Download Medieval History - Anne Lucia Joan Mahoney

Anne Mahoney
Wednesday, December 1
Paper Option 1
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Whatsoever You Bind on Earth…
In the first century, Jesus gave the keys to the kingdom to Peter, making him the first
Pope. In the thirteenth century, a Pope arose who left his own important landmark in the
history of Popes. Pope Innocent III was famous for many undertakings in his eighteen
year reign, including helping get the Magna Charta signed, excommunicating King John
of England, placing England under interdict for seven years, and calling not one but two
crusades, but perhaps the project of his that best gives the modern historian a firsthand
encounter of thirteenth century Christendom is the Fourth Lateran Council and the
documents that it produced. Among many other issues, the Council addressed two
situation much discussed then and since; the role of Jews in society and the Crusades,
and the role of Jews in the Crusades.
Until the Crusades started there was relative peace between the Jews and the rest
of Christendom. It was not until Pope Urban II called the first Crusade that Anti-Semitic
feelings arose, starting with the massacre of Jews on the route to the Holy Land and
culminating in the expulsion of Jews from England, France, and much later, Spain.
Tension between Christians and Jews was one of the more pressing situations of the
thirteenth century, causing the Fourth Lateran Council to address it in as many as four
Canons; ecclesiastical rules in the Catholic Church. There were several reasons for the
developing hostility toward the Jews, one of them being that Jews were often money
lenders, because they were generally not allowed to have other jobs or hold positions of
authority. Furthermore, Christians were not allowed to lend with interest, called usury,
and Jews did. This is addressed in Canon Sixty-Seven, which states that Christians are
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“oppressed in this matter by the treachery of the Jews, so that in a short time they
exhaust the resources of the Christians” (Fourth Lateran Council). It is most likely that
debt was the real reason for the “religious” riots in which Jews were killed or expelled
from a community, ostensibly out of religious fervor but it also could be because now
the debt no longer needed to be repaid. The canon claimed that Christians were unable
to tithe, a required practice in which the churchgoer gives a certain percent of his
income to the church, because of the usury of the Jews. Anti-Semitism also was a result
of a new interest in the humanity of Jesus and his suffering on the Cross. This can be
seen in art, especially that of the crucifixion. Early depictions were neutral and did not
show much pain in Jesus’ face or body, but in the Middle Ages art and religious writings
started to focus on Christ’s human nature and depict his agony. The Jews were the
traditional perpetrators of Christ’s death, and when Urban preached against the infidel in
the east, people began to look to those closer to home, those who had the blood of the
savior on their hands.
By the year of the Fourth Lateran Council, there had been four Crusades, not
counting the Albigensian and Children’s Crusade. Pope Innocent III ended the Fourth
Lateran Council by declaring the fifth Crusade, not in a canon but a lengthy decree.
Earlier Pope Innocent had called the fourth Crusade in 1202 which ended in disaster,
the sack of Constantinople. One of the main reasons for the failure and deviation of the
fourth Crusade was the lack of money, which led to the Crusaders overcoming two
Christian cities for the Venetians to whom they were indebted. One of the cities was
Constantinople, which they not only attacked but destroyed thousands of years of
artifacts and widened the division between the Eastern and Western Church. Innocent
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III makes provisions for this deficiency in the Fourth Lateran Council for the fifth
Crusade, stating “we wish and command that patriarchs, archbishops, bishops,
abbots… diligently explain the meaning of the crusade to those committed to them,
adjuring-through the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one, only true, and eternal Godkings, dukes, princes, marquises, counts, barons, and other prominent men, as well as
cities, villages, and towns, that those who cannot go personally to the Holy Land, will
furnish a suitable number of soldiers and, for a period of three years, in proportion to
their resources, will bear the necessary expenses connected therewith for the remission
of their sins” (Fourth Lateran Council). Innocent III was trying to prevent the need for the
Crusade to borrow by encouraging the faithful to use their own resources. In return they
would receive an indulgence; the erasure of their sins. Plenary indulgences were a
common favor promised to those who went on Crusade. Innocent III even set an
example and gave funds for the cause, “30,000 pounds, besides a ship to convey the
crusaders from Rome and vicinity and 3,000 marks silver, the remnant of alms received
from the faithful…clerics, subjects as well as superiors, shall, in aid of the Holy Land
and for a period of three years, pay into the hands of those appointed by the Apostolic
See for this purpose, one twentieth part of ecclesiastical revenues” (Fourth Lateran
Council). But the fifth Crusade was not just an attempt to rectify the failure of the fourth.
Like the traveling Urban II asserting his supremacy over the anti-pope in Rome,
Innocent III was showing those kings who had questioned his power who had the real
power and loyalty of Christendom. The power struggle between Popes and Kings was
another aspect of the thirteenth century that is reflected in the canons of the Council.
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Innocent III was one of the most powerful Popes in history and with his weapon of
choice- excommunication- he won many battles with kings. The Fourth Lateran Council
that he conducted codified many aspects of Christian life and by extension thirteenth
century life in general. By addressing and documenting key issues including but not
limited to the role of Jews in society and the Crusades, the Fourth Lateran Council gave
historians important insight to thirteenth century society.
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