Limpieza de sangre is also a novel in the Captain Alatriste series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

Limpieza de sangre (in Spanish), Limpeza de sangue (in Portuguese), both meaning "cleanliness of blood" was a concept of Iberian Modern History. It refered to being ethnically pure "Old Christian ", without Jewish or Muslim ascendants.

After the end of the Reconquista and the expulsion of Sephardic Jews, the population of Spain and Portugal was all nominally Christian. However, the descendants of the Christian conquerors despised the New Christians , descendants of baptized Jews (Conversos or Marranos) or Mudejars (Moriscos). Besides social and economic causes, the accusation was that the New Christians were false converts, keeping their former religion in their homes (Crypto-Jews). This was sometimes certain, but even people later declared saint by the Church could be suspected. Cleanliness of blood was an issue of ancestry, not of personal religion.

This stratification made that the Old Christian commoners could assert a right to honor (honra ) even if they were not in the nobility. The military orders, guilds and other organizations started incorporating in their bylaws, clauses demanding proof of cleanliness of blood. Upward mobile New Christian families had to either content with their sort or bribe and falsify documents attesting generations of good Christians. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions had the New Christians as their main targets, since witchcraft was considered more a psychiatrical than a religious issue and Protestantism was promptly suffocated.

The claim to universal hidalguía (lowest nobility) of the Basques was justified as the Arab invasion didn't reach the Basque territory, hence Basques had maintained the original purity while the rest of Spain was suspect of miscegenation. Even in the 19th century, the Basque nationalism of Sabino Arana demanded a list of original Basque surnames to demonstrate mixes with Spaniards.

See also

• Racism
• Apartheid
• Nuremberg laws
• Black Legend