a time of religious and political uncertainty, with the eucharist at its center. But host desecration--defined in the law as sacrilege--went beyond anti-Jewish hatred to reflect Catholic-Protestant conflict, changing conditions of ecclesiastic authority and jurisdiction, and competition in the economic marketplace. Recounting dramatic stories of torture, trial, and punishment, this is the first book to consider the sacrilege accusations of the early modern period within the broader context of politics and common crime. Teter draws on previously unexamined trial records to bring out the real-life relationships among Catholics, Jews, and Protestants and challenges the commonly held view that following the Reformation, Poland was a "state without stakes"--uniquely a country without religious persecution.
Academic Alchemy: The Fundamentum scienciae nobilissimae secretorum naturae of Adam of Bochyń
Alchemy was never taught at any medieval or early modern university, yet there is evidence of interest in the art among students and professors throughout Europe. Studies of academic alchemy have generally focused on the interests of individuals rather than examining communities of university alchemists. At the turn of the fifteenth century, the University of Cracow hosted a larger community of practitioners than previously acknowledged. This article presents a discussion, edition, and translation of a text that came out of that community: the Fundamentum scienciae nobilissimae secretorum naturae, written by Adam of Bochyń in 1489 while a student at the University of Cracow. In Adam’s day, the university was experiencing an exceptionally vibrant moment in the sciences, particularly astronomy. Editing Adam’s text will lay the groundwork for further studies of Cracow’s alchemical community, studies that will change our understanding of the university’s scientific flourishing as well as of the geography of central European alchemy, which has been dominated in the scholarship by Rudolf II’s Prague.
A quality control model that uses PTV-rectal distances to predict the lowest achievable rectum dose, improves IMRT planning for patients with prostate cancer.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
To predict the lowest achievable rectum D35 for quality assurance of IMRT plans of prostate cancer patients.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
For each of 24 patients from a database of 47 previously treated patients, the anatomy was compared to the anatomies of the other 46 to predict the minimal achievable rectum D35. The 24 patients were then replanned to obtain maximally reduced rectum D35. Next, the newly derived plans were added to the database to replace the original clinical plans, and new predictions of the lowest achievable rectum D35 were made.


RESULTS
After replanning, the rectum D35 reduced by 9.3 Gy±6.1 (average±1 SD; p<0.001) compared to the original plan. The first predictions of the rectum D35 were 4.8 Gy±4.2 (average±1 SD; p<0.001) too high when evaluated with the new plans. After updating the database, the replanned and newly predicted rectum D35 agreed within 0.1 Gy±2.8 (average±1 SD; p=0.89). The doses to the bladder, anus and femoral heads did not increase compared to the original plans.


CONCLUSIONS
For individual prostate patients, the lowest achievable rectum D35 in IMRT planning can be accurately predicted from dose distributions of previously treated patients by quantitative comparison of patient anatomies. These predictions can be used to quantitatively assess the quality of IMRT plans.