240 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
praises sung in Latin and Greek when they were mingled with the ‘inarticulate
choruses’ of the Jews at the ceremony for Calixtus.104
The next adventus ceremony was recorded by Cardinal Boso in the Liber
Pontificalis; when Eugenius iii entered Rome in December 1145 for the first time
the Roman scholae, including the schola of the Jews, came to greet him.105 At this
papal adventus the traditional laudes were replaced by a different ritual: the presen-
tation of the Torah scroll to the pope. so the Torah presentation for Eugenius
occurred along with changes in the trilingual acclamations. We have noted how
Calixtus ii’s adventus into Rome in 1120 included acclamations in Hebrew, Greek,
and Latin—acclamations previously presented to different rulers and to Leo iX.
We have also seen how innocent ii’s Easter procession in Paris in 1131 included
the Jews’ presentation of the Torah to the pope for the first time, but that this hap-
pened outside Rome.
However, with the adventus of Eugenius iii, the acclamations in Latin and
Greek were deleted from the ritual, though Jewish acclamations in Hebrew may—
we cannot be certain—have accompanied the presentation of the Torah.106 so the
Jewish schola presented him with a number of luxury items, as well as the Torah,
and possibly also acclaimed him in Hebrew.107 since after his election Eugenius
was hurriedly enthroned at the Lateran and the Commune was anti-papal, it is
unlikely that he received the traditional acclaim of Rome’s citizens at the Lateran.108
The Liber Censuum described the traditional rites that would be conducted for a
newly-elected pope at the Lateran and included a tale of Jewish desecration of an
image of Christ—a type of anti-Jewish story that began to circulate, as we have
seen, through Europe in the twelfth century along with claims of ritual murder and
host desecration.109 Yet in its description of Eugenius’s adventus of 1145 the Liber
Pontificalis recorded how the Roman Jews presented the Torah to the pope and that
presentation, the first ever in the city, added a new component to papal adventus. 110
The loyalty of the Roman Jews to Eugenius at the time of the Commune may
have led to his decision to issue the letter of protection ‘sicut iudaeis’.111 We know
that he presented the Jews of Rome with ‘sicut iudaeis’ during his adventus in
1145 to thank them for supporting him as their papal lord and to reiterate his
104 Anonymus in Vita s. Leonis, Pontificum Romanorum qui fuerunt inde ab exeunte saeculo IX usque
ad finem saeculi XIII. Vitae ab aequalibus conscriptae, ed. i. M. Watterich, Vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1862), p.vc:
‘i n cuius denique laude hinc dulcedo hebraica’; Uodalscalcus de Egino et Herimanno, ed. P. Jaffé,
MGHs 12 (Hanover, 1856), p.446: ‘nec defuere Graecorum et Latinorum concentibus confusi
iudaeorum plausus’. see Champagne, ‘Celestine iii and the Jews’, p.274.
105 Champagne, ‘Walking in the shadows of the Past’, pp.490–1.
106 Champagne, The Relationship between the Papacy and the Jews in Twelfth-Century Rome, p.143;
Twyman, Papal Ceremonial at Rome in the Twelfth Century, p.200; p.204.
107 Champagne, The Relationship between the Papacy and the Jews in Twelfth-Century Rome, p.142.
108 Champagne, The Relationship between the Papacy and the Jews in Twelfth-Century Rome, p.139.
109 Champagne, The Relationship between the Papacy and the Jews in Twelfth-Century Rome,
pp.139–40.
110 Champagne, The Relationship between the Papacy and the Jews in Twelfth-Century Rome,
pp.141–2.
111 Champagne, The Relationship between the Papacy and the Jews in Twelfth-Century Rome, p.144.