Download "Servi regis" Re

HISPANIA JUDAICA BULLETIN
Articles, Reviews, Bibliography and Manuscripts on Sefarad
Editors: Yom Tov Assis and Raquel Ibáñez-Sperber
No 4 5764/2004
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies
Contents
Editorial
1
Articles
JOSEPH YAHALOM, Andalusian Poetics and the Work of
El‘azar ben Ya‘aqov of Baghdad
ILAN SHOVAL, “Servi regis” Re-Examined: On the Significance
of the Earliest Appearance of the Term in Aragon, 1176
NADIA ZELDES, The Queen’s Property: Isabel I and the Jews and
Converts of the Sicilian Camera Reginale after the 1492 Expulsion
JOSÉ R. AYASO, The Site of the Judería of Granada According to
Christian Sources: Facts and Myths
3
Dossier: Judeo-Iberian Languages
5
22
70
86
103
DAVID M. BUNIS, Distinctive Characteristics of Jewish Ibero-Romance,
Circa 1492
ALDINA QUINTANA AND I. S. RÉVAH (posthumous), A Sephardic Mahzor
for the Holidays with Ritual Prescriptions in Aragonese Romance
MERIXELL BLACO ORELLANa, A Manuscript from the XVth Century
in Hebrew-Aragonese Script (JNUL, Yah.Ms.Heb.242)
152
Book Reviews and Abstracts of Books Received
167
Bibliography and Manuscripts
Sefarad
Al-Andalus
Crown of Aragon
Crown of Castile
Navarre
Portugal
Culture
Conversos, Polemics and Inquisition
Contemporary Spain and Portugal
Manuscripts on Polemics
189
191
199
203
207
210
210
214
224
234
243
Guidelines to Authors
260
105
138
Ilan Shoval
“Servi regis” Re-Examined: On the Significance
of the Earliest Appearance of the Term in Aragon, 1176
Ilan Shoval
From the High Middle Ages onwards, Jews were designated in various European
kingdoms as “servi regis”. The appearance of the new term in order to regulate the
political and legal status of the Jews, has been acknowledged by many historians
as crucial for the examination of Jewish existence in High and Later Medieval
Europe, and therefore has been discussed repeatedly in modern research.1
Historians and scholars from other disciplines who dwelt on different specific
aspects of the Jews’ existence in Medieval Europe, attached considerable weight
to the appearance of the term, and accepted unanimously its first and earliest
appearance in Europe, in the kingdom of Aragon, in a legal compilation (Forum/
Fuero), granted by King Alfonso II to the municipality of Teruel in the year 1176.
One of the laws in this compilation refers thus to the Jews: “Let everyone be
informed that the Jew has no part in his levy, due to injury or due to death caused
by misadventure, the levy is held by the king. For the Jews are the slaves of the
king, ever belonging to the royal fisc”.2
In spite of broad consent among scholars regarding the earliest appearance of
the term “servi regis” in Aragon, it was nevertheless its appearance in the Holy
Roman Empire that engaged scholars in the nineteenth century, and most of the
scholars in the twentieth.
Within the framework of modern research, commencing in the nineteenth
century, determinants to the application of the term as well as interpretations of its
significance were offered in an ongoing effort to decipher its meaning. Among
these, scholars had put forward legislative initiatives contrived by the German
Emperor, as well as influences from the sphere of ecclesiastical law on secular
1
2
S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed., New York 1967, vol.
XI, p. 4, has asserted that “... crucial for the understanding of the entire Jewish position
in the medieval world is the institution of Jewish serfdom”.
F. Aznar y Navarro (transcripción y estudio preliminar), Forum Turolii: Colección de
documentos para el estudio de la historia de Aragón, II, Madrid-Teruel-Zaragoza 1905,
art. 425, p. 228: “Set est sciendum quod iudeus non habet partem in sua calumpnia sive
sit percussionis sive homicidii quia est domini Regis tota. Nam iudei servi regis sunt
et semper fisco regio deputati”.
[Hispania Judaica *4 5764/2004]
[22]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
legislation. Polarity characterized these interpretations, as they shifted between
representation of the term as intended to humiliate the Jews on the one hand, and
as a legal institution designed to protect them, primarily as an imperial obligation,
on the other. In the mid-twentieth century, a couple of perspectives regarding the
appearance of the term in Germany and its interpretation prevailed. G. Kisch‘s
stand, pointed out the contradiction between the conditions in which the Jews lived
at the time of the Carolingian Empire, and those in which their existence was
allowed within Christian society in the course of the High Middle Ages. Kisch
stressed the deterioration in their status in the later period. On the other hand, there
was S. Baron’s view, who argued that an improvement in their status occurred.3
Y. F. Baer concluded in his analysis, that owing to the remarkable similarity
between the Hispanic and other European kingdoms appertaining to the motive
behind the appearance of the term in Iberia, its primordial display has no relevance.
In spite of being aware of the first appearance of the term “servi regis” in Spain,
Baer adhered to the predominating concept, and argued that a reality existed in
Spain which resembled that which prevailed in other European kingdoms, and
therefore affirmed that Spain’s rulers resembled other European rulers in applying
the term “servi regis” upon the Jews.4 Baer regarded the stimulus to applying the
judicial term upon the Jews in Spain to be unequivocally the theological one, a
stimulus already proposed by scholars concerning its display in Germany. Baer
defined the term “servi regis” as “... a principle followed directly from the teaching
of the Church Fathers through which the Jews were doomed to eternal servitude”.5
The emphasis laid in the discussion upon Germany, had a compelling impact
on the research dedicated to analyse the appearance of the term in different
European kingdoms. S.W. Baron bears the responsibility for a sweeping generalization which derived from his analysis of the coinage “servi regis” in Germany.6
3
4
5
6
An extensive and detailed survey of modern research on Jewish servitude, from the 19th
century to the 80s’ of the 20th, was published by G. I. Langmuir in 1980, ‘Tanquam
Servi: The Change in Jewish Status in French Law about 1200’, in M. Yardeni, ed.,
Les Juifs dans l’histoire de France, Leiden 1980, pp. 24-54. See also G. Kisch, The
Jews in Medieval Germany, Chicago 1949, pp. 135-139; 307.
Some of the scholars have completely ignored the archetypal display of the term in
Aragon. Our interest lays in the attitude of those who did relate to its appearance in the
Iberian peninsula. Baer wrote: “But generally speaking, the Jews in Spain as in all of
Christian Europe, were regarded as the personal property of the king”, A History of the
Jews in Christian Spain, I, Philadelphia 1961, p. 85.
Ibid.
S. W. Baron, ‘Plenitude of Apostolic Powers and Medieval Jewish Serfdom’, Ancient
and Medieval Jewish History, L. A. Feldman, ed., New Jersey, 1972, pp. 287-307. See
ibid., ‘Medieval Nationalism and Jewish Serfdom’, in op. cit., pp. 308-322.
[23]
Ilan Shoval
Baron claimed that intrinsic similarity manifested on that score in the institutions
governing Jewish life in medieval Europe was discernible to any observer. The
appearance of the term in other kingdoms excluding Germany, was explained by
Baron as counterstatements to German imperial demands, and the latter as a
counteraction to Papal ordinances demanding plenitude of Apostolic powers.
Baron related to the first appearance of the term in Spain, but that did not lead him
to modify the common concept with respect to the term.
An apparent modification of the German-centred concept was suggested with
the resumption in the last two decades of the twentieth century, of the discussion
on the subject of “Jewish servitude”. G. I. Langmuir re-examined the different
attitudes towards the subject in the course of 150 years of research.7 He indicated
a couple of grave difficulties as a result of the research as a whole. A crucial pitfall
was according to Langmuir, the anachronism caused by the absence of the indispensable distinction between modern and medieval interpretation of judicial
terminology. A further error was the failure to discover why the Jews were legally
defined as they were in different areas of Europe. Langmuir opposed the use of
German conditions as archetypical of the status of the Jews everywhere, a usage
re-occurring in research in spite of conspicuous discrepancies.
Langmuir challenged the sweeping generalizations made by scholars who saw
a prototype in the formulation of the Jews’ legal status in different European
kingdoms, an attitude ascribed particularly to S. W. Baron. Langmuir suggested to
study the term “servi regis” separately in different areas within the distinctive
social, legal, economic, religious and cultural contexts prevailing in each of the
European kingdoms. His suggestion was based on the clear apprehension that every
time the term appeared, there is a need to examine the relevant historical context.
Langmuir aptly dedicated part of his own research to a revised study of the status
of the Jews in France, and exposed an idiosyncratic description of the use made
in that kingdom of the term “servi regis” with respect to the Jews.8 Possibly due
to his concentration on the French case, Langmuir alluded to its Iberian appearance
only incidentally and as a consequence prolonged the tradition which had ignored
the possible significance of the appearance of the term for the first time in the
Iberian Peninsula.
7
8
G. Langmuir, ‘Tanquam servi’, pp. 24-28.
Ibid., ‘Judei nostri and the beginning of Capetian Legislation’, Traditio XVI (1960),
pp. 203-239.
[24]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
A. Patschovsky published an article on the subject in 1993.9 Patschovsky, who
demarcated even more sharply than Langmuir the historical data related to the
Iberian appearance of the term “servi regis”, underlined the evolution in that region.
Like Langmuir before, he sought to distinguish the idiosyncratic evolution of the
legal term in the various European kingdoms. This author argued that only through
a comparative approach could a coherent and comprehensive interpretation of the
term be well established. With respect to Germany he prescribed differing approaches to pursue the appearance of the term, than those suggested by previous
scholars, mainly G. Kisch. Patschovsky underlined the necessity to enquire into the
gradual transition in proprietary relationship in Europe around 1200, from the
personal sphere to the almost absolutely rational and abstract sphere. He also
suggested to consider the context of changing proprietary rights under renascent
Roman law in the course of its integration into customary law, as the background
to the appearance of the term “servi regis” relating to the Jews. Patschovsky
indicated the first appearance of the term “servi regis” with respect to the Jews in
Aragon in 1176, and also observed that the Muslims as well were included under
the same term. Patschovsky even offered an explanation to that phenomenon and
argued that the reality of the Jews and Muslims being named collectively as “servi
regis”, “... suggests the origins of Jewish serfdom in the Spanish realms”. “It
appears to be”, he added, “a consequence of the Reconquista”, and is based “simply
on the right of the conqueror”.10 Despite this, Patschovsky returned to the prominent German legal formulation under Frederick II and elucidated it, this time using
the transition in proprietary relationship.11
9
A. Patschovsky, ‘Das rechtsverhältnis der Juden zum deutschen König (9.-14.
Jahrhundert): Ein europäischer Vergleich’, Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, CXXIII
(1993), pp. 331-371; English trs., ‘The Relationship between the Jews of Germany and
the King (11th-14th Centuries): A European Comparison’, A. Haverkamp and H. Vollrath,
eds., England and Germany in the High Middle Ages, Oxford 1996, pp. 193-218. I
would like to thank Prof. M. Toch for referring me to Patschovsky’s article, as well
as for his encouragement to re-examine the institution of Jewish serfdom as a Mediterranean phenomenon.
