Jews and Money 147
from recovering lost interest through profits generated by pledges, especially on
land. That proclamation was probably a response to Bernard and Peter.69 Concern
about usury continued throughout the thirteenth century, particularly from senior
clergy but also from popes themselves.
innOCenT iii And UsURY
As we would expect from a pope concerned with every aspect of his role as head of
the spiritual well-being of all Christians, innocent iii’s correspondence shows that
throughout his pontificate he had a strong desire to direct and oversee the regula-
tion of money-lending. By threatening to excommunicate Christians who consorted
with usurious Jews, he in effect encouraged the isolation of Jewish communities so
as to ensure that they followed the laws of Christian society. This measure, known
as the ‘Judgement of the Jews’, enabled popes to penalize Jews, who, as non-Christians,
could not, of course, be excommunicated.70 such a ‘policy’ of isolation was not
new. Alexander iii had already implemented it to force Jews to honour tithes owed
to the Church for property acquired from Christians71 while Celestine iii forbade
Christians all intercourse with Jews if the latter failed to pay such tithes.72 so, simi-
larly in his general letter ‘Post miserabile’ (1198) calling for the Fourth Crusade,
and in other general crusading letters, innocent asserted that if Jews did not remit
usury, they were to be cut off from the Christian faithful:73
we order that the Jews shall be forced by you... and by the secular powers, to remit
the usury to them; and until they remit it, we order that all intercourse with faithful
Christians, whether through commerce or other ways, shall be denied the Jews by
means of a sentence of excommunication.74innocent’s determination to ostracize Jews who failed to remit usury to crusaders
reflected his enduring concern that nothing should impede his authorized crusades
to the Holy Land.
As well as issuing letters on Christian money-lending, innocent also determined
to regulate specifically Jewish lending, particularly in France where there seems to
have been a higher proportion of Jewish moneylenders than anywhere else in
europe. indeed the relationship between the French Crown and Jewish money-
lending already had a long and tortuous history. As we have seen, following the
69 stacey, ‘Crusades, Martyrdom and the Jews of norman england 1096–1190’, p.241; stow,
Alienated Minority, pp.113–14.
70 walter Pakter, Medieval Canon Law and the Jews (ebelsbach, 1988), pp.58–9.
71 Alexander iii, ‘Quia super his’, Simonsohn, p.50; Pakter, Medieval Canon Law and the Jews, p.58.
72 Celestine iii, ‘Cum iudaice duricia’, Simonsohn, pp.69–70.
73 innocent iii, ‘Post miserabile(m) Hierusolymitanae’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.86; Simonsohn, p.71:
‘Judeos vero ad remittendas ipsis usuras per vos, filii principes, et secularem compelli precipimus
potestatem; et donec eas remiserint, ab universis Christi fidelibus, tam in mercimoniis, quam aliis, per
excommuniationis sententiam eis jubemus communionem omnimodam denegari... ’.
74 see also innocent iii, ‘Graves orientalis terrae’, Grayzel, Vol. 1 , p.98; Simonsohn, p.78; ‘nisi
nobis dictum’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.98; Simonsohn, pp.78–9; ‘Quia maior nunc’ (22 April 1213), Grayzel,
Vol. 1, p.136; Simonsohn, p.97.