162 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
agreed to lend to crusaders on such unfavourable terms, particularly when lending
money for crusades was already such an uncertain business? Possibly innocent cal-
culated that his statements would mean that, with the freeing up of interest on past
debts, it would be easier for a crusader to fund his crusade expenses without
needing to take out new loans. it seems more likely, however, that his words were
not necessarily intended to be read literally. Rather they were meant to act as the
start of and catalyst for negotiations between moneylenders and crusaders, with
the pope expecting both parties to negotiate and thrash out a final agreement
among themselves.
in summary, the legislation of the Fourth Lateran Council shows that the Church
regarded those who borrowed from Jews as falling into two groups. The first group,
those who took the Cross, were granted a moratorium on the principal of their
loans and the remission of interest paid before their departure. The crusader was
therefore granted a very special status. The second group included all other Christians
who were merely protected against immoderate usury. it seems that, realizing that
Jews played an invaluable role as moneylenders in Christian society, Lateran iV
was careful not to ban Jewish usury completely.
After innocent iii, papal preoccupation with Jewish usury and its effects on cru-
sading continued during subsequent pontificates. Constitution 1 of Lyons i and
Constitution 26 of Lyons ii were concerned with the problem of usury in general.
so innocent iii’s thirteenth-century successors followed closely the legislation of
their predecessor with respect to Jewish lending to crusaders who were to be given
special protection from Jewish money-lending. nevertheless, Jews were also
granted the eventual right to collect the interest on debts which those crusaders
had accrued. in this the popes followed a less harsh line towards the Jews and
money-lending than many of their clergy wished.
Yet although the importance of crusades meant that popes were prepared to
grant special privileges to crusaders, thirteenth-century canonists became increas-
ingly unhappy over the distinction which popes made between crusaders and other
Christians with regard to money-lending by Jews.164 Hence the wording of
innocent iii’s general crusading letter ‘Post miserabile’ was significantly changed
when, under the slightly altered incipit ‘Per miserabilem’ it was added to the offi-
cial decretal compilation, Compilatio tertia, put together by the canonist Pietro
Collevaccino in 1209.165 whereas the original letter was concerned only that Jews
should remit interest to crusaders, the edited version, generated outside the con-
text of crusading and given universal application, enjoined Jews to remit interest to
all their debtors. Under the further revised incipit ‘Post miserabilem’, this revised
version was included in the definitive decretal collection, the Liber extra of
Raymond of Peñafort, commissioned by Gregory iX in 1230 and formally pub-
lished in 1232.166 And Raymond of Peñafort and Hostiensis made a further attempt
164 stow, ‘Papal and Royal Attitudes toward Jewish Lending in the Thirteenth Century’, 166–7.
165 3 Comp. 5.10.2, p.131. see James Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison,
London, 1969), p.76; dahan, Les Intelléctuels chrétiens et les juifs au moyen âge, p.116.
166 X.5.19.12, cols 814–15. see Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, p.215; p.222; dahan, Les intel-
lectuels chrétiens et les juifs au moyen âge, p.116; Pietro Collevaccino is also Petrus Benaventus and