10 Ibid., p. 210.
11 Ibid., p. 211. Patschovsky claims that, “we do not know how far the example of Spain
influenced other parts of Europe”. Furthermore he states, “… it is not actually necessary
to ask this question because the term was obviously first used in Spain for something
that had long been a reality in the realms succeeding the Carolingian empire”. If I
understand correctly, it differed from the reality prevalent in Germany under Frederick
II. A crucial question according to Patschovsky is, “If the chamber-serfdom of the Jews
was not new in Europe when it was asserted by Frederick II …. when did all the Jews
indiscriminately become serfs of the royal Chamber in Germany?”.
[25]
Ilan Shoval
It appears that the larger part of the references to the term “servi regis” in the
context of Jewish history fell into two categories, namely the descriptions of
scholars who attributed notable importance to the theological motive such as Baer,
and those who pointed out to the roots presumably found in the changing proprietary relationship alone, as a clarification of the term such as Patschovsky. Other
scholars associated the term with the transformation that occurred in the status of
the Jews, defining them as part of Christian society contrary to their previous
distinctness as “The others” (such as Kisch, Baron), and yet other scholars who
delved into the literal stem of the terminology. However it appears that none of
these studies detected the significance of the fact that it actually appeared for the
first time in a compilation of law granted to the inhabitants of the city of Teruel
in the realm of Aragon, in 1176.12
D. Abulafia’s article published in 2000, addressed the Teruel formula of Jewish
servitude with a new approach. The comparison between Jews and Muslims with
respect to that formula constitutes a considerable step ahead. Abulafia emphasized
the differences between various uses of the term “servi regis” in the European
kingdoms. He delved into the meaning of servitude when applied to Jews and
Muslims; simultaneously presented a comprehensive description of the Mediterranean scene regarding the term, complementary to the central European one, and
concluded that the “servitude” of Jews and Muslims was indeed sui generis. When
referring to its origins and diffusion, Abulafia suggested reference to Norman
territories in southern Italy and Sicily as a starting point, and related to the Teruel
formula as a possible foreign import.13 Again the emphasis was shifted from Teruel
elsewhere.
Though my particular focus in this study is on just one critical interpretation of
the term “servi regis”, it is a part of a more comprehensive study which attempts
12
Even from the standpoint of Ibero-Jewish historiography, a similar attitude can be
traced. The Spanish historian, A. Blasco Martínez, who surveyed in an article published
in the early 90s’ the state of research concerning Aragonese Jewry, concluded that “...
unless proved otherwise, the general lines of Jewish history in High Medieval Kingdom
of Aragon as portrayed by Y. Baer remain unaltered. As far as the history of the Jews
in that kingdom during the 12th to 14th centuries is concerned, it is unjustified and even
unrecommended to suggest new commentary on already studied archival material”.
Instead, Blasco Martínez recommends “An exhaustive and thorough collection of all
existing documentation pertaining to the Jews in Aragon in that period”. See ibid., ‘La
investigación sobre los judíos del reino de Aragón: estado de la cuestión’, Miscelánea
de Estudios árabes y Hebraicos 42 (1993), pp. 77-78.
13 D. Abulafia, ‘The Servitude of Jews and Muslims in the Medieval Mediterranean:
Origins and Diffusion’, Mélanges de l’école française de Rome, Moyen Âge 112 (2000),
pp. 701; 709.
[26]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
to propose a totally different approach.14 Whether theological motives which are
connected to a proprietary relationship are applied, or the term “servi regis” is
associated with the nature of the Jews’ immunity, or linked up with deterioration
or improvement in their status, in each of these cases, there exists in the Aragonese
appearance of the term, a justification for a new perspective through which to
examine it.
That new perspective reclines conceptually and methodologically on implementing devices which were already introduced in different research fields, and
which were accorded remarkable relevance by scholars with respect to medieval
studies in general, and to the Spanish Reconquista in particular. At the core of the
concept lies a careful examination of the divergence from the prevalent pattern,
when frontier regions are studied.15
The conceptual framework of the “frontier regions”, often used by medievalists
as a revised version of J. F. Turner’s thesis, enables the re-examination of long
established historiographical paradigms. Frontier regions appeared to consist of
polarized tensions, as a result of which, different manifestations than those characteristic to the hindermost parts of the continent have appeared.16
14 This essay is based on a chapter included in my dissertation, entitled ‘Jews and Muslims
as ‘Servi Regis’ in the Kingdom of Aragon, 1076-1176: A Comparative Study of NonChristians in a Medieval Frontier Society’ submitted to the Senate of the Hebrew
University, 2002 (Hebrew).
15 A synthesis of the present research on Aragonese frontier society during the twelfth
century is part of my dissertation. It have shown that a variety of historiographical
themes, examined within the conceptual framework of frontier regions, can be interpreted differently. Such was the case with regard to the process of colonization, to the
evolving of a society organized for war, to urban intertwined with legislative development, to the history of mentality, to cultural change, to constitutional evolution and to
inter-religious relationship. I list here only the most recent bibliographical items
relating to the variety of aspects mentioned. The items, organized chronologically, do
not cover the ever growing research carried out in the framework of frontier methodology. Ph. Sénac, ‘Islam et Chrétienté dans l’Espagne du haut Moyen Âge: la naissance
d’une frontière’, Studia Islamica 89 (1999), pp. 85-105; ibid., La Frontière et les
hommes (VIIIe-XIIe siècles): Le peuplement musulman au nord de l’Ebre et les débuts
de la reconquète aragonaise, Paris 2000.
16 In my dissertation I have shown the implementation of this conceptual framework and
methodology with reference to the following four components: A possible etymological explanation to the origin of the term “servi regis“, the term and its relation to the
debate on aggravation-amelioration in the status of the Jews, and finally the appearance
of the term as a consequence of transforming proprietary relationship. An attempt has
been made at demonstrating how the Aragonese appearance of the term turns relevant
whilst referring to questions and to interpretations of motives, identical to those aroused
or suggested to the application of the term “servi regis“, in previous research.
[27]
Ilan Shoval
In the frontier regions of the Reconquista there existed yet another non-Christian population, which was also referred to as “servi regis” — the Muslims, who
came alongside the Jews under Christian rule during the Reconquista. With the
apparent similarities between the two groups, I suggest that a comparative approach
applied to the status of Jews and Muslims in this context might be relevant to the
historical research of the institution of “Jewish servitude”.17
The theological determinant stood for a long time as a central interpretation, and
was frequently suggested by scholars. However, it may be clarified differently, by
way of its examination within the conceptual framework of “frontier regions”, and
through the implementation of a comparative methodology.
Baer formulated the theological motive as the crucial motive refering to the
appearance of the term “servi regis” to denote the Jews’ legal status in the Iberian
Kingdoms. His argument that the origins of the term “servi regis” are to be found
in the longstanding theological conflict between Christianity and Judaism, cannot
be perceived verbally, since the conflict was identified by Baer as already existent
in fourth century patristic thought. This identification is hardly sufficient to trace
the circumstances of High Medieval Europe.
The theological perspective, which viewed the oppression of the Jews and their
prolonged exile as a religiously interpreted historical and political reality, had
indeed its origins already in the Apostolic age, in St. Paul’s writings in particular.18
It was found in the phrasing of the early Church Fathers,19 and it crystallized in St.
Augustine, who claimed that the Jews were destined to eternal servitude (“Perpetua
servitus”) for their rejection of the Gospel, and because of the role they allegedly
played in the crucifixion of Christ. Until the end of days, whence Christian
eschatology forecasted their conversion, the Jews were condemned to a status of
displacement and humiliating subordination.20
17
There are several comparative studies on Jews and Muslims, within the conceptual
framework of European frontier regions such as Spain, Sicily and the Crusader Kingdoms of the East. With respect to Jewish servitude, the latest attempt for a comparative
study was made by Abulafia, ‘The Servitude of Jews and Muslims’, see above, n. 13.
18 In Gal. 4: 22-31, Paul opposed the children of the freewoman and the children of Agar,
the bondmaid, as well as Heavenly Jerusalem with Jerusalem which is now in bondage,
thus implying to the Christians and the Jews.
19 The motive of the elder brother, Esau’s servitude to the younger brother Jacob, which
emanated from the biblical expression “And the older shall serve the younger” (Gen.
25: 23), appeared in Justin Martyr in the 2nd century, in Cyprian’s Testimoniorum libri
tres adversus Judaeos, (PL 4, col. 716) in the 3rd century, and later in Isidore of Seville
(Isidorus Hispalensis, Quaestiones in Genesin, PL 83, col. 255), in the 7th century.
20 Augustinus, Sermones, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 41, ed., Cyrillus Lambot,
Sermo 5, pp. 53-55.
[28]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
Baer was not the first scholar who considered the term “servi regis” in the
Middle Ages inseparable from its theological roots. S. Cassel had already suggested
this same idea in the mid nineteenth century, defining it as an obvious expression
of canonic law influence on secular legislation. Cassel argued that only after the
ongoing process of christianization in Europe, the confirmation of papal prestige,
an organization of ecclesiastical hierarchy under papal authority and the codification of Canon Law, did theological ideas influence the secular status of the Jews.21
Other historians followed Cassel in pleading central influence to the theological
motive, notably Kisch in his analysis of the German manifestation of the term.22
Unlike Baer who did not explain how the term “servi regis” shifted from the
theological to the secular sphere, other scholars who examined its appearance
particularly in Germany, presented their arguments regarding the conflict’s expressions, in concrete historical circumstances. These scholars relied in their interpretations mainly on the appearance in the Decretals compilation published by Pope
Gregory IX, in 1234 and integrated subsequently into ecclesiastical Law, of the
term “perpetua servitus” with respect to the Jews.23 The appearance for the first
time of the term “servi camerae” with reference to Jews in Frederick II’s imperial
edict, only two years later, in 1236, led scholars to conclude that the theological
concept of Jewish servitude transferred from the canonic legislative sphere to the
21 S. Cassel, ‘Juden (Geschichte)’, in Ersch und Gruber, Allgemeine Encyklopädie der
Wissenschaften und Künst, 2 sek., vol. 27, Leipzig 1850, pp. 83-85.
22 G. Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany, New York 1970, pp. 129-135. The theological motive weighed considerably in Kisch’s analysis, although it was not the only
motive.
