[3] However, no body was ever found and there is no evidence that a child disappeared or was killed; because of contradictory confessions, the court had trouble coherently depicting how events possibly took place.

[7] During the Middle Ages there were frequent blood libels leveled in Spain against the Jews, and the Seven Part Code of Castile (13th century) 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)[full citation needed] Certainly several such episodes were believed to have taken place in Spain.

[8] In June 1490, a roving cloth carder, a converso named Benito García, aged 60, a native of the town of La Guardia, was stopped in Astorga in the province of León.

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.

On 27 August 1490 the Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada issued an indictment ordering the transfer of the prisoners from Segovia to Ávila to await trial.

It seems that before the trial, Benito García 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.

The inquisitors even arranged a face-to-face confrontation between the two accused, on 12 October 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.

[10] On 16 November 1491, in the Brasero de la Dehesa (lit: "brazier in the meadow") in Ávila, all of the accused were handed over to the secular authorities and burned at the stake.

[13] Property confiscated from the prisoners was used to finance the construction of the monastery of Santo Tomás de Ávila, which was completed on 3 August 1493.

In 1569, the graduate Sancho Busto de Villegas, a member of the Supreme Council of the Inquisition [de; eo; es] 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.

The legend constructed on these successive contributions relates that some converts, after attending an auto-da-fé in Toledo, planned revenge on the inquisitors by arts of sorcery.

The boy, who in the legend is sometimes called Juan and at other times Cristóbal, is said to be the son of Alonso de Pasamonte and Juana la Guindero (even though no body was ever found).

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.

This work from the Golden Age of Spanish Literature is renowned for its cruelty in the last act, portraying the crucifixion of the child.

In one of the legends of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, called La Rosa de Pasión (The Rose of Passion), a Jew 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).

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 as one of the reasons for the expulsion of the Jews after the fall of Granada in 1492.

[15] Because of the fear that heresy was hereditary, the outcome of this trial involving conversos and Jews, was used to argue for the purity of blood (limpieza de sangre) in those aspiring to join the clergy of the archdiocese of Toledo.