Holy Child of La Guardia
Encyclopedia
The Holy Child of La Guardia (died 1491) was the purported victim of a ritual murder by the Jews
in the town of La Guardia
in the central Spanish
province of Toledo
(Castile-La Mancha
). On November 16, 1491 an auto-da-fé
held outside of Ávila concluded the case with the public execution of several Jewish and converso
suspects who confessed to the crime under torture. Among the executed were Benito Garcia, the converso who initially confessed to the murder. However, no body was ever found, and due to contradictory confessions, the court had trouble coherently depicting how events took place.
Like Pedro de Arbués
, the Holy Infant was quickly made into a saint
by popular acclaim, and his death greatly assisted the Spanish Inquisition
and its Inquisitor General, Tomás de Torquemada
, in their campaign against heresy
and crypto-Judaism
. The cult
of the Holy Infant is still celebrated in La Guardia. Significantly, he became known in the legend as Christopher (Cristóbal) meaning Christ-bearer.
levelled against the Jews, and the Seven Part Code of Castile
echoed this popular belief:
Certainly several similar episodes had occurred in Spain. One of the most well known was the supposed crucifixion of the boy Saint Domingo of Val in Zaragosa in the 13th century and also the boy of Sepúlveda in 1468. This last incident resulted not only in the execution of sixteen Jews found guilty of the crime but also resulted in a popular assault on the Jewish community (Aljama
) in Sepúlveda, which claimed more victims.
In a book published in 1449 by the friar convert Alonsono de la Espina, Fortalitium Fidei. Against Jews, Saracens and other enemies of the Christian faith, a long list of crimes attributed to the Jews was documented. There appear several accounts of infantile crucifixion, all given as factual.
England, among other European countries, was not without its own blood libel legends as can be seen from the legend of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
.
In June 1490, a roving carder, a converso named Benito Garcia, aged 60, a native of the town of La Guardia, was stopped in Astorga
in the province of León. A consecrated Host was discovered in his knapsack. He was taken for interrogation before the Vicar-general (Judicial Judge) of the Bishopric of Astorga, Pedro de Villada. The confession of Benito Garcia, dated June 6, 1490 has survived and indicates that he was only accused of Judaizing. The defendant explained that five years earlier (1485) he had secretly returned to the Jewish faith, encouraged by another converso, Juan de Ocaña, who was also from La Guardia and a Jew from the nearby locality of Tembleque, named Franco.
Yucef Franco, aged 20, a cobbler, the Tembleque Jew mentioned by Benito Garcia, was arrested by the Inquisition on July 1,1490 along with his father Ça Franco,aged 80. He was in prison in Segovia on July 19, 1490, when he fell ill. He was visited by a doctor, Antonio de Ávila. Yucef asked the doctor if he could see a Rabbi. In place of a Rabbi, on his second visit the doctor was accompanied by a converso Friar, Alonso Enriquez, disguised as a Rabbi and calling himself Abrahán. When asked why he thought he had been arrested, Yucef replied that he was accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy. The second time he was visited by the two men, Yucef made no further mention of this issue.
Yucef's subsequent statements implicated other Jews and conversos. On August 27, 1490, the Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada issued an indictment ordering the transfer of the prisoners from Segovia to Ávila to await trial. The indictment lists all the prisoners held in Segovia who were related to this case. They were: conversos; Alonso Franco, Franco Lope, Garcia Franco, Juan Franco, Juan de Ocaña, and Garcia Benito, residents of La Guardia, and Jews; Yucef Franco of Tembleque, and Moses Abenamías of Zamora. The indictment contained charges of heresy, apostasy
, as well as crimes against the Catholic faith. Curiously the indictment does not mention Ça Franco.
The inquisitors in charge of preparing the trial were Pedro de Villado (the same man who had previously interrogated Benito Garcia in June, 1490), Juan López de Cigales, Inquisitor of Valencia since 1487, and Friar Fenando de Santo Domingo. All were men who enjoyed the confidence of Torquemada . Santo Domingo had also written the foreword to a published anti-Semitic pamphlet.