23 The compilation of Decretals issued by Gregory IX included Decretals from the post
Gratian period in mid 12th century to the days of Gregory IX himself. The Decretal
indicating the Jews’ servitude pertained to Pope Innocent III, and dated July 1205,
whence it was addressed as an Epistle to the Archbishop of Sens, Petrus de Corbeil and
to the Bishop of Paris, Odo de Sully. See E. Freidberg and E. L., Richter, eds., Corpus
Iuris Canonici, 2nd edn., Leipzig, 1879-1881, (Reed., 2 vols. Graz 1959), 2, Lib. V, tit.
VI, c. 13. See also S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews, Toronto 1991, p.
17: “Whereas Christian pity accepts the Jews and allows them to dwell in their [the
Christian’s] midst, who [the Jews] by their own guilt, are subject to perpetual servitude,
because they crucified the lord, who their own prophets had predicted would come in
the flesh to redeem Israel …”. It is worthy to note the pope’s observation concerning
the Muslims, saying that, “Although because of their perfidia even the Sarracens, who
persecute the Catholic faith, nor believe in the one crucified by them [the Jews], cannot
suffer them, and had even expelled them from their territory, vehemently exclaiming
against us for tolerating those by whom, as we openly admit, our redeemer was
condemned to the suffering of the Cross …”. It appears that Innocent III recounted
expulsions of Jews from Muslim Spain by the Almohades.
[29]
Ilan Shoval
secular was through the papal decree, which spread rapidly. Indeed in the 13th
century, at the height of papal supremacy and the reinforcement of ecclesiastical
Law, the theological concept of “Jewish servitude” acquired unprecedented political and judicial validity, yet even in such circumstances, the explanation of
conceptual transference from one sphere to another, appears to be hardly acceptable. Its weakness is testified by the fact that the concept of Jewish servitude in the
German legal compilations of the 13th century, was mentioned in a historiographic
rather than theological context. These compilations attest to a connection between
the fate of the Jews as a consequence of the ruin of the Jerusalem Temple, and the
Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus, a connection designed above all to emphasize the German emperor’s sovereignty over the Jews, not the implementation of
the Christian theological concept.24 Accordingly scholars pointed out another
motive for the appearance of the term “servi regis” with regard to the Jews,
departing from the pure theological motive, which represents the theological
concept as a device at the hand of the Papacy to claim plenitude of power over the
Jews as a part of its struggle with the secular authority.25
As for the kingdom of Aragon in the 12th century, there exists no circumstantial
evidence showing theological or canonic influence on secular legislation. Further
more, in the 12th century, when the term “servi regis” appeared for the first time
in Aragon, the theological doctrine of “perpetua servitus” indeed became popular
and key ecclesiastical thinkers employed it in their treatises. So did Peter the
Venerable (1092-1156), and Bernard de Clairvaux (1090-1153). At that period,
however, phrases relating to Jewish servitude were interpreted spiritually, and the
doctrine has not yet been translated from the theological sphere to the secular
political-judicial sphere of Jewish existence under Christian rule. In this state of
affairs another non-Christian population, that of the Muslims, was also designated
as “servi regis”.
24
On Eike von Repgow, author of the Saxenspiegel, and his usage of the “Legenda
Aurea”, see I. J. Yuval, ‘The Correlative Image: Yavneh and Rome’, in O. Limor, ed.,
Jews and Christians in Western Europe: Encounter between Cultures in the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance, Unit 8, vol. IV, Images of the Past, The Open University
of Israel, Tel Aviv 1997 pp. 365-371 (Hebrew).
25 This explanation which was put forward by S. W. Baron, in his article ‘Plenitude of
Apostolic Powers’, stressed the efforts made by the German emperor to make the Jews
totally dependent on imperial protection, as a reaction to papal legislation which
demanded ecclesiastical rights to rule over the Jews. Baron relied on the fact that
according to Christian theological concept, it would have been presumed evident that
the Jews would be subjected to the vicar of Christ, the pope. See Baron, ‘Medieval
Nationalism and Jewish Serfdom’, pp. 311-314; J. Parkes, The Jew in the Medieval
Community, New York 1976, Ch. 4, pp. 101-154.
[30]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
We can ask therefore, how is it that despite the profound difference in the
theological background between Christianity and Judaism, on the one hand, and
between Christianity and Islam on the other, a significant resemblance reveals
itself? How is it that similar legal and political manifestations are revealed in the
phenomenon of Jewish and Muslim subjugation to Christian rule? The theological
determinant must be posed at the onset of the theme, not at its conclusion. Baer
did not explain how the term was transferred from the theological sphere to the
secular. Likewise, Baer and other historians who emphasized the theological
motive behind the term “servi regis” as related to the Jews, did not examine
analogically the relationship between Christianity and Islam due to the absence of
a theological determinant characteristic in it as in the relationship that the Christian
Church had with Judaism.
However, it is impossible to ignore the theological determinant in both cases.
In the course of this essay I hope to point out various characteristics which are
applicable to define parallels between Judaism and Islam in Christian eyes, and
which might grant validity to the relevance of the Aragonese background of that
determinant. A great deal can be deduced from the reality current in the frontier
kingdom of Aragon at the time of the appearance of the term “servi regis”,
regarding the reciprocal influences of canonic and secular legislation, with respect
to Jews and Muslims. The first appearance of the term “servi regis” contributes to
the interpretation of the theological stimulus since such a coincidence enables study
of the Church’s attitude towards the term applied to the Jews in the light of a
comparison with another religious conflict, and is again uniquely characteristic of
twelfth century reconquest frontier regions.
In Aragon, a new and acute theological conflict was added to the old theological
conflict between Christianity and Judaism, that is between Christianity and Islam,
which caused later on, among other causes, a shift in the Catholic Church’s attitude
toward Judaism and Jews. Furthermore, in reaction to the peculiar reality of frontier
regions during the Reconquista, the Church incorporated Jews and Muslims ever
more systematically in legislative aspects, as a consequence of the secular ruler’s
incorporation of the two groups into the econquered territories.
The Papacy, the Church and the King in Aragon, 1076-1176
The reform of the Papacy of the mid 11th century and most of the 12th, can be
described as an institution promoting its status rapidly by means of internal
uniformity, reorganization and intensive christianization efforts. The measure of
classifying Christian society as opposed to the “Other”, the foreigner, although
starting to emerge sporadically at that period, has not yet been implemented
[31]
Ilan Shoval
operatively, through canonic legislation. Its implementation became manifested
only from the 13th century onwards in secular legislation as well.26 Notwithstanding
the fact that the Church emphasized during that period the Crusade against the
unbelievers as a central joint objective to ecclesiastic and secular rulers, no significant wide scale missionary efforts were carried out.
In the process of expansion Catholic Europe went through during the High
Middle Ages, and in the Spanish Reconquista as an integral part of that expansion,
stood out the reform of the Church led by popes since mid 11th century, notably
by Pope Gregory VII. An important aim of the reform was to strengthen Europe’s
religious uniformity through the Crusades, by appointing suitable men to ecclesiastic offices and through the implementation of uniform Roman liturgy. The
Monastic Orders, that of Cluny in the 11th century and especially that of Citeaux
in the 12th, created due to their subordination to Rome, and the mutual dependence
of the Orders, a kind of administrative network. The institutional reforms, accompanied by an unprecedented level of international organization, of “legal and
institutional blueprints or models which were easily exportable and adaptable but
also resistant”, as R. Bartlett described them, contributed to the success of European expansion.27
Absolute subordination of local Churches to Roman supremacy was among the
important features of the age of Reform. In the northern European Kingdoms this
was achieved through co-operation with the local aristocracy, often jointly against
imperial power. To that was added a reciprocal combination of interests between
the Papacy and belligerant aristocracies, in waging holy war against the Muslims,
whether in the Holy Land or in Spain. In the frontier regions circumstances appear
26
The Jews, who were the only tolerated religious minority in a society aspiring to utmost
homogeneity, were seen as delineating the borders of belief, as the complete opposite
of convenience and social order. In the frontier regions of Iberia, the Muslim minority
should be considered alongside the Jews, and so should be the heretics, against whom
the Church went on a struggle. Even the variety within the Catholic Church itself, of
different monasteries, Military Orders and liturgies, had significant effect on the
Papacy’s procedure in front of the “Other”. See G. Constable, ‘The Diversity of
Religious Life and Acceptance of Social Pluralism in the Twelfth Century’, D. Beales
and G. Best eds., History, Society and the Churches, Cambridge 1985, pp. 29-47.
27 R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe, pp. 309-312. The models of organization, which
used to be more diversified and local during the early Middle Ages, became rather
uniform in urban surroundings, in the universities and particularly in the Church during
the High Middle Ages. Bartlett also pointed out that while in the interior regions of the
continent a process of uniformity has occurred, in the outlying areas the same forces
erected starker cultural boundaries: “the extremities of Europe experienced the process
of homogenization as a process of polarization”. Ibid., p. 313.
[32]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
to have developed differently. Reform popes from mid 11th century, especially
Gregory VII, were not only unfamiliar with local aristocracies in these areas, but
also found the kings more reliable allies in executing their strategy. In correspondence with these rulers in the extremities of Europe, reform popes were mindful to
ensure papal sovereignty over their kingdoms, to enforce with the rulers’ support
liturgical uniformity, and above all to reconstruct with their assistance the ecclesiastic infrastructure, and to appoint the clergy in territories reconquered from the
infidels.28
The period between the second half of the 11th century and the early 13th, was
a period of transition in the history of the Aragonese Church and in the relations
between the Papacy and that kingdom. The very process of Aragon’s politicalorganizational composition was closely connected to the Holy See at Rome.
Coordination became prevalent in this period between papal reform tendencies, and
the political necessities of the Aragonese kings.
The Papacy claimed cognizance in Roman supremacy over the Aragonese
Church, its organization, the appointment of its clergy and the division of real
property taken from Muslim hands with the advance of conquests. Aragonese kings
themselves needed papal recognition in their kingdom and its shifting unifications
with other Iberian political entities, frequently in opposition to rival Christian
kings. They depended on papal encouragement of Christians north of the Pyrenees,
to render military assistance in the Reconquista and to lend support in colonizing
the vast occupied territories. Aragonese kings leaned heavily on north European
Monastic Orders, apart from local ones, for military purposes, defence, settlement
and administrative organization of conquered territories.29 Not least important was
28 Ibid., pp. 247-248. Bartlett sketched according to papal correspondence, the appeals
made by the popes to aristocrats in northern Europe, and compared them to appeals
made to the Slavic, Irish and Spanish frontiers, in which correspondence was made
solely with the kings.
