Blood libel legend: a casebook in anti-Semitic folklore

The infamous blood libel legend was partly responsible for the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, the basis of persecutions and actual courtroom trials throughout Europe, and exploited in Nazi propaganda. This casebook of an anti-Semitic legend, demonstrates the power of folklore to influence thought and history. This study of the blood libel legend should interest folklorists, scholars of Catholicism and Judaism, and many general readers, for it is both the literature and the history of anti-Semitism.