The trial against Yucef Franco began on December 17, 1490 and lasted several months. He was accused of trying to attract conversos to Judaism as well as having participated in the ritual crucifixion of a Christian child on Good Friday. It seems that before the trial, Benito Garcia and Yucef Franco, at least, had already partially confessed and given evidence against the others on the promise of obtaining their freedom, but this was a trap laid by the inquisition.
When the indictment was read out, Yucef Franco shouted out that it was the biggest falsehood in the world. He was appointed Counsel for his defence who petitioned the court that the charges were too vague, no dates of the crime were given, there was no body, and that the alleged victim had not even been named. As a Jew, Yusef could not be guilty of heresy or apostasy. The defense asked for complete acquittal. The petition was over-ruled by the court and the trial proceeded. The preserved confessions of this defendant, extracted under torture, refer at first, only to conversations with Benito Garcia in gaol, and incriminate them only as Judaizers, but later it starts to refer to a piece of witchcraft performed about four years earlier (perhaps 1487), which involved the use of a consecrated host, stolen from a church in La Guardia, and the heart of a Christian boy. Yucef's subsequent statements give more details of this topic and are particularly incriminating of Benito Garcia. Garcia's statements have also been preserved, and taken “whilst he had been put to the torture” are inconsistent with those of Yucef, and above all serve mainly to incriminate the latter. The inquisitors even arranged a face to face confrontation between the two accused, on October 12, 1491, and the judicial records of this meeting state that their depositions were in agreement, which is surprising, as previously they had contradicted each other.
In October, one of the inquisitors, Friar Fernando de San Esteban, travelled to the convent of San Esteban in Salamanca to consult with several legal experts and theologians, who pronounced on the guilt of the accused. In the final phase of the trial the evidence was made public and Yucef tried unsuccessfully to refute it. The last depositions of Yucef, obtained under torture in November added more details to the facts; many of them clearly had their origins in anti-Semitic literature.
On the 16th November in the Brasero de la Dehesa (lit: meadow of execution) in Ávila, all the accused were handed over to the secular authorities and burned at the stake. Nine people were executed; three Jews, Yusef Franco, Ça Franco and Moses Abenamías; and six conversos, Alonso, Lope, García and Juan Franco, Juan de Ocaña and Benito García. As was customary, the sentences were read out at the Auto de Fe, and those of Yucef Franco and Benito Garcia have been preserved.
Property confiscated from the prisoners was used to finance the construction of the monastery of Santo Tomás de Ávila, which was completed on August 3, 1493.
In 1569 the graduate Sancho Busto de Villegas, a member of the Supreme Council of the Inquisition and governor of the Archbishopric of Toledo (afterwards Bishop of Avila) wrote, based on the trial documents, which were stored in the Valladolid court archives, Relación autorizada del martirio del Santo Inocente (Authorized Account of the Martyrdom of Saint Innocent), which was deposited in the municipal archives of La Guardia town hall. In 1583, Friar Rodrigo de Yepes published La Historia de la muerte y glorioso martirio del santo inocente que llaman de Laguardia (The History of the Death and Glorious Martyrdom of the Holy Innocent said to be from from La Guardia). In 1720 appeared another hagiography in Madrid, La Historia del Inocente Trinity el Santo Niño de la Guardia (The History of the Trinitarian Innocent , the Holy Child of La Guardia), the work of Diego Martinez Abad, and in 1785, the village priest of La Guardia, Martín Martínez Moreno, published his Historia del martirio del Santo Niño de la Guardia (History of the Martyrdom of the Holy Child of La Guardia).