29 In general see J. E. Martínez Ferrando, ‘Estado actual de los estudios sobre la repoblación
en los territorios de la Corona de Aragón (siglos XII-XIV)’, VII Congreso de Historia
de la Corona de Aragón, (1-6 octubre), Barcelona 1962, pp. 143-184; Actas del
Coloquio sobre la Reconquista y Repoblación de los Reinos Hispánicos: Estado de la
cuestión de los últimos cuarenta años. V Asamblea General de la Sociedad Española
de Estudios Medievales, (Jaca, 1988), Zaragoza 1991. Settlement charters granted to
French in particular, see M. L. Ledesma Rubio, Cartas de población del Reino de
Aragón en los siglos medievales, Zaragoza 1991. On the French massive settlement in
Aragon, see J. M. Lacarra, ‘Los franceses en la reconquista y repoblación del valle del
Ebro en tiempos de Alfonso el Batallador’, Cuadernos de Historia. Anexos a Hispania,
Madrid 2 (1968), pp. 65-80; ibid., ‘Acerca de la atracción de pobladores en las ciudades
fronterizas de la España cristiana (siglos XI-XII)’, En la España medieval: Estudios
[33]
Ilan Shoval
the piety the Aragonese kings shared with other monarchs of the time and their
determination to integrate into the Roman Catholic world under papal leadership.
They also used the Papacy as a mean to control and restrain the local Church.
The examination of the relationship between the Papacy, the Aragonese king
and the Aragonese Church from mid 11th century to the early 13th, reveals the
following concrete circumstantial picture. Within the framework of the reform
initiated by the Papacy in the Catholic Church commencing from mid 11th century,
the Holy See’s intervention in the domestic affairs of the kingdom of Aragon both
ecclesiastic as well as political, was much increased. The kingdom’s rulers consented and frequently even encouraged this intervention for reasons of religious
piety, but mainly for political considerations as mentioned above. The Aragonese
kings persistently acknowledged papal orders in their subordination to the Holy See
and collaborated to the reform in the Aragonese Church. They conceded that the
Pope appoint the clergy, supported the struggle against simony, implemented
ecclesiastical law in a variety of spheres, and dispensed with Mozarabic rite. Late
11th and 12th century the kings offered the Holy See both directly and indirectly,
command over the organization of Church hierarchy, and equipped the Papacy with
vast property, which grew ever larger with the advancing Reconquista. King
Alfonso I even left the whole kingdom in his will of 1134, to the Military Orders.30
Against the background of such profound interference in both ecclesiastic and
political affairs, the absence in the documents by which the concrete historical
reality of papal-Aragonese Church and king relationship is reconstructed, of any
reference to the Jews and to the Muslims who came under Christian rule, becomes
even sharper. The religious factor was apparent in the frontier regions even more
en memoria del Prof. D. Salvador de Moxá, 2, Madrid 1982, pp. 485-498; P. García
Mouton, ‘Los franceses en Aragón (siglos XI-XII)’, Archivo de Filología Aragonesa
26-27 (1980), pp. 7-98. On Cistercian settlement in Aragon, see L. MacCrank, ‘The
Frontier of the Spanish Reconquest and the Land Acquisitions of the Cistercians of
Poblet, 1150-1276’, Analecta Cisterciensa 29 (1973), pp. 57-78.
30 A vast part of real property in particular had reached the Church during the late 11th
and 12th centuries. Dozens of documents preserved grants donated by the king and the
aristocracy to the local Church, apart from annual payments to Rome, in a manner that
changed instantly propietary relations in the frontier. See A. Ubieto Arteta, ‘La
documentación eclesial aragonesa de los siglos XI al XIII, dentro del contexto socioeconómico de la época’, Aragón en la Edad Media 2 (1979), pp. 23-71. On Alfonso
I’s will, see E. Lourie, ‘The Will of Alfonso I, el Batallador, King of Aragon and
Navarre: A Reassessement’, Speculum L (1975), pp. 635-651; P. Kehr, ‘El Papado y
los reinos de Navarra y Aragón hasta mediados del siglo XII’, EEMCA II (1946), pp.
74-186; A. Ubieto Arteta, ‘La introducción del rito romano en Aragón y Navarra’,
Hispania Sacra I (1948), pp. 299-344.
[34]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
clearly than in the hinterland particularly with regard to determining the foreignness of minorities to Christian society and their distinction from it. However the
religious constituent had limited influence on legislation initiated by secular rulers
and integrated into secular, particularly municipal legislation. Alienation of minorities through such laws appeared commonly and identically to Jews and Muslims
under three major legislative categories: Public municipal baths, matrimonial laws
and the administration of public offices, by which authority over Christians was
executed. Legislation related to municipal baths in Aragonese frontier law compilations from late 11th century and during the 12th, was characterized by general
identification between Jews and Muslims and was intended to secure separation
between Christians and non-Christians.31 With respect to the holding of public
31 Legislation in this category and in the others are presented here firstly by the Law
compilation of Teruel (Fuero de Teruel) from the late 12th century, in which they
appear most detailed, and then by a survey of its development in Aragonese legislation
starting from the late 11th century. A law dedicated to the baths in the Fuero de Teruel
established Friday as the only day during the week in which joint entrance of Jews and
Muslims was permitted, and a proscribed fine for its violation. F. Aznar y Navarro,
transcripción y estudio preliminar, Forum Turolii: Colección de documentos para el
estudio de la historia de Aragón, tomo III, Madrid-Teruel-Zaragoza 1905 (henceforth
F. Tur); M. Gorosch, ‘El Fuero de Teruel’, G. Tilander ed., Leges Hispanicae Medii
Aevi, Stockholm, 1950 (henceforth Fuero). F. Tur 291, pp. 142-143; Fuero, 319, pp.
225-226: ‘De balneis’. Identical phrasing appears in the Fuero de Albarracín, a town
situated south to Teruel. The Fuero of the Castilian city of Cuenca and other fueros
emanating from it, mentioned joint days for the use of municipal baths by Jews and
Muslims. R. de Ureña y Smenjaud, Fuero de Cuenca, Edición crítica con introducción,
notas y apendice, Madrid 1935, Cap. 2, ley 32. The Fueros of Brihuega, Cáceres,
Zorita de los Canes, Calatayud, Sepúlveda, Usagre, Iznatoraf and Tortosa, specify
different days of municipal baths admittance to Christians on the one hand and to Jews
and Muslims on the other. See L. Torres Balbás, Algunos aspectos del mudejarismo
urbano medieval, Madrid 1954, p. 55, who also elaborated on the location of the baths
and their ownership, ibid, pp. 46-48. The Fuero of Calatayud allowed any settler in
the city to build a bath and use it as he wishes. In the settlement charter (“Carta de
población”) granted in 1169 by King Alfonso II to the city of Tamarite de Litera, the
king preserved the ownership of the municipal baths to himself. In a document from
the year 1160, the count Ramon Berenguer IV endowed the Jewish physician Abraham,
a land outside the city walls of Barcelona, to build a bath. See Y. T. Assis, ed., Sources
for the History of the Jews in Spain, 4, The Jews in the Crown of Aragon: Regesta
of the Cartas Reales in the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Part I: 1066-1327,
Compiled by M. Cinta Mañé and G. Escribà, Jerusalem 1993, pp. 1-2, Doc. 2, (Junio
9, 1160); F. Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, I, pp. 22-23, Doc. 33. In Lérida,
shortly after its conquest, count Berenguer IV delivered the bath which belonged to
the Muslim Abenhira, to the ownership of the city council. See also, A. Ruiz Moreno,
‘Los baños públicos en los fueros municipales españoles’, Cuadernos de Historia de
España III (1945), pp. 152-157.
[35]
Ilan Shoval
offices, in which imposition of authority over Christians was involved, legislation
in Aragon restricted the exclusion of Jews and Muslims to municipal offices.32
Legislation concerning sexual relations between Christians and non-Christians,
was identical with respect to Jews and Muslims, and was designed to secure
separation of the two non-Christian religious groups.33
32
Due to their foreigness, Jews and Muslims were deprived of holding public offices in
the city councils. Yet definitions of “foreigness” varied and were related to economic
and political criteria which guided the rulers and the different social groups. Special
strictness with foreigners prevailed in frontier municipal legislation, a consequence of
the intention to preserve and protect the local urban community. However, royal
legislation also existed, which granted privileges to foreigners including pilgrims,
merchants and religious minorities. On the subject of residence and foreignness in
Iberian frontier legislation, see P. Domínguez Lozano, Las circunstancias personales
determinantes de la vinculación con el Derecho Local: Estudio sobre el Derecho Local
Altomedieval y el Derecho Local de Aragón, Navarra y Cataluña (siglos IX-XV),
Madrid, 1988, pp. 11-24; 33-49. It should be indicated that the law of “A year and a
day tenancy” (“La tenencia de año y día“), whose major significance prevailed in
inheritance rights, was applied to foreigners as well. It enabled foreign settlers to protect
their property. Muslims for example are mentioned in such legislation in early 13th
century codification of law. See ‘Documentos para la Historia del Derecho Español’,
AHDE 2 (1925), III, ‘Textos para el estudio del derecho aragonés en la edad media’,
pp. 491-523, esp. p. 503. See also J. Ramos y Loscertales, ‘La tenencia de año y día
en el derecho aragonés (1063-1247)’, Acta Salamanticensia de Filosofía y Letras 5
(1951), pp. 5-39, and M. L. Ledesma Rubio, ‘Cartas de población y fueros turolenses’,
Castillos turolenses, XII, Zaragoza, 1988, pp. 38-40. It is important to emphasize the
distinction between public offices in the municipal councils and public offices in the
royal service. Many Jews served already in the 12th century in public offices while
corresponding phenomena within Muslim circles did not yet exist. Legislation in
Aragon starting from 1137, has limited the number of foreign baiuli the king was
allowed to employ. The Fuero of Teruel, like previous legislation in Aragon does not
relate to the subject. The Fueros of Alcaraz, Alarcón and Úbeda in Castile, prohibit
employment of Jews and of Muslims as municipal merinos or alcaides in their cities.
See F. Suárez Bilbao, El fuero judiego en la España cristiana, p. 78; P. León Tello,
‘Disposiciones sobre judíos en los fueros de Castilla y León’, Sefarad XLVI (1986),
pp. 287-288: Fuero de Cuenca, Cap. I, ley 17, points out to the prohibition already found
in the Fuero of Cuenca.
33 According to the Fuero of Teruel, a Christian woman engaged in sexual relations with
a Jew or a Muslim, and caught in the act, shall be burned (F. Tur 385, p. 211; Fuero
497, p. 301). The offense of sexual intercourse between a Christian man and a Jewish
or Muslim woman is not mentioned, possibly because it seemed less grave. The Fuero
of Teruel equates the punishment on adultery between Christians to that which occurred
between Christians and Muslims. In both cases adulterers were sentenced to the stake.
