218 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
By the end of the thirteenth century rabble-rousing sermons of the friars were
encouraging hysterical anti-Jewish feeling in many parts of europe. The Franciscan
Berthold of Regensburg (d. 1272) travelled throughout europe during the 1240s,
1250s, and 1260s and attracted huge audiences through simple, accessible sermons.
These included some which attacked Jews as heathens and heretics who under-
mined Christian doctrine, hence Christianity and even the ‘societas Christiana’
itself. In fiery language he not only rejected medieval rabbinic teaching as departing
from the Judaism of the Old Testament, but denounced the Talmud as heretical
and complained about both Jewish usury which undermined Christian morality
and the immodest dress of Jewish women which encouraged the unseemly interest
of Christian men.83 In 1292 the inflammatory preaching of the Dominican
Inquisitor-General, Fra Bartholomeo de Aquila, led to massacres and forcible con-
versions of Jews in Apulia.84
Some historians have seen the influence of the mendicants as directly deleterious
to Jewish communities. They have argued that the Church’s age-old Augustinian
tradition of protection of Jews was increasingly replaced by a new conversionary
zeal on the part of the mendicant orders.85 yet there is a danger of over-simplification
here if we consider, for example, that in the case of the ritual murder charge at
Lincoln in england in 1255, it was the friars who intervened to protect Jews.86
Furthermore, even if the predominant attitude of the friars was of aggressive and
violent missionary zeal, the papacy remained committed to the idea of protec-
tion.87 From Clement Iv’s issue of ‘Turbato corde’ onwards the old idea of protec-
tion and the new idea of enquiry operated side by side.88
The prominence of the friars during the second half of the thirteenth century
meant that popes were from time to time asked to pronounce on conversionary
sermons. yet their correspondence reveals that they had surprisingly little to say
about forcing Jews to listen to such sermons. We possess very few letters where the
issue is prominent. In 1245 Innocent Iv wrote to the archbishop of Tarragona
to confirm the legislation of James I of Aragon concerning Jews in his kingdom,
emphasizing the king’s edict that if archbishops, bishops, or friars visited any place
inhabited by Jews or Muslims and wished to preach to them, the said Jews and
Muslims must gather at their call and listen patiently.89
Over twenty years later, in 1278, Nicholas III formally mandated both Dominicans
and Franciscans to preach and missionize among Jews as part of their apostolate. His
letter ‘vineam sorec’, addressed to the prior of the Dominican Order in Lombardy,
referred to Jews as deserving of punishment for their stubborness and hard hearted-
ness, and proclaimed that it was his duty as pope to undertake the great labour of
encouraging them to see the light of Truth. He therefore requested the prior to find
men of his Order who could preach to the Jews. In particular the prior was to
83 Richards, Sex, Dissidence and Damnation, p.97.
84 Richards, Sex, Dissidence and Damnation, p.110.
85 Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, pp.242–64.
86 Antisemitism through the Ages, ed. S. Almog, trans. N. H. Reisner (Oxford, New york, 1988),
p.110; p.116.
87 Antisemitism through the Ages, ed. Amog, p.116.
88 Antisemitism through the Ages, ed. Amog, p.116.
89 Innocent Iv, ‘ea que ad’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.254–6; Simonsohn, pp.183–5.