64 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
if pragmatic, relations between individual Jews and Christians might develop—
accompanied by intellectual and cultural growth within both communities—Jews
throughout the period had to contend with the ups and downs of living under
imperial, royal, and papal power.206 tensions within Christendom between the
aims of the papacy, the bishops, and the temporal lords show that, despite the
period being a time of great ecclesiastical development—particularly after the papal
reform movement of the eleventh century—theory and practice were often at odds.
Then towards the end of that century, with the onset of the crusades, Christian
attitudes towards Jews, at least in northern Europe, began to harden. Anxiety
about Jews as a separate and marginal people led to an increased hostility which
was difficult for popes to counter, even when they wished.207 And in a period
which saw the growth of an intense scholastic study of all things Jewish, Christian
polemic more and more undermined the security of European Jewry.208 Hence,
even when they wanted to be involved in the affairs of Jewish communities, popes
in practice had increasingly far less power to intervene than one might assume.
For their part, many learned Jews, like their Christian contemporaries, were
aware of the papacy’s special claim to spiritual authority, of the political activities
of individual popes, and of the impact of their pronouncements on Jewish com-
munities. They duly acknowledged the need for papal protection and not infre-
quently valued it more than that of monarchs and emperors or indeed any other
gentile authority figures. So although they knew that papal toleration could be
combined with disquiet over the talmud and concern about Christian lords treat-
ing ‘their’ Jews more favourably than fellow Christians, they recognized that papal
support could help the survival of their communities.209 Such a positive valuation
of papal protection stemmed partly from the fact that, far away at the papal curia
in rome, popes, unlike secular powers, could interfere little in the daily lives of
these communities. Yet, re-issues of the ‘Constitutio pro iudaeis’ reveal that at
times of extreme crisis Jewish communities actively sought the papacy’s help and
protection, and although Jews knew papal protection was carefully circumscribed,
they were in no doubt that they wished to ensure it continued. And although
Jewish perceptions of popes could vary, they might often be more positive than
those of the local clergy. indeed, as Jews well knew, popes often had to curb the
excesses of such clergy.210
Nevertheless, Jewish writers were determined to emphasize to their own com-
munities that they must resist conversion and remain alert to what they perceived
206 Blumenkranz, ‘The roman Church and the Jews’, p.215; Schäfer, ‘Jews and Christians in the
High Middle Ages’, p.32.
207 Abulafia, ‘Christians and Jews in the High Middle Ages’, p.27; Schäfer, ‘Jews and Christians in
the High Middle Ages’, p.39; Little, The Jews in Christian Europe, p.292. For an excellent discussion
of the historiography of the idea of anti-semitism, see David Engel, ‘Away from a Definition of
Antisemitism: An Essay in the Semantics of Historical Description’, in Rethinking European Jewish
History, ed. J. Cohen, M. rosman, pp.30–53; Dominque iogna-pratt, Order and Exclusion: Cluny and
Christendom Face Heresy, Judaism and Islam (1000–1150) (ithaca, London, 2003), passim.
208 The results of the growth of scholasticism during the High Middle Ages were dire for the Jews.
See Cohen, ‘Scholarship and intolerance in the Medieval Academy’, pp.330–1.
209 For example, gregory Vii, ‘Non ignorat prudentia’ (1081), Simonsohn, pp.38–9.
210 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.45; p.47.