Papal Claims to Authority over Judaism 165
to be supported by them on grounds of humanity alone. If any by the inspiration of
God are converted to the Christian faith, they are in no way to be excluded from their
possessions, since the condition of converts ought to be better than before their con-
version. If this is not done, we enjoin on the princes and rulers of these places, under
penalty of excommunication, the duty to restore fully to these converts the share of
their inheritance and goods.4This decree emphasized the Church’s theological claim that Jews, the people of the
old Covenant, should not be seen in any way to exercise authority over Christians,
the people of the new, but should rather, at all times and in all places be prepared to
serve Christian society. The very promulgation of such a decree shows the papacy’s
concern to emphasize this fundamental theology, while its appearance implies that by
the second half of the thirteenth century there were Jews in parts of medieval Europe
who had the wealth, status, and confidence to employ their Christian neighbours as
servants and wet nurses and that this was causing social as well as religious tension.
Since popes took great pains to ensure that decrees of lateran councils were en-
forced, it is not surprising that this piece of fundamental ‘theology’ was subsequently
repeated in a number of papal letters, not only by Alexander III, who affirmed that
Jews must not employ Christians in their homes,5 but later by Innocent III who
frequently complained about the unsuitableness of Christians serving Jews,6 on two
occasions specifically concerning himself with the employment of Christian wet
nurses.7 Such complaints were part of his wider unease about the role Jews played
in Christian society.
Hence after the expulsion of the Jews and their subsequent return to France in
1197, Innocent III drew on Canon 26 of lateran III when he declared in a letter
to the archbishop of Sens and the bishop of Paris that he had heard reports that
Jews in France were variously and deliberately insulting the Christian faith by for-
cing Christian nurses to express their milk into the latrine for three days after re-
ceiving Christ’s body and blood at Easter before being allowed to nurse Jewish
children, and more generally about the behaviour of these Jewish communities
which he deemed inappropriate to their theologically designated servile status:8
4 Tanner, Vol. 1, pp.223–4: ‘Iudaei sive Sarraceni nec sub alendorum puerorum obtentu nec pro
servitio nec alia qualibet causa, christiana mancipia in domibus suis permittantur habere. Excommu-
nicentur autem qui cum eis praesumpserint habitare. Testimonium quoque christianorum adversus
Iudaeos in omnibus causis, cum illi adversus christianos testibus suis utantur, recipiendum esse cense-
mus, et anathemate decernimus feriendos, quicumque Iudaeos christianis voluerint in hac parte prae-
ferre, cum eos subiacere christianis oporteat et ab eis pro sola humanitate foveri. Si qui praeterea Deo
inspirante ad fidem se converterint christianam, a possessionibus suis nullatenus excludantur, cum
melioris conditionis conversos ad fidem esse opporteat quam, antequam fidem acceperunt, habebantur.
Si autem secus factum fuerit, principibus vel potestatibus eorumdem locorum sub poena excommuni-
cationis iniungimus, ut portionem hereditatis et bonorum suorum ex integro eis faciant exhiberi.’
5 Alexander III, ‘Quia super his’ (1159–1179), Simonsohn, p.50.
6 Innocent III, ‘Etsi necesse sit’ (20/25 May 1199), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.90; Simonsohn, p.74; ‘non
decet eos’ (20 January 1205), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.110; Simonsohn, p.84; ‘non minus pro’ (5 May 1205),
Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.112; Simonsohn, pp.85–6; ‘Etsi Judeos quos’ (15 July 1205), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.114–
16; Simonsohn, pp.86–8; ‘ut esset Cain’ (17 January 1208), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.126–30; Simonsohn,
pp.92–4.
7 Innocent III, ‘Etsi Judeos quos’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.114–16; Simonsohn, pp.86–8; ‘ut esset Cain’,
Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.126–30; Simonsohn, pp.92–4.
8 Innocent III, ‘Etsi Judeos quos’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.114–16; Simonsohn, pp.86–8.