4 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
individuals with concerns and interests, as they made pronouncements in the
context of competing influences. Thirdly it underestimates the importance of
the changing ideas of the Christian faithful to whom papal correspondence was
addressed, at a time when the understanding of what it meant to be ‘Christian’ or
‘Jewish’ was itself still developing. Indeed popes did not pursue an overriding
‘policy’ towards Jews, let alone a ‘policy of degradation’. Rather, most papal state-
ments were responses to secular and religious authorities from a wide variety of
cultures and traditions as divergent as Spain, where there was a large Jewish popu-
lation, to the Baltic where there was minimal contact with Judaism. This is not
unusual or surprising since most papal letters during the High Middle Ages were
issued in response to petitioners, rather than as papal initiatives. Furthermore, in
their correspondence about heretics, popes were often far removed both physically
and emotionally from the specific problems on which they were called on to pro-
nounce. They frequently came to decisions by assuming the facts of a case to be as
stated by the petitioners and then asking legates or the local clergy to verify them.
Generally they were far more competent at expounding theological principles than
dealing with practicalities.
In a further attempt to simplify papal attitudes, some historians have divided
papal pronouncements into those which they believe strike a more ‘humanitarian
note’ and those issued out of ‘reasons of piety’.^12 There is considerable danger
in making such anachronistic post-enlightenment distinctions. Popes were the
product, as well as the formers, of the society around them. The idea of ‘humani-
tarian’ as distinct from ‘religious’ reasons would not have occurred to them, nor—
it is probable—to anyone else of the time. Furthermore, it is important not to
judge these popes by our own criteria for tolerance—which are produced by and
applicable to a very different social order. Medieval popes believed it was their duty
to ensure the collective good of the Catholic Church and that they had a funda-
mental loyalty, not to a modern theory of human rights, but to truth itself, which
they believed was revealed through Christianity. We can go so far as to say that
certain aspects of medieval society were tolerant, as long as we do not believe that
one form of tolerance—that of the post-modern West—is the gold standard by
which all forms of tolerance must be judged.^13
So when popes condemned attacks on the Jews they were urging Christians not
to perpetrate violence against a people—however misguided they believed them to
be—whom God had originally chosen as His own. By contrast, they had no
qualms about calling for crusades against Muslims who attacked Christian lands,
or against heretics whom they wished to bring back to the Christian faith.^14 Hence
it is no surprise to find that Pope Alexander II (1061–1073) specifically distin-
guished as just, wars waged against Muslims who attacked Christians and Christian
territory in Spain, and as unjust, violence against Jews whom Divine Mercy had
12 For the genesis of this distinction, see Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.11–12.
13 I am most grateful here to Ian Christopher Levy for his paper ‘Tolerance and Freedom in the Age
of the Inquisition’ (December 2013) given at the conference ‘Christianity and Freedom: Historical
and Contemporary Perspectives’, 12–14 December 2013, Rome, Italy.
14 John Hood, Aquinas and the Jews (Philadelphia, 1995), p.110.