The legend constructed on these successive contributions relates that some converts, after attending an Auto de Fe in Toledo, planned revenge on the inquisitors by arts of sorcery. For the spell they needed a consecrated Host and the heart of an innocent child. Alonso Franco and Juan Franco kidnapped the boy next to la Puerta del Perdón (the door of Forgiveness) in Toledo Cathedral and took him to La Guardia. There on Good Friday they held a mock trial. The boy, in the legend is sometimes called Juan and at others, Cristóbal and is said to be the son of Alonso de Pasamonte and Juana la Guindero (even though no body was ever found). He was alleged to have been scourged, crowned with thorns and crucified at the mock trial, in imitation of Jesus Christ. The heart, needed for the spell, was torn out. At the exact time of the child's death, his mother, who was blind, miraculously regained her sight. After burying the body, the murderers stole a consecrated Host. Benito García set out for Zamora, carrying the Host and the heart to seek the help of other co-religionists to perform his spell, but was stopped in Ávila because of the brilliant light that issued from the consecrated Host the convert had hidden between the pages of a prayer-book. Thanks to his confession, the other participants in the crime were discovered. After the alleged death of the Holy Child, several miraculous healings were attributed to him.
The consecrated Host is kept in the Dominican monastery of St. Thomas in Ávila. The heart was said to have miraculously disappeared, like the child's body, and it was believed that like Jesus Christ he had been resurrected.
In the National History Archives in Madrid there is a painting of the second half of the sixteenth century representing the same scene, which seemingly testifies to the antiquity of the cult of the Holy Child of La Guardia.
There is a mural Bayeu attributed to the representation of the crucifixion of the Holy Child of La Guardia in Toledo cathedral. It can be accessed through the door called "del Mollete". Currently, the humidity and exposure to inclement weather found in the interior of the cathedral cloister have led to the painting deteriorating.
Lope de Vega
's play El niño inocente de La Guardia (The Innocent Child of La Guardia) was possibly inspired by the legend recounted by Fray Rodrigo de Yepes. This work from the Golden Age of Spanish Literature
is renowned for its cruelty in the last act, portraying the crucifixion of the child. The scene was imitated by José de Cañizares
, author of La viva imagen de Cristo: El Santo Niño de la Villa de la Guardia (The Living Image of Christ: The Holy Child of Villa de la Guardia).
In one of the legends of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
, called La Rosa de Pasión (The Rose of Passion), a Jewess named Sara, whose boyfriend was a Christian, confronts her father, Daniel, on his hatred of Christians, and dies in a ritual very similar to the Santo Niño de la Guardia (in fact, seeing the preparations, she thinks about the history of the Holy Child).
With Torquemada's urging, it was used by Isabella I
as an excuse for the expulsion of the Jews
after the fall of Granada
in 1492.
Because of the fear that heresy was hereditary, the outcome of this trial involving conversos and Jews, was used to argue for purity of blood (limpieza de sangre
) in those aspiring to join the clergy of the archdiocese of Toledo. Many members of the nobility could not prove their untainted ancestry and thus became ineligible to hold office in the main See of Spain.
Blood libel
Blood libel is a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays...
in the town of La Guardia
La Guardia, Spain
La Guardia is a Spanish village in Toledo province. There is documented presence since Bronze Age, Romans, Jews and documents since 12th century.-Population:*2.329 inhabitants 2006.*1166 men and 1163 women....
in the central Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
province of Toledo
Toledo (province)
Toledo is a province of central Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. It is bordered by the provinces of Madrid, Cuenca, Ciudad Real, Badajoz, Cáceres, and Ávila....
(Castile-La Mancha
Castile-La Mancha
Castile-La Mancha is an autonomous community of Spain. Castile-La Mancha is bordered by Castile and León, Madrid, Aragon, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, and Extremadura. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's autonomous communities...
). On November 16, 1491 an auto-da-fé
Auto-da-fé
An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed...
held outside of Ávila concluded the case with the public execution of several Jewish and converso
Converso
A converso and its feminine form conversa was a Jew or Muslim—or a descendant of Jews or Muslims—who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries. Mass conversions once took place under significant government pressure...
suspects who confessed to the crime under torture. Among the executed were Benito Garcia, the converso who initially confessed to the murder. However, no body was ever found, and due to contradictory confessions, the court had trouble coherently depicting how events took place.
