Preface
why has the relationship of the papacy to the Jews of medieval europe during
what we call the ‘central’ or ‘High’ Middle ages—in other words the eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries—continued to fascinate and divide historians for
decades? after all, during this time Jews accounted for only approximately one per
cent of the overall population of europe and were hardly high on the list of papal
concerns. The answer is in part a continuing fascination with the long, tumul-
tuous, and highly controversial history of catholic–Jewish relations. it is also be-
cause medievalists have grasped that to understand this relationship is to realize the
wider context of the papacy’s attempts to shape and direct european society at the
time of its greatest temporal power. This book examines the nature of that relation-
ship by reassessing the evidence for papal interaction with Jewish communities in
christian europe.
in recent years eminent scholars have contributed greatly to our understanding
of the social and legal status of medieval Jewish communities in light of the onset
of the crusades, prohibitions against money-lending, condemnation of the talmud,
increasing charges of ritual murder, blood libel, and host desecration, as well as the
growth of both christian and Jewish polemical literature. The last few decades
have seen an outpouring of scholarly books and articles about the Jews in the High
Middle ages, and it is important to engage with that historiography. My present
aim is to add to the current debate about christian–Jewish relations by revisiting
papal contact with Jews and re-examining nuances in the approaches of different
popes confronted with a range of complex circumstances and competing demands.
in my review of papal–Jewish relations i also aim to correct the idea that during
the High Middle ages there was a monolithic and static ‘papal policy’ towards
Jews. we must never forget that the majority of papal statements were carefully
thought-out responses to secular and religious authorities and that individual papal
interventions were shaped by the agendas of those who requested them. indeed
any such pronouncements can only be properly understood in the context of the
substantial and on-going social, political, and economic changes of the eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, by appreciating the characters, preoccupations,
and concerns of individual pontiffs, as well as the development of christian the-
ology and hence the theological precepts which underlay their pronouncements.
The peculiar and unique nature of the papacy’s relationship with the Jewish
communities it encountered invites us to reflect on the charges of theological
blindness (‘caecitia’) and stubbornness (‘duritia’) which medieval christians, in-
cluding some popes, frequently levelled at Jews. ‘duritia’ and ‘caecitia’ indicated
Jewish refusal, incomprehensible to christians, to acknowledge christ as the Messiah
prophesied in the old testament. Hence i seek not only to engage with contem-
porary scholarly debates about the nature and scope of the relationship between
the medieval papacy and Jewish communities, but to illuminate the unique