214 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
Disputation of 1240, however, the debate appears to have been much less a genuine
enquiry into what was said in the Talmud and much more a public relations stunt
by James I.
Nevertheless, the pope was concerned to ensure the ‘correct’ outcome—that is
to endorse the Christian position. In 1266, three years after the debate, Clement
Iv wrote to James I. The letter was ostensibly a plea to the king to forego whatever
economic advantages he derived from Muslims who lived in his kingdom and
pointed out the incongruity of waging war on Muslims outside his realm, while
tolerating and even favouring them within. It was in this context that he discussed
the presence of Jewish communities in Aragon. In particular, he urged James to
punish Nachmanides who had debated with Paul Christian and who subsequently
to the Disputation had published a book which the pope believed to contain lies
about Christianity.61
By the second half of the thirteenth century inquisition against heresy was fully
established. In his encyclical ‘Turbato corde’ of 1267, Clement Iv granted inquisi-
tors the power to intervene in the affairs of Jewish communities in an official
capacity as protectors of the Jewish faith.62 The inquisitors were friars licensed to
enquire into matters of heresy and empowered to seek out the guilty by discovering
both Christian and Jewish witnesses. Jews found to have induced Christians of
either sex to adopt their rites were to be punished; indeed anyone who stood in the
inquisitors’ way should be subject to ecclesiastical sanction.63
Clement’s successors continued to urge the friars to enquire into the affairs of
Jewish communities. In 1274 Gregory X re-issued ‘Turbato corde’, again ordering
the friars in their capacity as inquisitors to proceed against suspect Jews and
Christians as they did against heretics and their supporters. He said that he was
deeply concerned to discover both that certain Jewish converts had reverted to
their former faith and that a number of Christians had converted to Judaism,
and he emphasized that any Jew found responsible for converting Christians must
be punished.64 Later, in 1281, Martin Iv informed French prelates how certain
inquisitors had reported that those accused of heresy, including baptized Jews who
had subsequently apostatized, had sought refuge in churches to escape punishment
and that he had been consulted as to the correct course of action. He said that in
response he had empowered the friars to execute their authority freely against both
61 Clement Iv, ‘Agit nec immerito’ (c.1266), Grayzel, Vol. 2, pp.92–7; Simonsohn, pp.230–2.
62 Clement Iv, ‘Turbato corde audivimus’ (27 July 1267), Grayzel, Vol. 2, pp.102–4; Simonsohn,
pp.236–7. See Harvey Hames, The Art of Conversion, Christianity and Kabballa in the Thirteenth
Century (Leiden, 2000), pp.2–9; Maurice Kriegel, ‘Prémarrianisme et Inquisition dans la Provence des
XIIIe et XIve siècles’, Provence historique 29 (1977), 314; Joseph Shatzmiller, ‘L’Inquisition et les juifs
de Provence au XIIIe siècle’, Provence historique 23 (1973), 327. Contemporaneous were the works of
Raymond Lull and Raymond Martin which sought to convert Jews as well as Muslims to Christianity.
See Raymond Martin, Pugio Fidei adversus Mauros et Iudeos, ed. F. Lanckisi (Leipzig, 1687), (repr.
Farnborough, 1967), passim; Raymond Lull, El ‘Liber praedicationis contra Iudaeos’ de Raymond Lull,
ed. J. M. M. vallicrosa (Madrid, 1957), passim. See Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-
Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response (Berkeley, 1989), pp.25–37.
63 Clement Iv, ‘Turbato corde audivimus’, Grayzel, Vol. 2, pp.102–4; Simonsohn, pp.236–7.
64 Gregory X, ‘Turbato corde audivimus’ (1 March 1274), Grayzel, Vol. 2, pp.122–3; Simonsohn,
pp.244–5.