F. Tur 385, p. 211: “Similiter si mulier cum mauro vel cum iudeo deprehensa fuerit et
capti potuerint ambo ut dictum est pariter comburantur“. The Fuero elaborates on
[36]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
In late 11th and 12th century frontier kingdom of Aragon, the way secular
authorities treated their non-Christian subjects was not the focal point of the
relations between Christians and Muslims in the status of slavery and attests to contacts
peculiar to common living of Christians and Muslims, in which Jews did not partake.
It relates to the status of a Muslim maidservant and her offspring, with respect to the
Christian master. The law discussing this subject determined that the Muslim maid
raped by a Christian will bare a slave child to her Christian owner so long as the child’s
father did not redeem it. Nor shall the Muslim maid’s child have a part among his
Christian brothers in his father’s inheritance, until redeemed from slavery. F. Tur 362,
pp. 202-203; Fuero 475, p. 294: “De eo qui ex maura aliena filium genuerit: Similiter
quicumque ex maura aliena filium habuerit. ille filius sit servus domini maure. donec
pater illum redimat de seniore. Pretera mando quod iste talis filius non parciatur cum
suis fratribus quos ex parte patris habuerit. quamdiu in servitute permanserit. ut est
dictum. postquam autem liber fuerit partem habeat de bonis sui patris quod fratris alii.
iuxta forum”. Ch. Verlinden, ‘Esclavage dans le monde ibérique chrétien jusqu’au
XIIème siècle’, AHDE 11 (1934), p. 430, note 184, indicates another law which
appeared subsequently and sentences ruthlessly one who sells a Christian. The legislator, it seems, referred to a problem that occurred, and through its treatment enabled
the Muslim maidservant forced by a Christian and her child to gain acknowledged
social status in Christian society. On this status see entry ‘Umm al Walad’ in the
Encyclopedia of Islam, Leiden 1934, IV, pp. 1012-1015. Another case which emerges
from the Fuero of Teruel in this context discusses the destiny of Christian captives who
were sent to Muslim lands in order to redeem Christian prisoners of war. The legislator
fixed the death penalty on a Christian who sent his daughter or any Christian woman
as a hostage to the Muslims. That is, adds the legislator, because Muslims would have
never dared to invade Christian territory if not because of the courage of the sons they
(=the Muslims) beget from their Christian spouses. F. Tur 345, pp. 195-196; Fuero 454,
p. 287: “Quia ut sapientes asserunt sarraceni cristianos nunquam invaderent nisi
cristianorum audacia qui cum eis habitant, et filiorum cristianorum quas ipsi tenent
et possident in uxores”. The Church opposed sexual relations between Christians and
non-Christians and even prior to the Third Lateran Council, Pope Alexander III (11591183) declared that severe penalties should be cast upon a Muslim and a Christian
woman who were caught. In the Third Lateran Council assembled in 1179, the 26th
canon prohibited common dwelling and maintaining of Christian slaves by Jews and
Muslims. See N. P. Tanner, and S. J. Sheed, eds., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils,
I, Nicea I to Lateran V, Georgetown Uni. Press, 1990, Concilium Lateranense III, 1179,
Can. 26, pp. 223-224. Legislation in Aragon on this subject previous to the compilation
of Teruel appears in the Fuero of the city of Tudela, dated 1117, in which the status
of Jews and Muslims is equated and opposed to that of the Christians. See F. Suárez
Bilbao, El fuero judiego en la España cristiana, p. 221-222, Nos. 54-55: ‘De fillo o
filla de ganantia’, ibid., pp. 227-228: ‘De iudio que iaze con otras’, ‘De iudio o moro
que fazen fillos’. In Tudela, the legislator interfered even in the relations between Jews
and Muslims and fixed a fine given to the king on offenses of that sort, opposed to
Jewish as well as to Muslim ‘Sunna’ (sic). The Fuero imposed the implementation of
the penalty on the Jewish and Muslim judges (both named “Albedí”). F. Suárez Bilbao,
[37]
Ilan Shoval
Church’s interests. The absence of reference to this aspect of life in the frontier
regions is noteworthy for two major reasons. The first, it was in Spain, that the
Papacy had precedently adopted a policy of exeptional interference while supporting a violent policy on behalf of the local Visigothic Church and monarchy.34 The
second, since the massive presence of non-Christian populations in the frontier
regions, presented the local Churches and the Holy See with a new and acute
problem.
Papal attitude toward these non-Christian populations in the frontier regions
was closely connected with the idea and practice of the Crusades. Pope Alexander
II, who summoned the Crusade against the Muslims in Spain, was aware of the
consequences such instruction entailed. He endeavored together with King Fernando
I of Castile-Leon to eliminate extremist attitudes toward the Jews in Spain. Supported by the pope in 1066 the king announced the annulment of the entire
Visigothic anti-Jewish legislative corpus, and the two leaders re-established the
relations between Christians and Jews on legitimate judicial foundations, consist-
ibid., p. 234: ‘De moro o iudio que faz fillos en otras’ª ‘De adulterio de moro o iudio’.
Legislation in this subject has evolved differently in Castile, in the Fueros of Coria,
Cáceres and Usagre. See F. Suárez Bilbao, ibid., pp. 65; 80, and P. León Tello,
‘Disposiciones sobre judíos en los fueros de Castilla y León’, pp. 289-290. I could not
trace a documented event of adultery involving Jews or Muslims from the 12th century,
but a document dated 1022 from Catalonia testifies to the occurrence of such events
outside the law compilations. F. Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, I, Berlin
1929, p. 2, Doc. 4 (1022 august 29): “Accidit etiam uni hebreorum, cui nomen Isaac
filio Gento hebrei, adulterium exercere cum quadam christiana habente viro superstite
per quo advenit nobis...”
34 Notable in early medieval papal policy toward the Jews was Pope Gregory I’s (the
Great) support of some of the Visigothic kings’ persecutive actions against Jews in their
kingdom. This encounter was of consequence especially in Canon legislation related
to the policy towards the Jews in the 11th and 12th centuries. One may add that alongside
the equation between Jews and Muslims in the Latin West was the manner by which
the Jews, according to Christian sources, welcomed the Muslim conquerors, the
assistance they offered them and the relative prosperity that characterized their life
under Muslim rule until the Christian reconquest had begun. See A. H. Cutler, The Jew
as Ally of the Muslim: Medieval Roots of Anti-Semitism, Univ. of Notre Dame 1986,
pp. 90-91; 95; E. A. Synan, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages, New York
1967, pp. 51-63. One of the more interesting texts Synan pointed out to, belongs to the
17th Church synod assembled in Toledo in 694, which relates to the Muslims as the
“other Hebrews”. J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio,
Graz 1961, XII, col. 94 B-D: “Pro nefandis denique Judaeis infra fines regni nostri
degentibus... hos in transmarinis partibus Hebraeos alios consuluisse, ut unanimiter
contra genus Christianum agerent...”
[38]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
ent with the traditional Augustinian theological concept.35 With respect to the nonChristians the Crusaders met on their journeys, the Pope demanded to distinguish
between Muslims and Jews, but his demand failed to prevent the identification
between the two populations even by the ecclesiastic jurists.
The Papacy invested remarkable efforts starting from the second half of the 11th
century, to encourage Crusades against the Muslims in Spain. Such initiatives were
already evident in the days of Pope Alexander II, particularly among Frankish
aristocracy, in order to combat the Muslims not necessarily in the Holy Land. This
was a headstone in the Spanish Reconquista.36 In epistles sent by Pope Gregory VII
to his legates and to the Frankish aristocracy in the early seventies of the 11th
century, the addressees were obliged to hold the conquered territories as fiefs of
the Holy See. Soon afterwards the status of Crusaders who went to combat the
Muslims in Spain was equated to that of Crusaders who went to the Holy Land.37
In an epistle addressed to Pedro I, King of Aragon, Pope Urban II expressed his
35 F. Suárez Bilbao, El Fuero judiego en la España cristiana pp. 16-18. Attention should
be drawn to the fact that simultaneously with the inclination to restate the foundations
of Jewish existence on its traditional Augustinian concept, there prevailed significant
influence to Visigothic legislation directed in its turn by the canons of the 4th Toledo
synod assembled in 633, an influence which had to be restrained by the pope and the
king. Isidor of Seville (Isidorus Hispalensis, c. 560-636) presided that synod. His
extremist position with respect to the Jews which found its expression in his treatises,
came forth in the synod’s canons. These entered the Canon Law compilations of
Burchard of Worms and of Yvo of Chartres, and were included in the Decreta of
Gratian in the 12th century, indicative of their continuous influence. See B. Albert,
‘Isidore of Seville: His Attitude towards Judaism and his Early Impact on Early
Medieval Canon Law’, Jewish Quarterly Review LXXX (1989-1990), pp. 207-220.
36 Alexander II declared a Crusade against the Muslims following the defeat at the battle
of Graus, in which King Ramiro I of Aragon was killed. Ebles, count of Roucy, who
bequeathed his daughter to Sancho Ramírez, the new king of Aragon, consented to the
papal proclamation, and a Crusade was indeed undertaken in 1064, against the city of
Barbastro. See D. J. Buesa Conde, ‘Reconquista y cruzada en el reinado de Sancho
Ramírez’, Sancho Ramírez Rey de Aragón y su tiempo, Huesca 1994, pp. 49-52. The
question of attributing to war campaigns against the Muslims in this period the title of
“Crusade” or “Reconquest”, is a complicated one. Scholars who studied it had to
examine, among other issues, the changing features of Christian Spanish society and
its variability compared with north European Christian societies. See also, R. Barkai,
Cristianos y musulmanes en la España medieval: el enemigo en el espejo, Madrid,
1984.
37 As a consequence of Pope Gregory VII’s proclamation in 1087, a crusader army
consisting of Aragonese, Franks and Catalans assembled against the Muslim city of
Tudela.
[39]
Ilan Shoval
belief in the victory of the Christian armies over the Turks in Asia and the Muslims
(Mauri) in Europe. This is a testimony of papal awareness of the major political
and religious conflict occurring at that time both in the west and in the east, between
Christianity and Islam.
The Crusades in Spain
The Crusades, starting from late 11th century and through the 12th, constituted a
cohesive political, military and religious effort enhanced by Christians almost all
over Catholic Europe. The Crusades were holy wars waged against the Muslim
enemy, which expressed the central political conflict of that period as seen from
a European point of view, and which were attributed important significance already
by contemporaries with respect to modification in the institutional status of the
Church and the Catholic belief.38 Christian Europe passed from a defensive position
to an offensive one. Gregory VII (1073-1085) led a crucial change in Christian
thought concerning war, which should be considered, as has been suggested by
modern historians, with relation to the reconquest achievements made in Spain.39
Christian warriors who were requested to express remorse for killing, were now
represented by the pope as combating a justified war and therefore, were absolved
from sin.40 This new political and theological conflict which emerged between
Christianity and Islam, along the Spanish frontier, led to modifications in the
character of the theological conflict between Christianity and Judaism, and consequently affected the political and juridical spheres of Christian-Jewish relations.
