Popes and Jews, 1095-1291

Papal Claims to Authority over Judaism 187

pay tithes from their lands and oblations; 8: Penalties imposed on those who do not

observe the privileges of Jews.154

According to Hostiensis, Jews were:

those who hold to the letter of the Mosaic law, in circumcising and acting literally

with regard to other legal matters; therefore people who adhere too much to the letter

[of the law] are said to judaize.155

Here he drew attention both to the Jewish practice of circumcision and to the trad-

ition of Jewish learning. The rubric discussed the extent to which Jews should be

both tolerated and condemned by Christian society, whether the Church sinned in

allowing Jews to observe their religious rites, whether infidels might ever use force

against Christians, whether Jews should be forced to pay tithes, and whether those

who served Jews deserved punishment.156 It argued forcefully that Jews should not

be coerced into baptism.157

In detailing the extent to which Jews should be tolerated in Christian society,

Hostiensis emphasized and elaborated on the traditional stance of the Church

towards the building of synagogues:

they may have ancient synagogues and may restore them to their previous form, if

they shall have deteriorated, or make them higher, but not wider and not more costly:

according to their size, they must not be allowed to have what in the old synagogues

and in their observances are tolerated.158

Presumably the restriction on width was because the Church feared that large syn-

agogues would allow more space for worship which might encourage congregation

numbers to increase; in any case large buildings would be unseemly for a religion

which was to be tolerated only as long as it remembered its servile status. As we

have seen, Innocent III was worried about the synagogue at Sens, although in this

case he complained about height rather than width, presumably thinking it might

rival the neighbouring church in stature and beauty.159

Hostiensis discussed the circumstances under which business dealings between

Christians and Jews could be conducted. Thus he confirmed:

likewise they [Jews] are permitted to do business and appear before our communal

magistrates, but not before their elders, but they can also choose a Jewish arbiter,

154 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1517, (Summarium): ‘1. Iudaei qui dicantur. Et unde
dicantur. 2. Et in quibus tolerentur. 3. Et in quibus graventur. 4. Ecclesia an peccet, dum sinit Iudaeos
ritus suos observare. 6. Blasphemus Christi an possit exercere vim potestatis in hominess Christianos.

7. Iudaei an cogantur solvere decimas de terris suis et oblationibus. 8. Poena, quae imponatur non
   servantibus privilegia Iudaeorum.’
   155 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1517: ‘Hi qui ad literam Mosaicam legem tenent in cir-
   cuncidendo et ad alia legalia ad literam faciendo, ideo hi qui nimis adhaerent literae, iudaizare
   dicuntur.’
   156 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, cols 1517–22.
   157 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1519.
   158 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, cols 1517–18: ‘ut habeant veteres synagogas, et eos reficiant
   in pristinam formam, si corruerint, vel altius, non latius reficiant, non praeciosius: pro magno non
   debent habere, quae in veteribus synagogis, et suis observantiis tolerantur’.
   159 Innocent III, ‘Etsi non displiceat’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.104–8; Simonsohn, pp.82–4.