Jewish Ideas about the Papacy 39
Yossipon, which referred to the pope as ‘the greatest bishop governing over all
bishops’, the pontiff is described in the words of the governor of the city—as ‘head
of the bishops’, again a direct reference to his spiritual power.56
Furthermore, as also in the Sefer Yossipon, we see the theme of papal protection
recurring, with the pope here willing to act with or without the aid of secular
powers, and even without the backing of the local clergy.57 Jews knew that the
dynamic of power which would best serve their interests was complex and that
local church leaders might well lend support to mob accusations of ritual murder
and blood libel.58 Yet when comparing the power of popes with that of the lower
orders of the clergy, they were also well aware that, if local religious authorities such
as the bishop were willing and able to protect their communities, this frequently
counted far more than theoretical statements of papal protection. of course it was
also true that Jews could sometimes rely on the protective power of secular mon-
archs and emperors. So, for example, although Theobald, Count of Blois had
ordered the burning of over thirty Jews following a charge of ritual murder in Blois
in 1171, his father-in-law, Louis Vii of France (1137–1180), subsequently stepped
in to defend his own neighbouring Jewish subjects.59 Nevertheless, such potent
figures were often—like popes—too far-removed to give active help against local
secular authorities.
in our present responsum the pope—himself far away in rome—receives a
much better press than one might expect; it is explicitly acknowledged that he is a
surer guarantor of protection than any other authority, either secular or religious.
That these same themes of papal authority and papal protection appear in legends,
popular histories, and in this rabbinic responsum, indicates that at least some
Jewish communities in medieval Europe saw the papacy as an institution for which
they could have a degree of respect and to which they might turn in times of
trouble.
56 rabbinic responsum in Teshuvot hakhme sarfat ve-lotair, ed. Muller, no.34, p.206; The Josippon,
ed. Flusser, Vol. 2, pp.33–4.
57 rabbinic responsum in Teshuvot hakhme sarfat ve-lotair, ed. Muller, no.34, p.206; The Josippon,
ed. Flusser, Vol. 2, pp.33–4.
58 The Jew in the Medieval World. A Source Book, 315–1791, ed. J. r. Marcus (New York, 1975),
p.121. For example, the Hebrew chronicler Ephraim of Bonn portrays the Cistercian abbot Bernard
of Clairvaux as an exception to the rule that in general the local clergy cannot be trusted to protect
Jews, or at least not without financial incentive. See Ephraim of Bonn, in Sefer gezerot sarfat ve-ashkenaz,
ed. A. M. Habermann (Jerusalem, 1971), p.116; Abulafia, ‘Christians and Jews in the High Middle
Ages’, p.25.
59 For a contemporary account by the chronicler Ephraim ben Jacob of the events at Blois in 1171,
see The Jew in the Medieval World, ed. Marcus, pp.127–30. For discussion of the role of Louis Vii, see
robert Chazan, ‘The Blois incident of 1171: A Study in Jewish inter-Communal organization’,
Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 36 (1968), 13–31; robert Chazan, Reassessing
Jewish Life in Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2010), p.92. For another example, see also, in the four-
teenth century, the pogroms which took place in Aragon in 1391. Henry iii of Castile, who was
worried that the scapegoating of Jewish tax collectors might damage royal finances, offered Jews some
level of protection and levied harsh penalties on towns not only to stop further violence but to make
up for losses in royal revenues. For very recent and important discussion of the events of 1391 (outside
the chronological remit of this book), see ryan Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative: Reading and
Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic (philadelphia, 2013); see also What is the Use of Jewish History?,
ed. L. S. Dawidowicz and N. Kozodoy (New York, 1992).