124 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
enterprise into a much wider programme of re-conquest. But in 1147 the Almoravids
were succeeded by the Almohads, another Berber group who defeated the armies of
Aragon and Castile, conquered Madrid, and crushed a Jewish revolt in granada in
- In response to that, Spanish Christians rallied against the Muslim foe and the
second half of the twelfth century saw the development of three distinct Spanish
kingdoms: Castile, portugal, and the Crown of Aragon, the latter comprising the
union of Catalonia and Aragon, while the duchy of portugal achieved its independ-
ence in 1143 by declaring itself a fief of the papacy.
The eleventh-, twelfth-, and thirteenth-century papacy supported and justified
such anti-Muslim campaigns and its encouragement to Christians to fight the
‘infidel’ had serious repercussions for Spain’s large and well-integrated Jewish popu-
lation. we have seen how in his letter ‘placuit nobis’ of 1063 Alexander II praised
Spanish bishops for restraining those campaigning against Muslims in Spain from
also attacking Jewish communities.121 given the political backdrop of anti-Muslim
rhetoric, it is not surprising that he specifically distinguished between wars waged
against Muslims who attacked Christians and Christian territory and which were
just, from unjust violence against Jews whom divine Mercy had saved and who
everywhere were prepared to serve.122 In the following year, he also promised that
those who took part in an expedition against the town of Barbastro would merit an
indulgence; that was thirty years before Urban II called for the First Crusade.
From Barbastro onwards popes began to grant indulgences to those taking part
in campaigns in Spain, but it was not until the Council of Clermont in 1095 that
the Reconquista could bring together the two distinctive crusading ideals of pil-
grimage and of defensive military service for Christ.123 Urban II even attempted to
persuade those fighting at tarragona to stay in Spain rather than join the First
Crusade to the Near East by promising the same remission of their sins as for those
embarking for the Holy Land—a clear signal that he saw both enterprises as vital
for the defence of Christianity and Christian Europe.124 Indeed Urban’s pontifi-
cate marked a milestone for Spain because from then on popes, not least paschal
II, would continue to emphasize the grant of spiritual rewards for ‘milites Christi’
(‘soldiers of Christ’) fighting for Christ in the Iberian peninsula.125
So between 1050 and 1150 there was an increasing amount of Hispano-papal
contact, with Spanish churchmen regularly attending papal councils. At the First
121 Alexander II, ‘placuit nobis’ (1063), Simonsohn, pp.35–6. See especially p.36: ‘Sic etiam beatus
gregorius quosdam qui ad eos delendos exardescebant prohibuit, impium esse denuntians eos delere
velle, qui dei misericordia servati sunt, ut... per terrarum orbis plagas dispersi vivant.’ For the idea of
Jewish service, see St Augustine, Adversus Iudaeos, The Fathers of the Church, vol. 27, trans. C. t. wilcox
and ed. r. J. deferrari (New York, 1955), Ch. 8, p.407. See Stow, Alienated Minority, pp.17–19; p.39;
John watt, The Theory of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century: the Contribution of the Canonists
(New York, 1965), p.139.
122 In my view Alexander II’s letter was intended to signal the papacy’s unreserved protection of the
Jews, not to threaten that the Church would wage war on the Jews if, like the Muslims, they began to
oppose Christian rule. See Stow, The ‘1007 Anonymous’ and Papal Sovereignty, p.13.
123 Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, pp.328–34; riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the
Idea of Crusading, pp.13–30.
124 riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, pp.19–20.
125 riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, p.125.