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    St. Christopher

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    SolarGeneral
    This document summarizes the case of St. Christopher, a boy who was crucified in 1490 in Toledo, Spain. A Jew named Yuce confessed without torture that he was present at the boy's crucifixion. Yuce then gave more details and named accomplices after being promised immunity. Two juries of learned scholars and professors unanimously found Yuce and his accomplices guilty. Eight Jews, including some converts, were executed. The author argues this case was an important factor in the Spanish expulsion of Jews and that attempts to discredit it are unconvincing given the evidence and process used.

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    St. Christopher

    Uploaded by

    SolarGeneral
    63 views3 pages
    This document summarizes the case of St. Christopher, a boy who was crucified in 1490 in Toledo, Spain. A Jew named Yuce confessed without torture that he was present at the boy's crucifixion. Yuce then gave more details and named accomplices after being promised immunity. Two juries of learned scholars and professors unanimously found Yuce and his accomplices guilty. Eight Jews, including some converts, were executed. The author argues this case was an important factor in the Spanish expulsion of Jews and that attempts to discredit it are unconvincing given the evidence and process used.

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    St. Christopher

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    This document summarizes the case of St. Christopher, a boy who was crucified in 1490 in Toledo, Spain. A Jew named Yuce confessed without torture that he was present at the boy's crucifixion. Yuce then gave more details and named accomplices after being promised immunity. Two juries of learned scholars and professors unanimously found Yuce and his accomplices guilty. Eight Jews, including some converts, were executed. The author argues this case was an important factor in the Spanish expulsion of Jews and that attempts to discredit it are unconvincing given the evidence and process used.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    63 views3 pages

    St. Christopher

    Uploaded by

    SolarGeneral
    This document summarizes the case of St. Christopher, a boy who was crucified in 1490 in Toledo, Spain. A Jew named Yuce confessed without torture that he was present at the boy's crucifixion. Yuce then gave more details and named accomplices after being promised immunity. Two juries of learned scholars and professors unanimously found Yuce and his accomplices guilty. Eight Jews, including some converts, were executed. The author argues this case was an important factor in the Spanish expulsion of Jews and that attempts to discredit it are unconvincing given the evidence and process used.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    Page 1 of 3

    St. Christopher
    1490. Toledo. | This is a most important case, the circumstances of which have been
    clarified for us by W. T. Walsh in his interesting book on Isabella of Spain, 1931 (Sheed
    & Ward), in which he devotes pp. 441 to 468 to his researches on this Ritual Murder
    charge. Had it not been for Mr. Walsh, I might have been influenced by the Jewish
    Encyclopedias statement (1903, Vol. II1, p. 262) that Modern historians even deny
    that a child had disappeared at all in this case! Strenuous efforts were made by Loeb
    and H. C. Lea to clear the Jews from guilt of this murder; as also by Abbe Vacandard.
    Walsh shows that on 17th October, 1490, a Jew named Yuce confessed to having been
    present at the crucifixion of a boy called Christopher at La Guardian near Toledo. He
    made this confession without the aid of any torture; he was not even threatened with
    that for one year after his confession. On 19th July, 1491, Yuce was promised immunity
    from punishment for himself and described the whole crucifixion and gave the names of
    his accomplices. On 25th October, 1491, a jury of seven noted Renaissance scholars
    who occupied the Chairs at Salamanca University examined the case and were
    unanimous in finding Yuce guilty. Not until after this did Yuce undergo torture. This
    torture was applied to make him say for what reason the boy Christopher had been
    crucified instead of being killed in any other way; but no leading questions were
    employed in the examination. After this, the case went before a second jury of five
    learned men of Avila, who considered the evidence concerning Yuces accomplices, who
    had been arrested and under examination; they unanimously declared them guilty.
    Eight Jews (some of them Marranos. or pretended converts to
    Christianity) were executed.
    Writing of the efforts made to discredit the trials in this case, Walsh says (p. 464):
    Must we assume that they (the two learned juries) were all murderous fanatics, willing
    to sacrifice innocent men, and that Dr. Leob, Dr. Lea, and on the Catholic side the
    somewhat too credulous Abbe Vacandard were better qualified to weigh the evidence
    after the lapse of four centuries?
    Walsh is not an anti-semite. He is a historian, and has not suggested that ritual
    murder is part or any official Jewish ceremony. But he says: The historian, far from
    being obliged to make wholesale vindication of all Jews accused of murder, is free, in
    fact, bound to consider each individual case upon its merits.
    Walsh states (p. 441) that this case of Ritual Murder was one of the chief factors, if not
    the decisive one, in the decision of Fernando and Isabel (for the expulsion of the Jews
    from Spain). He shows that the complete record of testimony in the trial of one of the
    accused has been available since it was published in 1887 in the Bulletin of the Royal
    Academy at Madrid (Vol. XI, pp. 7-160), from the original manuscript. (This was, of
    course, before the Red revolution!)
    Page 2 of 3

    Page 3 of 3
    Walsh charges Lea, the pro-Jewish author, of intellectual dishonesty (p. 628) in writing
    in his Inquisition in Spain decrying the influential men who were jurors in this case.
    If the Inquisitors sent eight men to a shameful death without being convinced beyond
    a reasonable doubt of their guilt, the honest verdict of history cannot shrink from
    finding not only Torquemada and his judges, but King Fernando and Queen Isabel,
    Cardinal Mendoza and several of the most illustrious professors of Salamanca University
    guilty of complicity in one of the most brutal judicial murders on record? (Walsh, p.
    442.)
    Those who shrink from charging the Jews with the practice of Ritual Murder thereby
    condemn some of the finest characters on the stage of European history.
    Finally, we must record that the murdered boy was canonized as St. Christopher on the
    authority of Pope Pius VII.

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