The Papal Promise of Protection 83
Winchester in 1192, 1225, 1235, and Lincoln in 1255. charges were also brought
in france at Pontoise and Braisne in 1182 and Valréas in 1247, in Germany at fulda
in 1235, frankfurt in 1241, and oberwesel in 1287, and in Spain at Saragossa in
1182 and 1250.93 of course child murders were not always blamed on Jews; in
1022 a group of heretics at orleans were similarly found guilty of infanticide.94
Nevertheless, ritual murder was increasingly defined as a particularly Jewish
practice. St Augustine had advocated toleration of the Jews, arguing that although
blind to the truth of christianity, they still provided evidence of the Messiah
through their Scriptures.95 As we have seen, this idea had been echoed in the
papal re-issues of the ‘constitutio pro iudaeis’ and was especially emphasized
in the introductory paragraph of innocent iii’s text.96 Yet in contrast to all that,
medieval readings of Matthew 27: 25 ‘his blood be upon us and upon his children’,
led to many christians being sure that the Jews had killed christ in the certain
knowledge that he was christ and that they were therefore primarily responsible
for his death. in the eleventh century St Anselm (c.1033–1109) made it clear in
his Cur Deus Homo that he believed the Jews killed Jesus fully aware that he was
the son of God:
... f or, when he [christ] says to the Jews, of his father: ‘if i say that i know him not,
i shall be a liar, like unto you,’ and, in this sentence, makes use of the words: ‘i know
him not,’ who says that he could not have uttered these same four words, or expressing
the same thing differently, have declared, ‘i know him not?’ Now had he done so, he
would have been a liar, as he himself says, and therefore a sinner. Therefore, since he
could do this, he could sin.97
furthermore, as the Talmud began to be better known in the West, Jews were
increasingly associated in popular culture not with the old and New Testament,
but with Talmudic literature viewed as a stumbling block to their eventual recog-
nition of christ as the Messiah—and that therefore they were undeserving of the
toleration advocated by St Augustine.98 hence, although Jews were believed to
be deliberately and stubbornly blind to the truth of christianity, they were in
93 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, pp.52–6.
94 Heresies of the High Middle Ages. Selected Sources Translated and Annotated, ed. W. Wakefield,
A. evans (New York, London, 1969), p.79; Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe. Documents in
Translation, ed. e. Peters (London, 1980), p.69; Jeffrey Victor, Satanic Panic: The Creation of a
Contemporary Legend (chicago, 1993), p.277.
95 St Augustine, De civitate Dei 2, ed. dombart, Kalb, Bk 18, ch. 46, p.329; St Augustine, Adversos
Iudaeos, The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 27, ed. deferrari, pp.391–414; De civitate Dei 1, ed. dombart,
Kalb, Bk 4, ch. 34, pp.188–9; Vol. 2, Bk 18, ch. 46, pp.328–9; St Augustine, Adversus Iudaeos, ed.
deferrari, pp.391–414, passim; De civitate Dei 1, ed. dombart, Kalb, Bk 4, ch. 34, pp.188–9; Vol. 2,
Bk 18, ch. 46, pp.328–9.
96 for the introductory paragraph, see innocent iii, ‘Licet perfidia Judeorum’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.92;
Simonsohn, p.74.
97 St Anselm, ‘cur deus homo’, Book 2, chapter Ten, in S. Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi
opera omnia/ad fidem codicum recensuit Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, ed. f. S. Schmitt, 6 vols (edinburgh,
1946–1961), Vol. 2 (1946), p.106: ‘... cum enim dicat iudaeis de patre: “si dixero quia non scio eum,
ero similis vobis mendax”, et inter haec verba dicat: “non scio eum”: quis eum dicet easdem tres
nequivisse proferre dictiones sine aliis verbis, ut sic diceret: “non scio eum”? Quod si faceret, ut ipse
ait, esset mendax, quod est esse peccatorem. Quare quoniam hoc potuit, peccare potuit.’
98 richards, Sex, Dissidence and Damnation, pp.94–7.