Popes and Jews, 1095-1291

(Frankie) #1

Papal Claims to Authority over Judaism 189


The distinction in dress was necessary since:


... in certain places so much confusion has long pertained and through ignorance it
happens that they sometimes mutually carnally co-mingle. This mixing or conjoining
is rightly condemned and lest under this pretext anyone should wish to excuse his
fault, therefore the style of dress is to be distinguished.. .165


In this rubric he compared the distinguishing garb to be worn by Jews with the


dress to be worn by prostitutes. recalling ecclesiastical legislation on Jewish phys-


icians, his eighth penalty was:


that however good their doctors may be, they are not to make money out of Christians,
because these [Christians] ought not to call them in cases of disease nor receive medi-
cine from them nor bathe in the same baths with them.. .166

He also stated in the same rubric that if Jews disobeyed ecclesiastical legislation the


same penalties should be meted out to them as to heretics.167 Furthermore, he


echoed papal decretals of Alexander III and Innocent III in insisting that like


Christians Jews should be compelled to pay the tithe,168 and make amends for us-


urious money transactions.169


Another rubric of Book 5, De servis Iudaeorum et Saracenorum, discussed among


other matters whether Jews and Muslims might keep servants in their households.


In his summary at the beginning of this rubric, through a series of questions,


Hostiensis set out the perameters of his discussion:



  1. Whether Jews and Saracens could hold freedmen? 2. Slaves of heretics can leave
    their master with impunity and flee to a church. 3. no-one can hold a Christian as a
    slave. 4. Christian women must not serve in Jewish households nor nurse their chil-
    dren. 5. Whether a slave who is baptized remains a slave as before.170


He concluded that the law prohibited heretics, pagans, or Jews from keeping


Christian slaves or circumcising them,171 and that the slaves of heretics might with


impunity leave their masters and take refuge in churches.172 He stated categorically


that since all Christians were members of the Church, no-one could lord it over a


Christian’,173 and particularly that no Christian slave should serve a Jew:174


165 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1521: ‘Haec differentia est inter Iudaeos et Christianos,
ideo facienda, quia in quibusdam partibus tanta confusio inolevit, et per ignorantiam contingit ipsos
aliquando carnaliter adinuicem commisceri, quae commixtio, seu coniunctio, merito condemnatur, et
ne sub hoc velamine velint aliqui errorem suum palliare, ideo est qualitas habitus discernenda... ’.
166 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1521: ‘... ut quantumcunque boni medici sunt nihil
lucrentur cum Christianis, quia nec ipsos vocare debent in suis infirmitatibus, nec ab eis recipere
medicinam, nec cum eis in eisdem balneis balneare.. .’.
167 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1522.
168 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1522.
169 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1522.
170 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1525: ‘1. Iudei et Saraceni an possint habere mancipia.



  1. Servi haereticorum impune possunt dominos suos relinquere, et ad ecclessiam confugere.

  2. Christianum nullus potest habere in servum. 4. Christianae non debent Iudaeis intrare domum
    servire, nec filios eorum nutrire. 5. Servus baptizatus an remaneat servuus, sicut prius.’
    171 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1525.
    172 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1526.
    173 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1526.
    174 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, col. 1527.

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