44 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
remarkable. it has been suggested that such negative portrayals were an outlet for
the rage felt by Jewish communities facing severe persecution, and, even more, an
attempt to consolidate the defence of their communities against forces threatening
Jewish identity itself: in the face of crusader atrocities the narratives emphasize the
importance of martyrdom or qiddush ha-Shem—‘sanctifying the name of god’—
for rhenish Jews, while several times Jewish women are represented as willing to
sacrifice themselves and their children for their faith.83
one might expect that popes would appear again in chronicles narrating the
events of the Second Crusade authorized by pope Eugenius iii in his general letter,
‘Quantum praedecessores’ of 1145 to rescue the County of Edessa, the first crusader
state in the twelfth century to have reverted to Muslim control. The chronicler
Ephraim of Bonn (1132–1200), who would doubtless have heard stories about
the persecutions suffered by the Jewish communities of the rhine at the hands
of those taking part in the First Crusade, records in his Sefer Zekhirah (Book of
Remembrance) that on the eve of the Second Crusade, a mob again attacked Jews
on the pretext of avenging Christ—this time in France—and that royal officials
had to be bribed to ensure protection.84 Many Jews suffered financially because, as
Ephraim explained:
a lot of their fortune has been taken away, for thus the king of France has ordered that
in the case of anyone who volunteers to go to Jerusalem, if he owes money to the Jews
his debt will be forgiven.85in other words, Louis Vii of France had decreed that interest on debts owed by
anyone who volunteered to crusade to Jerusalem would be cancelled, and these
were often the very people to whom Jews had loaned money.86 Nevertheless,
Ephraim also notes that in England the Second Crusade had less severe repercus-
sions for Jews; King Stephen (1135–1154) ‘had it in his heart to defend them and
save their lives and property’ from crusader excesses.87 it has been argued that
83 Haverkamp, ‘The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages’, p.6; Abulafia, ‘Christians and Jews in the
High Middle Ages’, p.21; p.25; Schäfer, ‘Jews and Christians in the High Middle Ages’, p.33; Yerushalmi,
Zakhor, p.49; Blumenkranz, ‘The roman Church and the Jews’, p.214; Cohen, ‘The Hebrew Crusade
Chronicles in their Christian Cultural Context’, pp.17–34; Einbinder, Beautiful Death, pp.30–71. For
the increased attention to militant female piety in the Hebrew chronicles and their similarity to contem-
porary representations of Christian female piety, see especially, Abraham grossman, Pious and Rebellious.
Jewish Women in Medieval Europe, trans. J. Chipman (waltham, Mass., 2004), pp.198–211.
84 Ephraim of Bonn, in Sefer gezerot sarfat ve-ashkenaz, ed. Habermann, p.121. For a detailed dis-
cussion of the role of popes in this complex text, see especially robert Chazan, ‘rabbi Ephraim of
Bonn’s Sefer Zechirah’, Revue des Études Juives 132 (1973), 119–26; Stow, The ‘1007 Anonymous’ and
Papal Sovereignty, pp.4–5; p.7; pp.18–19; p.21; p.48.
85 Ephraim of Bonn, in Sefer gezerot sarfat ve-ashkenaz, ed. Habermann, p.121.
86 Ephraim of Bonn, in Sefer gezerot sarfat ve-ashkenaz, ed. Habermann, p.121; Stow, Alienated
Minority, p.113; Chazan, Medieval Jewry in Northern France, pp.34–6.
87 Ephraim of Bonn, in Sefer gezerot sarfat ve-ashkenaz, ed. Habermann, p.121. By contrast several
English chroniclers recorded an outbreak of violence in 1189–90, associated with richard i of England’s
preparations for the Third Crusade, against Jewish communities in King’s Lynn, Stamford, Lincoln,
York, and Bury St Edmund’s. See ralph of Diceto, ‘opera Historica’, in Rolls Series 68, ed. w. Stubbs
(London, 1876; Kraus reprint, 1965), Vol. 2, pp.68–9; william of Newburgh, ‘Chronicles of
william of Newburgh’, Vol. 1, Bk 4, ed. r. Howlett, rolls Series 82 (London, 1884; Kraus
reprint 1964), pp.293–9; roger of Hoveden, Chronica 3, ed. w. Stubbs, rolls Series 51 (London,