Throughout history, the slaughter and consumption of the pig has been the inspiration for role-playing and taboos, and at the center of practices that defined the boundaries between Christians and Jews. A provocative exploration of the pig in European culture and anti-Semitism, The Singular Beast chronicles the cultural and religious character of the pig-and details the folkloric beliefs still found among both provincial and urban Europeans and the rituals that have been associated with it from the Middle Ages to today.