38
R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe, pp. 260-261 quotes Christian chroniclers relating
explicitly or implicitly to the Crusades, with regard to their influences on occurrences
in European Kingdoms. Among these Chroniclers are Fulcher of Chartres, Guibert of
Nogent, Orderic Vitalis and Matheus Paris. On the Christian-Muslim encounter at the
age of the Crusades, see D. Carleton Munro, ‘The Western Attitude toward Islam
during the Period of the Crusades’, Speculum VI (1931), pp. 329-343; B. Lewis, The
Muslim Discovery of Europe, London 1982, pp. 22-26; B. Z. Kedar, Crusade and
Mission: European Attitudes toward the Muslims, Princeton 1984; W. M. Watt, Muslim
Christian Encounters: Perceptions and Misperceptions, London and New York 1991,
Ch. 6, pp. 74-88.
39 W. M. Watt, ibid., p. 78; Ph. Sénac, La Frontière et les hommes (VIIIe-XIIe siècles),
pp. 353-364.
40 R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe, p. 260, points out to one of Gregory VII’s most
frequently quoted biblical verses, Jer. 48;10: “maledictus qui facit opus Domini
fraudulenter et maledictus qui prohibit gladium suum a sanguine”.
[40]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
When the Crusade army left southern France in 1063 to fight the Muslims in
Spain, it thrusted on its way at Jewish communities. More than thirty years prior
to the pogroms in the Rhine valley, in which Crusaders massacred Jews on their
way to redeem the Holy Land from Muslim rule, the association was already made
by Christians between unbelievers namely the Muslims, and enemies of the faith
at home, that is the Jews.41 Jewish presence in Christian lands became an urgent
issue when the Crusader movement came into being and Catholic Europe was
united against the Muslims. The word “Sarraceni” became a synonym for an enemy
in the hinterland, far from the Iberian or other frontier regions which were arenas
of constant conflict between Christians and Muslims. The difficulty with the
“Synagogue of Satan” attained new, unprecedented urgency.42
Historiographic research pertaining to the change occurring in the status of the
Jews in Catholic Europe following the Crusades, focused on the traditional elements included in the medieval conflict between Christians and Jews, namely the
theological constituent concerning the Church’s attitude toward the Jews, the
political constituent, the economic and the social. Modern historians have dwelt on
the significance the 1096 events had for Franco-German Jewry and have been
mostly occupied with the question whether these events had any political or socioeconomic influence on these Jewish communities, save the traumatic impression
found explicitly in Hebrew contemporary chronicles.43 A. H. and H. E. Cutler
suggested, in a study on medieval identification by the Christians of Jews and
Muslims, to revise the weight the Christian-Muslim conflict had, as a cause of
change in the Church’s attitude toward the Jews. The Cutlers argued that in the
period of the Crusades and even prior to that, influential elements in the Church
identified the Jews with the Muslims and considered the Jews as fifth columnists
41 See E. A. Synan, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages, p. 71, note 15, p. 187.
Discussion of Muslims alongside with Jews has appeared in the west already in the
Carolingian period, and in the Byzantine east even earlier. See A. H. Cutler, The Jew
as Ally of the Muslim, pp. 88-97; M. Stickler, ‘De Iudaeis et Sarracenis: On the
Categorization of Muslims in Medieval Canon Law’, B. Z. Kedar, ed., The Franks in
the Levant, London 1994, p. 208. Crusaders occasionaly saw the Jews as the avantgarde of the Muslim enemy who controlled the Holy Sepulchre in the east. Jews were
equated with pagan or heretic Muslims, not only in ecclesiastic sources, but in official
royal documents and in popular Romance literature. See G. LaPiana, ‘The Church and
the Jews’, Historia Judaica IX (1949), pp. 123-124.
42 P. Herde, ‘Christians and Sarracens at the Time of the Crusades’, Studia Gratiana 12
(1967), pp. 361-376. See also, J. Parkes, The Jew in the Medieval Community, pp. 6162; 84-87.
43 See especially R. Chazan’s interpretation, which rejects the common historiographic
claim to the impact that the 1096 pogroms had on European Jewry: R. Chazan, In the
Year 1096: The First Crusade and the Jews, Philadelphia-Jerusalem 1996.
[41]
Ilan Shoval
who were part of a Muslim plot to defeat Catholic Europe.44 This identification was
in A. H. Cutler’s view the crucial cause of modifications which occurred in the
Catholic Church’s attitude toward the Jews. B. Blumenkranz argued prior to the
Cutlers that in the Crusader era, the identification of Jews and Muslims by Christians, even overlaid the theological concept concerning the deicide accusation.45
While a Crusade was embarking on its way to the Iberian Muslim frontier, Pope
Alexander II found it necessary to point out the essential difference existing in his
view between the Muslims and the Jews. In an epistle addressed to the bishops of
Spain, he indicated that the Muslims persecuted and exiled Christians, and therefore it was only justified to wage war against them, whilst the Jews were willing
to serve the Christians anywhere, and therefore it was wrong to attack them.
Alexander II applied for the theological argumentation from the time of the Church
Fathers, according to which the Jews were doomed to exile as a punishment for the
killing of the Messiah, and during that exile they are destined to serve the Christians.46 This epistle was subsequently integrated into the Decreta Gratianum and
44
The research advanced by the Cutlers followed the roots of modern anti-semitism and
tried to locate them in Christian anti-Islamic tendencies prevalent in the 7th century
onward. The Cutlers assumed that in times of outburst in Christian-Muslim conflict,
whether in 7th century Spain and Byzantine Empire, or in 11th century Crusades, there
appeared perceptible expressions of increasing identification between Jews and Muslims, and therefore they interpret hatred of Jews in medieval Europe as intrinsic
expression of hatred of Muslims. See A. H. Cutler and H. E. Cutler, The Jew as Ally
of the Muslim, pp. 81-87. Important critical survey of their research was written shortly
after by M. de Epalza, ‘Critical Review of A. H. Cutler, The Jew as Ally of the Muslim’,
Sharq al-Andalus 4 (1987), pp. 287-289. On the perception of the Jews as fifth
columnists in Christian society, see also K. R. Stow, ‘Hatred of the Jews or Love of
the Church: Papal Policy toward the Jews in the Middle Ages’, Sh. Almog, ed.,
Antisemitism Through the Ages, Oxford 1988, p. 77.
45 B. Blumenkranz, Juifs et Chrétiens dans le monde occidental, 430-1096, Paris 1960.
See also E. H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jew, New York 1965, pp. 89-90, who
argued that interpretations of the aggravation in Christian-Jewish relations in the age
of the Crusades which do not take into account the outburst of the Christian-Muslim
conflict, are insufficient.
46 The pope addressed all the bishops in Spain and praised Wifred, archbishop of
Narbonne for protecting the Jews: Migne, PL, 146, coll. 1386-1387, Alexandri II Papae.
Epistulae et Diplomata, 101, “Alexandri II Papae, Epistula ad omnes episcopos
Hispaniae: Quod judaei servari debeant non occidi. Placuit nobis sermo quem super
de vobis audivimus, quomodo tutati estis judaeos que inter vos habitant, ne interimerentur
ab illis qui contra sarracenos in Hispaniam proficiscebantur... Dispar nimirum est
judaeorum et sarracenorum causa. In illos enim, qui christianos persequuntur et ex
urbibus et propriis sedibus pellunt, juste pugnatur; hi vero ubique parati sunt servire.
Quemdam etiam episcopum synagogam eorum destruere volentem prohibuit”. Alexander II used the verb “servire”, in which the implication toward the Jews’ servitude
[42]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
gained wide distribution, but since that compilation had little influence on secular
legislation during the 12th century, the distinction the pope demanded between Jews
and Muslims was not applied in fact. Christians found it difficult to distinguish
between Jews and Muslims as domestic foes and external enemies.47
A proof of the deterioration in the status of the Jews as a result of the Crusades
against the Muslims is found in the bull issued by Pope Calixtus II, in 1120. The
comprehensive bull, known as Sicut Judeis, following the opening Latin phrase,
was designed to restrain the local clergy, extremely enthusiastic and excessively
implementing the Church policy toward the unbelievers. Amid its main clauses it
was established that no forced baptism should be exerted on the Jews, they must
not be killed, injured or robbed, and they should not be disturbed in their habits
as confirmed to them in the past. Popes Alexander III (1159-1181), and Celestine
III (1191-1198) reissued the bull and in that period of late 12th century, it penetrated
canonic law.48 Alexander III, who announced a Crusade against the Muslims and
presided the Third Lateran ecumenical Council in 1179, indeed adopted on the one
hand the policy of his predecessors which sought to secure Jewish existence in
Christian society, but also defiantly condemned, on the other hand, both Judaism
and the Jews. The first he addressed as “superstitio”, and the latters as the enemies
of Christ. The same pope held office simultaneously to a large part of King Alfonso
II’s rule in Aragon, (1162-1196). The pope and the king maintained good relations
nothwistanding papal demands for Aragonese subordination to Rome. There is no
was found, but this implication appeared here as a protraction of the theological concept
of the Church Fathers which has not yet been translated in the 12th century to political
servitude. See K. R. Stow, ‘Hatred of the Jews or Love of the Church’, pp. 77-78.
47 According to contemporary chroniclers, information spread in Europe about Jewish
involvement in the Muslim authorities’ attitude toward the Christians in the Holy Land.
The Jews bribed according to some of these sources, a monk called Robertus to deliver
the Khalif al-Hakem Hebrew written epistles which warned him of a Frankish army
intended to attack the Muslims. The Muslim ruler persecuted the Christians and even
damaged the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The argument presented by
the Crusaders that domestic unbelievers should be treated first, was accompanied by
the accusation of the Jews’ responsibility for the fate of the Christians in the Holy Land.
See E. A. Synan, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages, pp. 67-68.
48 The original bull from the time of Calixtus II did not survive, but it is known through
later confirmations. It should be indicated that the bull’s frequent publication, at least
once successively in each pope’s office during the 12th century, attests to its poor
efficiency, to circumstances obliging its reissue, or both. The complete text of the bull
was published by S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, re. edn.,
New York 1966, pp. 92-95. For an analysis of the bull’s appearance in the 12th century,
especially the version issued by Innocent III in 1199, see K. R. Stow, ‘Hatred of the
Jew or Love of the Church’, pp. 79-80.
[43]
Ilan Shoval
evidence that there was any disagreement between that pope who appears to have
taken a harsh attitude toward the Jews and the Muslims, and the king who took these
populations under his protection and integrated them into his Christian kingdom.