Like Pedro de Arbués
Pedro de Arbués
Pedro de Arbués was an official of the Spanish Inquisition who was assassinated in the Zaragoza Cathedral in 1485 in an alleged plot by conversos and Jews...
, the Holy Infant was quickly made into a saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
by popular acclaim, and his death greatly assisted the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
and its Inquisitor General, Tomás de Torquemada
Tomás de Torquemada
Tomás de Torquemada, O.P. was a fifteenth century Spanish Dominican friar, first Inquisitor General of Spain, and confessor to Isabella I of Castile. He was described by the Spanish chronicler Sebastián de Olmedo as "The hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the...
, in their campaign against heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
and crypto-Judaism
Crypto-Judaism
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews"...
. The cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
of the Holy Infant is still celebrated in La Guardia. Significantly, he became known in the legend as Christopher (Cristóbal) meaning Christ-bearer.
Background
During the middle-ages there were frequent allegations of blood libelBlood libel
Blood libel is a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays...
levelled against the Jews, and the Seven Part Code of Castile
Siete Partidas
The Siete Partidas or simply Partidas was a Castilian statutory code first compiled during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile , with the intent of establishing a uniform body of normative rules for the kingdom. The codified and compiled text was originally called the Libro de las Leyes...
echoed this popular belief:
And because we have heard it said that in some places Jews celebrated, and still celebrate Good Friday, which commemorates the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by way of contempt: stealing children and fastening them to crosses, and making images of wax and crucifying them, when they cannot obtain children; we order that, hereafter, if in any part of our dominions anything like this is done, and can be proved, all persons who were present when the act was committed shall be seized, arrested and brought before the king; and after the king ascertains that they are guilty, he shall cause them to be put to death in a disgraceful manner, no matter how many there may be. (Alfonso X the Wise, Partidas, VII, XXIV, Law 2)
Certainly several similar episodes had occurred in Spain. One of the most well known was the supposed crucifixion of the boy Saint Domingo of Val in Zaragosa in the 13th century and also the boy of Sepúlveda in 1468. This last incident resulted not only in the execution of sixteen Jews found guilty of the crime but also resulted in a popular assault on the Jewish community (Aljama
Aljama
Aljama is a term of Arabic origin used in old official documents in Spain and Portugal to designate the self-governing communities of Moors and Jews living under Christian rule in the Iberian Peninsula...
) in Sepúlveda, which claimed more victims.
In a book published in 1449 by the friar convert Alonsono de la Espina, Fortalitium Fidei. Against Jews, Saracens and other enemies of the Christian faith, a long list of crimes attributed to the Jews was documented. There appear several accounts of infantile crucifixion, all given as factual.
England, among other European countries, was not without its own blood libel legends as can be seen from the legend of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
Hugh of Lincoln was an English boy, whose death prompted a blood libel with ramifications that reach until today. Hugh is known as Little Saint Hugh to distinguish him from Saint Hugh, otherwise Hugh of Lincoln. The style is often corrupted to Little Sir Hugh...
.
Judicial process
Until 1887 the story was only known through the legend, but in that year, the Spanish historian, Fidel Fita, published an account of the trial of Yucef Franco, one of the accused, in the Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia, from the trial papers he had discovered in the Spanish National Archive. It is one of the most complete accounts of a Spanish Inquisition trial extant.In June 1490, a roving carder, a converso named Benito Garcia, aged 60, a native of the town of La Guardia, was stopped in Astorga
Astorga, Spain
Astorga is a town in the province of León, northern Spain. It lies southwest of the provincial capital of León, and is the head of the council of La Maragatería. The river Tuerto flows through it. , its population was about 12,100 people....
in the province of León. A consecrated Host was discovered in his knapsack. He was taken for interrogation before the Vicar-general (Judicial Judge) of the Bishopric of Astorga, Pedro de Villada. The confession of Benito Garcia, dated June 6, 1490 has survived and indicates that he was only accused of Judaizing. The defendant explained that five years earlier (1485) he had secretly returned to the Jewish faith, encouraged by another converso, Juan de Ocaña, who was also from La Guardia and a Jew from the nearby locality of Tembleque, named Franco.
