The Papacy and the Place of Jews in Christian Society 211
Innocent’s successors continued to issue letters about conversion. Honorius III
ruled that a certain family of Jewish converts in the diocese of Bonn be supported
by papal authority and not be disturbed over the income of the prebend they had
received until the archbishop and chapter could provide for the family in the
manner fixed by Innocent III.34 Gregory IX also issued letters on the subject.
Writing to prelates in Mainz in 1234, he ordered them to ensure that a Jewish con-
vert who had subsequently become a canon be provided with an annual income
until he could be given a benefice of equal or greater value,35 and he confirmed
that the convert and his household must be allowed to enjoy the income from this
prebend during their lifetime.36 eventually he granted the convert the living of a
vicarage,37 and insisted he be granted his legal rights.38 He affirmed that no Jew
might buy or retain in his service a baptized slave, or one who desired to be
baptized,39 and took steps to ensure that Jewish converts never regretted adopting
Christianity.40 He even wrote to converts personally, assuring them that even
though they were now Christians, they might retain whatever possessions they had
legally acquired while still Jews.41
Innocent Iv continued his predecessor’s ‘traditional’ line. In 1244 he informed
the abbot of St Denis that he had received a complaint that certain prelates, con-
trary to the Apostolic See, had dared to place the abbot and convent of Cluny
under excommunication and interdict along with their monks and churches and
to seize their property.42 They had even gone so far as to compel them—by citing
apostolic letters—to provide not only for clergy and laymen, but for certain con-
verts from Judaism and he expressed his disapproval in no uncertain terms.
Nevertheless, writing to the archbishop of Tarragona in 1245, Innocent confirmed
the decrees of James I of Aragon which ruled that any Jew or Muslim wishing to
be baptized should be able to do so freely and would lose no property or goods as
a result.43 Hence the children and relatives of the said convert could not claim his
property while he was alive and after his death only what they would have been
able to claim reasonably if he had died a Jew or pagan. In 1250 he confirmed to the
children of a French convert that Philip II Augustus had freed their father from all
34 Honorius III, ‘Cum olim venerabilis’ (15 April 1221), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.164–6; Simonsohn,
pp.115–16.
35 Gregory IX, ‘Apostolice Sedis benignitas’ (3 July 1234), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.212; Simonsohn,
p.150.
36 Gregory IX, ‘Constitutis apud Sedem’ (20 October 1234), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.212–14;
Simonsohn, pp.150–2.
37 Gregory IX, ‘Apostolice Sedis benignitas’ (27 July 1235), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.220; Simonsohn,
p.156; ‘Cum sicut asseris’ (18 May 1239), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.238; Simonsohn, pp.170–1.
38 Gregory IX, ‘Dilectus filius W.’ (13 December 1235), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.222; Simonsohn,
pp.157–8.
39 Gregory IX, ‘Nulli Judeo baptizatum’ (1227–1234), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.216; Simonsohn, p.125.
40 Gregory IX, ‘Sua nobis Newronius’ (9 May 1235), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.220; Simonsohn,
pp.155–6.
41 Gregory IX, ‘etsi universis qui’ (5 May 1236), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.222–4; Simonsohn,
pp.159–60.
42 Innocent Iv, ‘Ad audientiam nostram’ (29 January 1244), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.248; Simonsohn,
pp.179–80.
43 Innocent Iv, ‘ea que ad’ (20 August 1245), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.254–6; Simonsohn, pp.183–5.