Papal Claims to Authority over Judaism 181
concerned with the status of Jews,104 but there was no special section given over to
them.105 nevertheless, despite a lack of systematic treatment, throughout Gratian’s
work there were scattered references to Jews.106 one of the most striking is
Capitulum 11 of Quaestio 8 of Causa 23, ‘Placuit nobis’, the letter of Pope
Alexander II to Spanish bishops of 1063, which, as we saw in Chapter Two, com-
pared warlike Muslims in Spain with Jews living peacefully in Christian territories
and instructed Christians to wage war against the former but not the latter:
Different surely is the case of Jews and Saracens. For one fights justly against those [the
Saracens] who persecute Christians and force them from their cities and their own
territories; but these [the Jews] are everywhere prepared to serve.107Alexander did not regard the Jews of Spain as enemies because, unlike Muslims,
they were prepared to fulfil a subservient role in Christian society. This important
and clear distinction was in marked contrast to the twelfth-century authority Peter
the venerable, whose correspondence betrayed a much harsher stance towards Jews
than towards Muslims.108
As we have noticed, in the thirteenth century popes became increasingly involved
in the construction of canon law. In particular the twelfth- and thirteenth-century
canon law compilations known collectively as the Quinque antiquae compilationes,
composed by Bernard of Parma, John of Wales, Pietro Collevaccino, Johannes
Teutonicus, and Tancred became highly influential and reflected papal thinking.
Two of them were especially commissioned by the papacy. During the High
Middle Ages, Muslims were the main ‘external’ enemies of Christian Europe, at
least until the Mongol invasions of 1241–1242, but like Jews, there were also
Muslims living in Christian Europe, particularly in Spain, Italy, Sicily, and
Hungary.109 The Quinque antiquae compilationes bracketed both groups together
and classed them as infidels. Although such a grouping is not self-explanatory, it
seems that the treatment of Muslims in Christian lands was modelled on similar
policies towards Jews.
So the Quinque antiquae compilationes contained a large number of decretals
concerned with infidels. Titulus 5 of Book 5 of Compilatio prima, entitled De
104 Ivo of Chartres, Decretum beati Iuonis (louvain, 1561), 13. 94–110, pp.385–7. See Clarence-
Smith, Medieval Law Teachers and Writers, pp.4–5; p.19.
105 Frederick russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, new York, 1975), p.75; James
Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels; the Church and the Non-Christian World 1250–1550
(Philadelphia, 1979), p.4.
106 For example, Capitulum 2 of Quaestio 7 of Causa 23 was a letter of St Augustine declaring that
the Jews had lost their kingdom in accordance with God’s will and that if Catholics complained that
donatist heretics held ecclesiastical possessions, Jews might also legitimately accuse Christians, who
had now taken possession of their land. See Gratian, C.23.q.7.c.2, col. 951. or, for example,
Capitulum 2 of Quaestio 8 of Causa 23, a letter attributed to a Pope Innocent, but probably a spurious
and later addition to Gratian’s text, referred to the Gospel account of Christ’s arrest by the Jews. See
Gratian, C.23.q.8.c.2, col. 953.
107 Gratian, C.23.q.8.c.11, col. 955: ‘Dispar nimirum est Iudeorum et Sarracenorum causa. In
illos enim, qui Christianos persecuntur, et ex urbibus et propriis sedibus pellunt, iuste pugnatur; hii
ubique servire parati sunt.’
108 The Letters of Peter the Venerable, 1, ed. G. Constable (Harvard, oxford, 1967), pp.327–30.
109 Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels, p.30.