Yucef Franco, aged 20, a cobbler, the Tembleque Jew mentioned by Benito Garcia, was arrested by the Inquisition on July 1,1490 along with his father Ça Franco,aged 80. He was in prison in Segovia on July 19, 1490, when he fell ill. He was visited by a doctor, Antonio de Ávila. Yucef asked the doctor if he could see a Rabbi. In place of a Rabbi, on his second visit the doctor was accompanied by a converso Friar, Alonso Enriquez, disguised as a Rabbi and calling himself Abrahán. When asked why he thought he had been arrested, Yucef replied that he was accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy. The second time he was visited by the two men, Yucef made no further mention of this issue.
Yucef's subsequent statements implicated other Jews and conversos. On August 27, 1490, the Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada issued an indictment ordering the transfer of the prisoners from Segovia to Ávila to await trial. The indictment lists all the prisoners held in Segovia who were related to this case. They were: conversos; Alonso Franco, Franco Lope, Garcia Franco, Juan Franco, Juan de Ocaña, and Garcia Benito, residents of La Guardia, and Jews; Yucef Franco of Tembleque, and Moses Abenamías of Zamora. The indictment contained charges of heresy, apostasy
Apostasy
Apostasy , 'a defection or revolt', from ἀπό, apo, 'away, apart', στάσις, stasis, 'stand, 'standing') is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy is known as an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday...
, as well as crimes against the Catholic faith. Curiously the indictment does not mention Ça Franco.
The inquisitors in charge of preparing the trial were Pedro de Villado (the same man who had previously interrogated Benito Garcia in June, 1490), Juan López de Cigales, Inquisitor of Valencia since 1487, and Friar Fenando de Santo Domingo. All were men who enjoyed the confidence of Torquemada . Santo Domingo had also written the foreword to a published anti-Semitic pamphlet.
The trial against Yucef Franco began on December 17, 1490 and lasted several months. He was accused of trying to attract conversos to Judaism as well as having participated in the ritual crucifixion of a Christian child on Good Friday. It seems that before the trial, Benito Garcia and Yucef Franco, at least, had already partially confessed and given evidence against the others on the promise of obtaining their freedom, but this was a trap laid by the inquisition.
When the indictment was read out, Yucef Franco shouted out that it was the biggest falsehood in the world. He was appointed Counsel for his defence who petitioned the court that the charges were too vague, no dates of the crime were given, there was no body, and that the alleged victim had not even been named. As a Jew, Yusef could not be guilty of heresy or apostasy. The defense asked for complete acquittal. The petition was over-ruled by the court and the trial proceeded. The preserved confessions of this defendant, extracted under torture, refer at first, only to conversations with Benito Garcia in gaol, and incriminate them only as Judaizers, but later it starts to refer to a piece of witchcraft performed about four years earlier (perhaps 1487), which involved the use of a consecrated host, stolen from a church in La Guardia, and the heart of a Christian boy. Yucef's subsequent statements give more details of this topic and are particularly incriminating of Benito Garcia. Garcia's statements have also been preserved, and taken “whilst he had been put to the torture” are inconsistent with those of Yucef, and above all serve mainly to incriminate the latter. The inquisitors even arranged a face to face confrontation between the two accused, on October 12, 1491, and the judicial records of this meeting state that their depositions were in agreement, which is surprising, as previously they had contradicted each other.
In October, one of the inquisitors, Friar Fernando de San Esteban, travelled to the convent of San Esteban in Salamanca to consult with several legal experts and theologians, who pronounced on the guilt of the accused. In the final phase of the trial the evidence was made public and Yucef tried unsuccessfully to refute it. The last depositions of Yucef, obtained under torture in November added more details to the facts; many of them clearly had their origins in anti-Semitic literature.
