Maps of Blood Libel Trials, Legends, and Iconography
Murder and blood libels against Jews began in the Middle Ages in a literary form. With time, these stories, transmitted through chronicles, polemical literature, or self-standing literary works, led to actual legal proceedings against Jews. The maps below show sites of murder or blood libels against Jews, according to the types of sources: legal or literary. Sometimes a story may have been mentioned in a legal source in another context, but no known legal proceedings actually took place. Likewise, sometimes, legal proceedings took place, but the case was never mentioned in non-legal sources. These stories or legal documents often mention outcomes for Jews, whether Jews were killed or found innocent and released. One of the maps displays whether Jews were, or were said to have been, condemned or freed.
All maps below were created by Shawn Hill of Fordham University.
Blood and murder libels against Jews, 1144-1823
Blood and murder libels against Jews: types of sources and evidence
Blood and murder libels against Jews: evidence about legal proceedings
Blood and murder libels against Jews: outcomes
Anti-Jewish accusations led to visual representations of the stories. The map below shows the distribution of blood libel-related iconography following the 1475 trial at Trent, which, as Laura dal Prá noted, created the “iconographic vocabulary” of “ritual murder.” After the trial in Trent, the iconography developed three types: murder (or martyrdom), victim (or corpse), and Simon of Trent in glory (or triumphant). Much of the data for northern Italy is based on Valentina Perini’s Il Simonino: Geografia di un culto.
The artistic iconography of Simon of Trent
The iconography of Simon and the media used