Not a single demand was presented by Pope Alexander III or his legates to enforce
canonic legislation containing reference to servitude, on Jews or Muslims in
Aragon.
The decision not to distinguish between Jews and Muslims as enemies, was not
solely the heritage of the local low clergy. Influential figures among the Christians
at the time of the Crusades, took part in the growing identification between Jews
and Muslims. Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, reiterated in the 12th century the
wording of Guibert de Nogent, chronicler of the first Crusade, with respect to the
Jews.49 Peter the Venerable pointed out that the Jews were even worse than the
Muslims and advised to confiscate their property in order to finance the Crusade.
He connected bluntly the Jews and the Muslims in the framework of the Crusade.
Their lives should be spared, but their property must be taken, so that the Muslim
unbelievers’ arrogance shall be defeated by Christians who were supported financially by the heretical Jews.50 Bernard, founder of the convent of Clairvaux in
France (1090-1153), also a prominent figure in 12th century Catholic Europe,
rejected the identification of Jews and Muslims and mentioned, due to deterioration
in the physical security of the Jews, the recognized formula with respect to the
49 Migne, PL, 189, coll. 367f, Petri Venerabilis Epistolae 4, 36: “Quid proderit inimicos
christianae spei, in exteris aut remotis finibus insequi, ac persequi, si nequam, blasphemi,
longeque sarracenis deteriores judei, non longe a nobis, sed in medio nostri, tam libere,
tam audacter, Christum cunctaque Christiana sacramenta impune blasphemaverint,
conculcaverint, deturpaverint?”. On Guibert de Nogent see Migne, PL, 156, coll. 903,
De Vita sua, 2, 5, and also, B. Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission: European Attitudes
toward the Muslims, pp. 99ff.
50 Migne, PL, 189, coll. 367 D-368 D, Petri Venerabilis Epistolae 4, 36: “Non, inquam,
ut occidantur admoneo, sed ut congruenter nequitiae suae modo puniantur exhortor...
Quod loquor omnibus notum est, non enim de simplici agri cultura, non de legali
militia, non de quolibet honesto et utili officio horrea sua fragibus, cellaria vino,
marsupia nummis, orcas auro sive argento cumulant quantum de his quae ut dixi
Christicolis dolose subtrahunt... . Auferatur ergo, vel ex maxima parte imminuatur
Judaicarum divitiarum mele parte pinguedo, et Christianus exercitus, qui ut Sarracenos
expugnet, pecuniis vel terris propriis Christi Domini sui amore non parcit, Judaeorum
thesauris tam pessime acqusitis non parcat. Reservatur eis vita, auferatur pecunia, ut
per dextras Christianorum, adjutas pecuniis blasphemantium Judaeorum, expugnetur
infidelium audacia Sarracenorum”. Pope Eugenius III, (1145-1153), Peter the Venerable’s disciple in Cluny applied this suggestion by exempting Crusaders from paying
the interest on loans, a step which affected Jewish money lenders in nortern Europe.
See E. A. Synan, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages, pp. 76-77.
[44]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
Jews, which secured their existence and emphasized, theologically, their importance within Christian society.51
The ambivalence found in the Church’ attitude toward the Jews was not new.
Gregory I, the same pope who participated in drafting the toleration concept toward
the Jews in early Medieval times, was the one who expressed himself most
disgracefully in his sermons and even agreed with the Visigothic kings’ extremist
policy toward the Jews.52 Such ambivalence was maintained in the late 12th century,
when the popes ratified the bull protecting the Jews on the one hand, and expressed
themselves insolently toward the Jews on the other, in a manner which undoubtedly
encouraged the low clergy and the crowds to injure them, even physically. The
delicate balance between tolerance and condemnation was severely disturbed as a
consequence of the addition of the Christian-Muslim conflict, and as an outcome
of the fact that the Church permitted and even encouraged a holy war, namely the
Crusade. This made it difficult for both ecclesiastics and laymen, to distinguish
between the two conflicts facing Christianity. In Papal circles and in the Church
at large, voices were heard which emphasized the uniqueness of the theological
conflict between Christianity and Judaism and its connection to the history of
salvation leading to the second coming of Christ at the end of days. As a result of
the encounter with the Muslims, other voices were also heard which affirmed war
51 St. Augustine (354-430) and Pope Gregory I (590-604) played a decisive role in
outlining Christian dogmatic thought regarding the Jews. The Christians, they asserted,
should tolerate the Jews’ presence because they are a living testimony and a proof to
the ancient source of the Holy Scriptures. In their humiliated condition as a dispersed
minority in Christian realms there is evidence to their error, their rejection by God and
the truth of Christianity. At the end of days the Jews will ultimately acknowledge
Christian Gospel and their conversion will conclude the Christian victorious stage
toward salvation. Bernard of Clairvaux held to this concept arguing that if Jews were
injured, so will Christianity’s hope to salvation. See Migne, PL, 182, coll. 567f,
Bernardi Epistolae, 363. Also, E. H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jew, pp. 92-94; E.
A. Synan, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages, pp. 74-76.
52 Out of eight hundred surviving documents related to this pope, thirty are concerned
with the Jews. Gregory I was restrained in his attitude toward the Jews with what
concerned administrative issues, but insolent in his commentaries and sermons. See his
responses to King Reccared about treatment of the Jews; S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic
See and the Jews, p. 11; 41, note 5. Simonsohn argues that gratulations of the pope to
the Visigothic king should not be interpreted, as has been done by some scholars, as
a ratification of compulsory baptism of the Jews. According to S. W. Baron, ‘Medieval
Nationalism and Jewish Serfdom’, p. 311, adjustment between the ecclesiastic concept
of “perpetual servitude” and secular royal legislation pertaining to the Jews was
accomplished in the 17th Toledan council, in 694. See also, B. S. Bachrach, Jews in
Barbarian Europe, Kansas 1977, pp. 25-32; 51-58.
[45]
Ilan Shoval
against the enemies of faith wherever they were and the same voices demanded a
re-examination of the way Jews were treated by Christian society. This attitude
found support in changes occurring in the theological conflict between Christianity
and Judaism.
Christianity versus Judaism and Islam:
The Theological Conflicts in the 12th Century
Catholic Europe became acquainted with Islam and Muslims anew, as a result of
the Crusades in general, and the Reconquista in the Spanish frontier in particular.
Polemical literature against Islam was written in the east by Byzantines or by
Christians living under Muslim rule. In Spain, the martyrdom movement of Christians from 9th century Cordoba, left a small number of poorly circulated treatises.
These sources had little influence on the concept of Islam and Muslims in Western
Latin Europe.53 In the first half of the 11th century information about Islam reached
the Christians in northern Iberia through the apology attributed to al-Kindi, known
as Al-Risala (the Epistle), a treatise which became profoundly influential on
polemics between Christianity and Islam in the High Middle Ages.54
Among the arenas of encounter between Christians and Muslims in the Mediterranean following Christian expansion, i.e. the Crusader Kingdoms, Sicily, Southern
Italy and Spain, the latter became the most prominent source of information about
Islam to have reached Latin Europe.55 Within this unique inter-cultural encounter
that occurred between Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Iberian peninsula,
emerged the figure of Petrus Alfonsi, a Jew from the city of Huesca in Aragon, who
converted to Christianity and opened to his new co-religionists, through his widely
circulated writings, a window to the hitherto hardly known Islamic world. Apart
53
John of Damascus is considered as the founder of traditional knowledge of Islam in the
Christian world, immediately after the Arab conquests of the 7th century. On the
information about Islam, found in his writings, see N. Daniel, Islam and the West: The
Making of an Image, Edinburgh 1960, pp. 3-5. Daniel describes the literature written
following the Martyrs affair in the 9th century, especially St. Eulogius’, Liber Apologeticus
Martyrum, as poor and defiant but mostly bearing no influence on Christian writing
pertaining to Islam of later periods.
54 W. Muir, The Apology of Al-Kindi, London 1882; J. Muñoz Sendino, ed., ‘Al-Kindi:
Apología del cristianismo’, Miscelánea Comillas XI-XII (1949), pp. 339-460. (inc.
Arabic text)
55 J. Schacht and C. E. Bosworth, eds., The Legacy of Islam, Oxford 1974, pp. 80-81; J.
Monroe, Islam and the Arabs in Spanish Scholarship: Sixteen Century to the Present,
Leiden 1970.
[46]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
from that, Alfonsi also exposed to the Christians unfamiliar aspects of the Jewish
religion.56 His writings mark the beginning of a new period in the Christian-Muslim
conflict as well as in that between Christianity and Judaism. Unfamiliar information revealed by him regarding both the Islamic and the Jewish faiths, presented
Islam and Judaism as heretic religions. With respect to Judaism, there has been
enough in the novelty revealed to the Christians, to eventually re-examine Christianity’s relations with Judaism not only in the theological sphere, but also, with
significant consequences, in the judicial-political layer of relations with the Jews,
which derived from it.
Re-examination of Judaism, seen differently than the one on which the Church
Fathers had established led some Christian thinkers as well as some popes to
identify the Jews alongside the Muslims, as another threatening enemy, from a
theological point of view. If any analogy is to be drawn between Christian-Jewish
relations and Christian-Islamic relations, then it would be possible only against the
background of the renewed acquaintance of Christians with Islam and Judaism on
the Iberian frontier of the 12th century.
One of Alfonsi’s most influential treatises was the “Dialogi contra Iudaeos”.57
In this treatise he used a common literary device in polemical literature, and placed
Jewish Moses versus Christian Petrus, as two figures arguing with each other. In
the “Dialogi”, Alfonsi polemized against Judaism in order to explain why he had
deserted his forefathers’ faith, and against Islam, in order to explain why he
refrained from converting to that religion, and so turned his entire praise to
Christianity.58 With respect to Islam, the “Dialogi“ written by Alfonsi constituted
the most comprehensive range of knowledge western Europeans had ever been
56 On Alfonsi and his writings a vast bibliography exists. I will refer the reader only to
two of the latest research works carried on Alfonsi: J. Tolan, Petrus Alfonsi and his
Medieval Readers, Florida 1993, and M. J. Lacarra, (coordinadora), Estudios sobre
Pedro Alfonso de Huesca: Colección de estudios altoaragoneses, 41, Huesca 1996.
57 J. P. Migne, ed., PL, 157, cols. 527-672, Paris 1899. This includes his refute of Islam.
58 Ibid., cols. 535: “Petri Alphonsi ex iudaeo christiani, Dialogi in quibus impiae Judaeorum
opiniones evidentissimis cum naturalis, tum coelestis philosophiae argumentis
confutantur, quaedamque prophetarum abstrusiora loca explicantur”. The treatise is
comprised of twelve dialogues. The fifth dialogue is dedicated to polemics with Islam,
although references to Islam are scattered in chapters in the dialogues dedicated to
confutation of Judaism, for instance with respect to circumcision. See M. R. Cohen,
‘Islam, Christendom and the Jews: A Comparative Historical Context for Understanding Interreligious Polemics’, (A Paper presented to the Research Group of Interreligious
Polemics in the Middle Ages, The Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, September 22, 1992); ibid., Under Crescent and Cross: The
Jews in the Middle Ages, New Jersey 1994, pp. 17-74.