On the 16th November in the Brasero de la Dehesa (lit: meadow of execution) in Ávila, all the accused were handed over to the secular authorities and burned at the stake. Nine people were executed; three Jews, Yusef Franco, Ça Franco and Moses Abenamías; and six conversos, Alonso, Lope, García and Juan Franco, Juan de Ocaña and Benito García. As was customary, the sentences were read out at the Auto de Fe, and those of Yucef Franco and Benito Garcia have been preserved.
Property confiscated from the prisoners was used to finance the construction of the monastery of Santo Tomás de Ávila, which was completed on August 3, 1493.
Legend
During the sixteenth century there arose a legend according to which the death of the Holy Child was similar to that of Jesus Christ, even emphasising similarities between the topography of the Toledan town where the events allegedly occurred (La Guardia) and of Jerusalem where Jesus died .In 1569 the graduate Sancho Busto de Villegas, a member of the Supreme Council of the Inquisition and governor of the Archbishopric of Toledo (afterwards Bishop of Avila) wrote, based on the trial documents, which were stored in the Valladolid court archives, Relación autorizada del martirio del Santo Inocente (Authorized Account of the Martyrdom of Saint Innocent), which was deposited in the municipal archives of La Guardia town hall. In 1583, Friar Rodrigo de Yepes published La Historia de la muerte y glorioso martirio del santo inocente que llaman de Laguardia (The History of the Death and Glorious Martyrdom of the Holy Innocent said to be from from La Guardia). In 1720 appeared another hagiography in Madrid, La Historia del Inocente Trinity el Santo Niño de la Guardia (The History of the Trinitarian Innocent , the Holy Child of La Guardia), the work of Diego Martinez Abad, and in 1785, the village priest of La Guardia, Martín Martínez Moreno, published his Historia del martirio del Santo Niño de la Guardia (History of the Martyrdom of the Holy Child of La Guardia).
The legend constructed on these successive contributions relates that some converts, after attending an Auto de Fe in Toledo, planned revenge on the inquisitors by arts of sorcery. For the spell they needed a consecrated Host and the heart of an innocent child. Alonso Franco and Juan Franco kidnapped the boy next to la Puerta del Perdón (the door of Forgiveness) in Toledo Cathedral and took him to La Guardia. There on Good Friday they held a mock trial. The boy, in the legend is sometimes called Juan and at others, Cristóbal and is said to be the son of Alonso de Pasamonte and Juana la Guindero (even though no body was ever found). He was alleged to have been scourged, crowned with thorns and crucified at the mock trial, in imitation of Jesus Christ. The heart, needed for the spell, was torn out. At the exact time of the child's death, his mother, who was blind, miraculously regained her sight. After burying the body, the murderers stole a consecrated Host. Benito García set out for Zamora, carrying the Host and the heart to seek the help of other co-religionists to perform his spell, but was stopped in Ávila because of the brilliant light that issued from the consecrated Host the convert had hidden between the pages of a prayer-book. Thanks to his confession, the other participants in the crime were discovered. After the alleged death of the Holy Child, several miraculous healings were attributed to him.
The consecrated Host is kept in the Dominican monastery of St. Thomas in Ávila. The heart was said to have miraculously disappeared, like the child's body, and it was believed that like Jesus Christ he had been resurrected.
In art and literature
Yepes mentioned that there was an altarpiece, now lost, in the chapel of the Holy Child of La Guardia in the town,which Alonso de Fonseca, archbishop of Toledo, had ordered to be painted, representing the scenes of the abduction, prosecution, scourging and crucifixion of the child, as well as the apprehension and execution of his murderers. The central panel of this altarpiece showed the crucifixion and removal of the child's heart.In the National History Archives in Madrid there is a painting of the second half of the sixteenth century representing the same scene, which seemingly testifies to the antiquity of the cult of the Holy Child of La Guardia.
There is a mural Bayeu attributed to the representation of the crucifixion of the Holy Child of La Guardia in Toledo cathedral. It can be accessed through the door called "del Mollete". Currently, the humidity and exposure to inclement weather found in the interior of the cathedral cloister have led to the painting deteriorating.
