Jews and the child murder libel in the medieval Iberian Peninsula: European trends and Iberian peculiarities

Abstract

This article examines the history of the child murder libel - the claim that Jews abducted and murdered Christian children for religious or magical purposes - in the Iberian Peninsula before the expulsion of the Jews from the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon in 1492. After analysing the documentary evidence and the number of alleged cases from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, this article seeks to answer the following questions: Are the medieval Iberian child murder libel narratives just bland retellings of narratives found elsewhere in Europe, as has been argued, or did they develop peculiarities that set them apart?