Jews and Money 163
to harmonize the various canon law texts concerned with Jewish usury. They
argued that, in order not to seem to contradict the papal decretal ‘Post miserabilem’
irreconcilably, the statement in Quanto amplius that Jews should not charge Christians
‘immoderate interest’ must be read as a prohibition against Jews charging Christians
any interest at all.167
so the thirteenth-century papacy used its power as the ultimate spiritual
authority in Christian society both to defend the interests of crusaders and to
afford some measure of protection to Jewish moneylenders. such a compromise
displeased and disconcerted canon lawyers who, like many other clergymen, would
have preferred that Jews not be allowed to charge interest at all. Thus popes,
increasingly keen to assert their authority over Jews and Judaism, in fact held a
more positive and certainly more complex view of Jewish money-lending than
many of their contemporaries, and allowed Jewish moneylenders an albeit limited
freedom in this area.168 nevertheless, seeing it as part of their duty and their
authority, they also encouraged the seizure of Jewish property and/or money gained
through usury, and exhorted Christians to convert it to pious purposes.169 it is the
issue of authority to which we now turn.
Powell suggests that he may have been the author of the Gesta Innocentii III. see The Deeds of Pope
Innocent III by an Anonymous Author, trans. J. M. Powell (washington d.C., 2004), p.xiii.
167 For details, see stow, ‘Papal and Royal Attitudes toward Jewish Lending in the Thirteenth
Century’, 167.
168 simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, pp.188–95; pp.202–3; p.223; p.226.
169 simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, pp.199–202.