Conclusion 267
Jewish activities, popes responded to their concerns. So in their dealings with
Jewish communities, popes were highly influenced by whichever party—Christian
or Jews—appealed to them first. This could result in inconsistent determinations.
The character and ages of popes was also important.5 We have seen how although
Innocent III’s ideas about the Jews were not new, his formulations and repetitions
brought a new and harder note to papal pronouncements which was sometimes
followed by his thirteenth-century successors, in particular Clement IV.6
Certainly Innocent III, autocratic, vibrant, and determined to ensure success for
his crusades, appears harsher towards the Jews than his twelfth-century predeces-
sors. In particular, his zeal for crusading fostered his views on the evil of Jewish
usury, and he tended to encourage the idea that Jews were a potential threat to
Christians.7 By contrast, letters of Honorius III and Gregory IX suggest a more
sympathetic viewpoint and in particular a wish to protect Jews against crusader
excesses, despite an ever increasing level of hostility in Christian Europe towards
Jews as manifested in the growing number of charges of blood libel, ritual murder,
and host desecration. Innocent IV’s promulgations concerning Jews in the context
of crusading were also less harsh than those of his namesake Innocent III and he
began to redefine the role of the papacy, claiming greater papal jurisdiction over
Jews, but also insisting that this entailed clemency.8
Second we have noted the relationship between papal directives, canon law, and
conciliar legislation, all of which increasingly decreed the separation of Jews and
Christians in social and political life. Which brings us to my third theme: how
papal authorization of crusades against Muslims, heretics, schismatics, and polit-
ical enemies in the context of the development of Christian theories of holy war
and just war, was fundamentally detrimental to the status of Jews as a persecuted
minority group in medieval Europe.
We have seen how individual popes thought and acted when confronted with a
wide range of competing demands from those who petitioned the curia. This has
led some historians to claim that the papacy tried to steer a ‘middle course’ of pro-
tection and restriction in their dealings with Jews.9 Yet in analysing the formation,
development, and direction of papal statements towards the Jews as an important
minority, which contemporary polemicists stigmatized as a threat to the well-being
5 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.465; p.467.
6 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, pp.99–100.
7 Innocent III, ‘Licet perfidia Judeorum’ (15 September 1199), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.92–4; Simonsohn,
pp.74–5. See Robert Chazan, ‘Pope Innocent III and the Jews’, Pope Innocent III and his World, ed. J.
C. Moore (Aldershot, 1999), pp.187–204.
8 Honorius III, ‘Sicut Iudaeis’ (7 November 1217), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.144; Simonsohn, p.102; ‘Cum
olim nobilis’ (28 January 1217), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.144; Simonsohn, p.102; ‘Dilecta in Christo’ (21 June
1219), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.150–2; Simonsohn, pp.106–7; Gregory IX, ‘Sicut Iudaeis’ (3 May 1235)
Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.218; Simonsohn, pp.154–5; ‘Lachrymabilem Judeorum in’ (5 September 1236),
Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.226–8; Simonsohn, pp.163–4; ‘Lachrymabilem Judeorum in’ (5 September 1236),
Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.228–30; Simonsohn, p.165; Innocent IV, ‘Ex parte Judeorum’ (12 June 1247),
Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.268; Simonsohn, pp.193–4; ‘Lachrymabilem Judeorum Alemannie’ (5 July 1247),
Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.268–70; Simonsohn, pp.194–5; ‘Ex parte Judeorum’ (6 July 1247), Grayzel, Vol. 1,
p.272; Simonsohn, pp.195–6; ‘Sicut Iudaeis’ (22 October 1246), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.260–2; Simonsohn,
p.189; ‘Sicut Iudaeis’ (9 July/June 1247), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.274; Simonsohn, pp.192–3.
9 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.461; p.468.