210 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
In response to this decree and often with the support of monarchs, the friars began
to set up ‘Houses of Converts’ throughout europe; thus Henry III established the
first ‘Domus conversorum’ in england in 1232 where converts from Judaism could
be instructed in the Christian faith and shielded from attempts by other Jews to
bring them back to Judaism.25 Their inclusion in such ‘Houses of Converts’ or in
other religious houses, seems to have been an extension of the traditional practice
of admitting lay brothers, or conversi, into monasteries.26
Unsurprisingly, Innocent III was particularly interested in encouraging conver-
sions and issued a number of detailed letters on the subject, in response to peti-
tions, to different parts of europe. In 1199 he instructed the bishop of Autun to
take care to allay the poverty of a Jewish convert so that he and his daughter should
have enough food and clothes.27 That same year he insisted that Jews in Leicester
who had been converted to Christianity—he had one particularly in mind—
should be provided with life’s necessities.28 In 1201 he instructed the bishop of
Livonia that until his people were more firmly rooted in the Christian faith they
might continue to contract marriages limited by a prohibition of only four degrees
of relationship, instead of the eight traditionally decreed by the Church.29 In a
letter to the clergy of Barcelona in 1206 he ordered them to baptize any Jew
or Muslim who requested it and to impede any Christian who tried to hinder or
demand a price from the Church in return for the convert.30 In 1213 he ruled in
a letter to the archbishop of Sens that a Jew, along with his family who had been
converted after a miraculous experience, should be provided with the necessities of
life so that he did not regret his conversion.31 As we observed in Chapter Two,
‘Maiores ecclesie’ of Innocent III advocated making it much more difficult to be
released from forced baptism, which was to be allowed only if actual physical re-
sistance had been shown.32 A ruling of the english Crown in 1236 stated that the
offspring of mixed-religion couples should be allowed to choose which religion
they wished to follow, but english legislation of the thirteenth century shows that
there was more preoccupation with potential ‘impurities’ derived from contact
with those who remained Jews than with what happened to those baptized.33
christianae religioni liberae voluntatis arbitrium obtulit, salutiferae coactionis necessitas in eius obser-
vatione conservet; cum minus malum existat, viam Domini non agnoscere, quam post agnitam
retroire.’
25 The Church in the Medieval Town, ed. Slater, Rosser, pp.50–1; Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and
the Jews. History, p.275.
26 The Church in the Medieval Town, ed. Slater, Rosser, p.51.
27 Innocent III, ‘Ad provisionem P.’ (5 November 1199), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.94–6; Simonsohn,
p.76.
28 Innocent III, ‘Quanto populus Judaice’ (5 December 1199), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.96–8; Simonsohn,
p.77.
29 Innocent III, ‘Deus qui ecclesiam’ (19 April 1201), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.100; Simonsohn, p.79.
30 Innocent III, ‘Orta tempestate in’ (26 August 1206), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.118; Simonsohn,
pp.88–9.
31 Innocent III, ‘Operante illo qui’ (10/8 June 1213), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.136–8; Simonsohn,
pp.98–9.
32 Innocent III, ‘Maiores ecclesie causas’ (September–October 1201), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.100–2;
Simonsohn, pp.80–1. See The Church in the Medieval Town, ed. Slater, Rosser, p.51.
33 The Church in the Medieval Town, ed. Slater, Rosser, p.51.