Dootsv­onnis (Death Sentence): A Reformation Print Against Catholic Doctrine

This Dutch woodcut attacks the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation—the belief that bread and wine literally become Christ's body and blood during communion. The title page frames the religious argument in formal typography, while the scene below depicts a crowded church interior where the mystery is performed and witnessed. Published in Rotterdam by Jan Janszoon, this print belongs to the Northern European tradition of Reformation polemic imagery, where religious controversy became visual spectacle. The woodcut technique allowed rapid, affordable reproduction of partisan arguments for a growing literate public. Such prints—predecessors to later satirical traditions of Hogarth and Gillray—weaponized engraving and wood-block printing as tools of theological combat, embedding caricature and narrative into the emerging language of mass-distributed visual argument.