The Papal Promise of Protection 71
of Vienne asked innocent iV’s permission to expel Jews from his province, claiming
that christian souls were at risk from intercourse with Jews and that the latter had
proved disobedient to statutes issued by the Apostolic See. This may have been a sequel
to a charge of ritual murder at Valréas in 1247, but in any case the expulsion was only
brief.35 Generally the papacy endeavoured to protect Jews from such expulsions.36
Alongside outbursts of persecution and expulsion, there were also times of relative
calm which allowed for the development and flourishing of Jewish society and
culture. As we saw in chapter one, from the eleventh century onwards Jewish
communities in western europe produced and disseminated a great outpouring of
hebrew works: chronicles, annals, rabbinic responsa, biblical commentaries, disputa-
tional literature, and polemic.37 in the north of france there were important centres
of Talmudic studies, especially in the Île-de-france, champagne, and the Loire valley,
while in the south, Jewish communities flourished in Languedoc and Provence where
they contributed significantly to grammar, linguistics, philosophy, and science and
translated many Arabic and Latin texts, religious and other, into french.
The cLerGY ANd JeWS
despite notable exceptions, throughout europe the activities of local clergy were
frequently detrimental to the well-being of Jewish communities. At times bishops
made an effort to aid Jews living in their dioceses; in 1084 Bishop rudiger of
Speyer invited them to settle in his town, apparently hoping that they would form
a merchant community which, despite their own laws and customs, would engage
in both local and general trade and employ christians. he guaranteed them a
walled quarter of the town in which to live—which suggests that he realized their
vulnerability and their need for protection from the townspeople. Six years later
the emperor henry iV (1056–1105) confirmed this charter of Speyer and issued a
similar document for the Jews of Worms.38
Yet, as we have seen with the archbishop of canterbury John Peckham, the pro-
nouncements of many other clergy affected Jewish communities adversely. So, for
example, in 1267 the Synod of Breslau ordered Jews to live in a segregated quarter
of the city. And in particular, as we shall examine in chapter four, in the twelfth
century as part of the church’s effort to tackle usury, which it saw as an especial
scourge, canonists and theologians condemned it, thereby encouraging the clergy
35 innocent iV, ‘Sicut tua nobis’ (23 July 1253), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.292; Simonsohn, p.207. See Simonsohn,
The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.23.
36 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.42.
37 Peter Schäfer, ‘Jews and christians in the high Middle Ages: The Book of the Pious’, in The Jews
of Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries). Proceedings of the International Symposium
held at Speyer, 20–25 October 2002, ed. c. cluse (Turnhout, 2004), p.30; Anna Abulafia, ‘christians
and Jews in the high Middle Ages: christian Views of Jews’, in The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages
(Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries). Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Speyer, 20–25th October
2002 , ed. c. cluse, p.24; ephraim Kanarfogel, Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages
(detroit, 1992), pp.15–17.
38 richards, Sex, Dissidence and Damnation, pp.98–9.