Jews and Money 157
and emphasized that since these Jews were willing to cease exacting usury they
must be set free and injured neither in person nor in property.139
Gregory was also concerned with usury in the context of the papacy’s continuing
calls for crusades. so in 1228 he called on the clergy of France to renew the
Albigensian Crusade against heresy in the south of France, repeating almost word
for word the decree Ad liberandam of Lateran iV originally promulgated to organize
the Fifth Crusade but which had by now become the model for all crusade plan-
ning.140 Christian creditors must discount oaths sworn by crusaders to pay usury
and cease charging interest; those in debt to crusaders were to pay what they owed
without interest while creditors of crusaders were to extend the time allowed for
repayment. As for the Jews, they were ordered to cease exacting usury altogether.
if crusaders could not at present repay their debts to Jews, secular judges should
grant a moratorium so that, from the time of their departure until their confirmed
death or return, they should not be burdened by the payment of interest.
Furthermore, Jews were to reckon into the principal the income from pledges held
as security. such stipulations seem to have been an interpretation and renewal
of older decrees which had protected the lands of crusaders absent on the First
Crusade.141 Gregory repeated them in 1234 to the Christian faithful of France and
in letters of 1235 to the clergy, to the king of France, to Thibaut of Champagne, to
the French nobility more widely, to the countess of Flanders, and to Philip and
Amalric de Montfort.142 These letters were related to his plan to resume hostilities
when the treaty between Frederick ii and the Muslims in the near east expired in
- Yet like his predecessors, he too emphasized that Jews, unlike Christians,
had the eventual right to collect the interest accrued from crusaders.143
in the following year, 1236, Gregory iX intervened yet again, urging Louis iX
to force French crusaders, about to embark on the ‘Barons’ Crusade’ led by Thibaut
of Champagne and Richard of Cornwall, to restore property stolen from Jews.144
As we saw in Chapter Three, orders from the king in 1235 that Jews should refrain
from all money-lending had encouraged killing and looting by crusaders. Yet at the
same time as continuing to despatch letters of protection, Gregory was determined
that nothing should impede the new crusade. Thus in 1237 he gave instructions
that all money which Louis had seized from Jews living in his kingdom and from
their Christian debtors, and which was tainted by the stain of usury, should be sent
as a subsidy to the struggling Latin empire.145 in the same year he also complained
139 Gregory iX, ‘etsi Judeorum sit’ (6 April 1233), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.200–2; Simonsohn, pp.143–5.
140 Gregory iX, ‘Ardenti desiderio aspirantes’ (21 October 1228), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.180; Simonsohn,
pp.126–8.
141 For a recent discussion of crusader finances, see Riley-smith, The First Crusaders, pp.125–9.
142 Gregory iX, ‘Rachel suum videns’ (17 november 1234), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.216; Simonsohn,
pp.152–3; ‘Pravorum molestiis eum’ (13 April 1235), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.218; Simonsohn, pp.153–4;
‘e is qui signo’ (x5), (13 April 1235), Les Registres de Grégoire IX, ed. L. Auvray, 4 vols, Bibliothèque
des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome (2nd series) (Paris, 1890–1955), Vol. 2, p.34.
143 stow, ‘Papal and Royal Attitudes toward Jewish Lending in the Thirteenth Century’, 164.
144 Gregory iX, ‘Lachrymabilem Judeorum in’ (5 september 1236), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.228–30;
Simonsohn, p.165.
145 Gregory iX, ‘ex parte tua’ (6 October 1237), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.232–4; Simonsohn, pp.167–8;
‘Cum karissimo in’ (10 december 1238), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.238; Simonsohn, p.170.