Lope de Vega
Lope de Vega
Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright and poet. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century Baroque literature...
's play El niño inocente de La Guardia (The Innocent Child of La Guardia) was possibly inspired by the legend recounted by Fray Rodrigo de Yepes. This work from the Golden Age of Spanish Literature
Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. El Siglo de Oro does not imply precise dates and is usually considered to have lasted longer than an actual century...
is renowned for its cruelty in the last act, portraying the crucifixion of the child. The scene was imitated by José de Cañizares
José de Cañizares
José de Cañizares y Suárez was a Spanish playwright. Cavalry officer, public official, and author of around one hundred works, he was one of the most important dramatists of the early 18th century.-Life:...
, author of La viva imagen de Cristo: El Santo Niño de la Villa de la Guardia (The Living Image of Christ: The Holy Child of Villa de la Guardia).
In one of the legends of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Gustavo Adolfo Domínguez Bastida, better known as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, was a Spanish post-romanticist writer of poetry and short stories, now considered one of the most important figures in Spanish literature. He adopted the alias of Bécquer as his brother Valeriano Bécquer, a painter, had...
, called La Rosa de Pasión (The Rose of Passion), a Jewess named Sara, whose boyfriend was a Christian, confronts her father, Daniel, on his hatred of Christians, and dies in a ritual very similar to the Santo Niño de la Guardia (in fact, seeing the preparations, she thinks about the history of the Holy Child).
Impact
The impact of the legend had immediate and far-reaching consequences for both the Jewish community in Spain and for the Spanish nobility:With Torquemada's urging, it was used by Isabella I
Isabella I of Castile
Isabella I was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundations for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor...
as an excuse for the expulsion of the Jews
Alhambra decree
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
after the fall of Granada
Battle of Granada
The Battle of Granada was a siege of the city of Granada fought over a period of months leading up to its surrender on January 2, 1492. The city was captured by the combined forces of Aragon and Castile from the armies of the Muslim Emirate of Granada...
in 1492.
Because of the fear that heresy was hereditary, the outcome of this trial involving conversos and Jews, was used to argue for purity of blood (limpieza de sangre
Limpieza de sangre
Limpieza de sangre , Limpeza de sangue or Neteja de sang , meaning "cleanliness of blood", played an important role in modern Iberian history....
) in those aspiring to join the clergy of the archdiocese of Toledo. Many members of the nobility could not prove their untainted ancestry and thus became ineligible to hold office in the main See of Spain.
External links
- The ritual murder of La Guardia, John Edward Longhurst, chapter of the book The Age of Torquemada, Coronado Press, 1962.
- The Jerusalem of La Mancha The Holy Child of La Guardia en www.laguardiatoledo.info
- History of the Holy Child of La Guardia in Guardiapedia.
- The history of the Holy Child of La Guardia in video at www.redajo.com
See also
- Little Saint Hugh of LincolnLittle Saint Hugh of LincolnHugh of Lincoln was an English boy, whose death prompted a blood libel with ramifications that reach until today. Hugh is known as Little Saint Hugh to distinguish him from Saint Hugh, otherwise Hugh of Lincoln. The style is often corrupted to Little Sir Hugh...
- Gavriil of Belostok
- Simon of TrentSimon of TrentSimon of Trent ; also known as Simeon; was a boy from the city of Trento, Italy whose disappearance was blamed on the leaders of the city's Jewish community based on their confessions under torture, causing a major blood libel in Europe.-Background:Shortly before Simon went missing, Bernardine of...
- Menahem Mendel BeilisMenahem Mendel BeilisMenahem Mendel Beilis, 1874 – July 7, 1934, was a Ukrainian Jew accused of ritual murder in Kiev in the Russian Empire in a notorious 1913 trial, known as the "Beilis trial" or "Beilis affair". The process sparked international criticism of the antisemitic policies of the Russian Empire...