Usury, segregation and badges
Date
1215CE
1215
In 1215 the council called by Innocent III condemned 'immoderate usury', repeated the ban on offices and ordered Jews and Saracens set apart by their clothing.
Sourced narrative
Each block is a verifiable statement. The number opens the cited page; amber or coral blocks flag tradition or contested interpretation.
7 statements
01The thirteenth-century hardening
The thirteenth century saw not only the expulsion of Jews from England but also a stiffening of the Catholic Church's attitude. In reaffirming Sicut Iudaeis, Innocent III (1198 to 1216) left no doubt about his feelings: he spoke of 'Jewish perfidy', worthy of condemnation, yet said Jews should not be severely oppressed since through them the truth of the Christian faith is shown.
The Fourth Lateran Council, which Innocent III called in 1215, dealt among much else with the Jews' place in Christian society. It condemned 'immoderate usury' (lending at excessive interest), restated the old ban on Jews holding positions of authority and stressed social segregation: in every Christian province, Jews and Saracens of either sex were to be visibly set apart from other peoples through their clothing.
The decree suggests that socializing across religious lines was common and that across much of Christian Europe Jews were indistinguishable from Christians. The prospect of a Jewish man sleeping with a Christian woman (even a prostitute) was seen as endangering Christian society's purity; a thirteenth-century Castilian code prescribed death for Jews who lived with Christian women.
02Food, badges and protection
The worry reached beyond sex. The Siete partidas of Alfonso X of Castile also barred Christians from inviting Jews to eat or drink, from accepting their invitations or from drinking wine they had made. Any social contact could breach the ideal order of Christian society, though Jewish leaders were just as uneasy about unrestrained mixing, sexual encounters above all.
The Lateran IV solution, familiar from Islamic rules for religious minorities, was distinction by dress. Secular Christian rulers carried out the vague order by requiring Jews to sew a special badge on their clothes so that they were easily recognized as Jews and thus marked as social outcasts. How far such rules were enforced is hard to tell and varied from place to place.
Though more anxious, the thirteenth-century Church remained tied to Gregory I's traditional stance. In the 1230s Pope Gregory IX defended Jews against arbitrary treatment and exploitation by secular authorities: writing to the archbishops and bishops of France he warned that certain lords tormented Jews cruelly to extract what they demanded.
Context
The canon Sicut Iudaeis non, which first appeared in the twelfth century and was repeated by nearly all later popes, restated the Augustinian balance: it prescribed an inferior place for Jews but granted them basic guarantees and legal protection. The treatment differed sharply from the Church's attitude to other religions, above all Islam, viewed as an enemy of Christendom.
§ 01Geography
Where it happened
§ 04Network
Connections
§ 05Bibliography
Further reading
Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century (New York: Hermon Press, 1966).
The Church and the Jews in the thirteenth century · recommended in Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 212
Kenneth Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
Recent, detailed overview of the Jews of medieval Latin Europe · recommended in Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 211
§ 06Apparatus
Sources on this page
- 01Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189inspect
- 02Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189inspect
- 03Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189inspect
- 04Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189inspect
- 05Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189inspect
- 06Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 189inspect
- 07Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 185; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 185inspect
- Documented evidenceAttested by contemporary evidence: texts, inscriptions, coins, papyri or archaeology.
- Scholarly reconstructionHistorians' inference from indirect evidence.
- Tradition or narrativeA literary, traditional or religious account; significant in itself, but not independently verified.
- Contested interpretationScholars explicitly disagree; see the positions in the debate.
- Illustrative reconstructionA hypothesis or visual scheme to guide reading; not a historical claim.