[47]
Ilan Shoval
exposed to until then. He was familiar with Latin writings against Islam circulating
in Spain, particularly the Risala of the Nestorian al-Kindi, from which he drew
most of the Koranic citations as well as treatises on Islam spread among the Jews
in the peninsula. Since it was not required to convince his Christian adversary with
respect to Islamic holy scripture, the Koran, as was with respect to the Old
Testament, Alfonsi focused his assault on Islam in presenting it as a heresy. He
discussed Muhammad’s impiety, the pagan origins of the cult in Mecca and the
textual tradition of the Koran, all in order to prove how this religion was embeded
in deceit and forgery.59
In his “Dialogi“ against Judaism Alfonsi was preoccupied with proving how
uncongruent with reason that religion was in matters of doctrine. He revived many
of the arguments against Judaism, which Christian polemicists used since the days
of the Church Fathers. Alfonsi reiterated assumptions and cited biblical verses
which had appeared in disputations between Christians and Jews from the 4th
century.60 Yet whilst the classical disputation between Christians and Jews turned
on the Bible, the holy scripture of both religions, Alfonsi resumed his anti-Judaic
polemical method in two major directions. The first was to introduce the Talmud
to the Christians and confuting it as another set of Scriptures and the second was
to suggest the possibility of proving Christian dogma by means of post-biblical
Jewish literature. Alfonsi included in his “Dialogi“ some of the talmudic Aggadah,
as evidence of Jewish error and thus adding to the validity of Christianity.61
Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, particularly invoked the necessity to be
familiar with the Muslim foe in order to act against it, but especially in order to
confute what was considered by him as a false religion so as to accomplish the aim
of the Crusades, as he himself perceived it to be, a polemical process which will
eventually lead to mass conversion. He led between 1122 and his death in 1156,
a broad campaign with this twofold purpose. All that was carried out on the
background of cultural relative pluralism that characterized the contact between
Christians on the one hand and Jews and Muslims on the other in the Spanish
59
On the content of the Dialogues and the representation of Islam as heresy, see J. Tolan,
Petrus Alfonsi, pp. 28-33. Also, N. Daniel, Islam and the West, pp. 68-72; 146-148;
217-219. On the cult at Mecca: B. Septimus, ‘Petrus Alfonsi on the Cult at Mecca’,
Speculum LVI (1981), pp. 517-533.
60 J. Tolan, ibid., p. 16-22. On Christian-Jewish disputation in late antiquity and early
medieval periods, see O. Limor, Jews and Christians in Western Europe, 3, The open
University of Israel, Tel Aviv 1993, pp. 11-90 (Hebrew). L. Williams, Adversus
Judaeos, Latin Writers. c. A. D. 384-1349, Cambridge 1935.
61 Reference to anthropomorphism of God is already found in Alfonsi’s writings as an
expression of heresy in the Talmud. See O. Limor, Jews and Christians, 3, pp. 93-94.
Also, J. Tolan, ibid., pp. 22-27.
[48]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
frontier, a pluralism that was considered by the Church to be a threat. The result
of this campaign, during which Peter the Venerable spent a year in northern Spain,
was the “Corpus of Cluny”, otherwise known as the “Toledan Corpus”, which
contained a series of treatises in Latin, including a translation of the Koran
completed by Robert of Ketton.62 To these treatises Peter added a short essay on
the principles of Islamic belief, (“Summa totius haeresis Sarracenorum”), as well
as an extensive polemical composition destined to confute Islam, (“Liber contra
sectam sive haeresim Sarracenorum”).63 The Corpus of writings compiled jointly
by Peter the Venerable and other European scholars, became fundamental to
Christian acquaintance with Islam and to its refutation during the following centuries. Islam was declared a false religion willfully distorting the truth, spreading
forcefully by the sword, embedded on self-indulgence whose prophet Muhammad,
was the embodiment of the Anti-Christ.64 The picture of Islam drawn in the eyes
of western Europeans was more complete than before but still firmly distorted due
to its polemical goals and due to the fact that the Muslim civilization, inhabiting
Al-Andalus in the period of the Reconquista, was superior to the Christian civilization, and therefore threatening it.65 Christian clergy perceived Islamic religion in
a variety of aspects: as a heresy, as a heterodoxy and as a pagan religion on the
62 On the various treatises translated apart from the Koran, and on the group of translators
participating in the project, see J. Kritzek, Peter the Venerable and Islam, Princeton
1964, pp. 27-114. On the translation of the Koran see Md. D’Alverny, ‘Deux traductions
latines du Coran au Moyen Âge’, Archives d’Histoire doctrinale XXII (1947), pp. 69131. Also, J. Schacht and C. E. Bosworth, eds., The Legacy of Islam, pp. 97-99.
63 Migne, PL, 189, colls. 650-720.
64 W. M. Watt, Muslim-Christian Encounters, pp. 85-87; N. Daniel, Islam and the West,
pp. 47-67; 109-133; 135-161. It is noteworthy that a relatively “radical” school in
Christian thought, since the days of John Chrysostom, (347-407), and which was
revived by Guibert of Nogent in the 11th century, presented Judaism as a Satanic self
indulgent religion, ignoring the way in which Paul had referred to it in his epistles.
Synagogues were described by this school as brothels and taverns, which Christians
should stay away from. See K. R. Stow, ‘Hatred of the Jews or Love of the Church’,
pp. 72-73.
65 W. M. Watt, Muslim-Christian Encounters, pp. 87-88; N. Daniel, The Cultural Barrier,
Edinburgh 1975, pp. 151; 158. Daniel stressed that detailed representation and exposition of Islamic religion to the Christians was intended to augment their belief far more
than to confute the Muslims or convince them to convert, a reasoning congruent with
Christian anti-Jewish polemical literature. Christian instruction on Islam, as on Judaism
during the renewed encounters of the 12th century, was driven by a defensive force,
albeit the fact that Christians were the aggressors throughout the Mediterranean during
that period and after it. In the Iberian peninsula more sophisticated materials of
polemics developed, because in that region the contacts between Christians on the one
hand and Jews and Muslims on the other, were more frequent.
[49]
Ilan Shoval
one hand, and with respect to its principles of belief as a religion equal to
Christianity and Judaism, on the other.66
Peter the Venerable was also the one who raised new ideas about incongruities
in Judaism relying on information obtained from Alfonsi, which were derived from
Talmudic legends. Prior to the year 1143, presumably during his stay in Spain,
Peter wrote a comprehensive polemical tractate against Judaism, in which he
attacked it with unprecedented aggressiveness and presented it as a heresy.67 The
inherent ambivalence of Christianity toward Judaism and Jews lies in early Christian teaching in which Judaism was represented simultaneously as a major enemy
of Christian faith and the conversion of Jews, as a precondition to the Parousia.
But to that polarity in Christian attitude toward the Jews, which continued along
the Middle Ages, a new uncertainty was added once the Talmud became known
to Christians. A. Funkenstein remarked that the theological principle which enabled
relative tolerance toward the Jews by Christian society during the Middle Ages,
was qualified on defining the Jews of the present times as identical to the Jews of
the earlier periods. Christian society had accepted toleration of the blind Jews who
refused to confess the gospel, “... provided that Judaism and the Jews did not alter
since the rise of Christianity, not ethnicaly (they are “Israel in the flesh”) nor
religiously, i.e. in their interpretative methods. By the flesh Jews remained as they
were”.68 Peter the Venerable’s weighty accusation was that Judaism had indeed
changed. Contemporary Judaism was no longer that of past times and therefore
66
M. Stickler, ‘De Iudaeis et Sarracenis’, p. 208, referred to William of Malmesbury, who
wrote c. 1136 about the three religions sharing the belief in one God, the father Creator,
and are in conflict concerning the son. See J. Schacht and C. E. Bosworth, eds., The
Legacy of Islam, Ch. 1: The Western Image and Western Studies of Islam, pp. 9-23;
A. H. Hourani, Islam in European Thought, Cambridge 1991, pp. 7-60; H. E. Kassis,
‘Islam in Spain’, M. Eliade, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion, New York-London 1987,
7, pp. 336-344.
67 Migne, PL, Petri venerabilis, Tractatus adversus Judaeorum inveteratam duritiem, 189,
coll. 507-650. In this tractate the abbot of Cluny gathered fourteen Talmudic legends,
most of them taken from Alfonsi and others from a yet undetected source. On Peter the
Venerable’s use of Alfonsi’s writings, see S. Liberman, Shkiin, Ch. 2: ‘Christians’,
Jerusalem 1936, pp. 27-35 (Hebrew). From early patristic age there were Christian
heresiologists who referred to Judaism as a heresy, and this concept reappeared
sporadically during the Middle Ages. See L. Williams, Adversus Judaeos, Cambridge
1935, pp. 384-394; G. LaPiana, ‘The Church and the Jews’, Historia Judaica 11-12
(1949-1950), pp. 117-119; J. P. Torrel, ‘Les Juifs dans l’oeuvre de Pierre le Vénérable’,
Cahiers de Civilization Médiévale 30 (1987), pp. 331-346.
68 A. Funkenstein, ‘The Changes in Polemics between Jews and Christians in the 12th
Century’, Zion XXXIII (1968), p. 125 (Hebrew); J. Merhaviah, The Talmud in Christian Speculum, Jerusalem 1971, pp. 227-290 (Hebrew).
[50]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
tolerance emanating from the Augustinian principle cannot apply accordingly.
Compliance with toleration of Jewish existence in Christian society according to
Augustinian formulation was conditioned on the existence of the same Judaism
which prefigured Christianity. Heretical Talmudic Judaism was not included in that
formulation. Despite the fact that Peter the Venerable’s ideas did not have an
immediate repercussion, they nevertheless infiltrated Christian consciousness,
penetrated polemical tractates and resurfaced vigorously in the 13th century.69
A modification has also occurred during the 12th century in Christian precepts
of the Jews’ major sin, the deicide. With the decisive impact of philosophical
thought advanced by Abelard (1079-1142), the Christian doctrine concerning the
killing of Christ was refined. J. Cohen pointed out that in Late Antiquity and in the
Early Middle Ages Christian scholars generally claimed that the Jews caused the
execution of Christ out of blindness and ignorance. From the 13th century the
concept that the Jews caused the killing of Jesus while being aware that he was the
God-Messiah, came to the fore. In the Glossa ordinaria, the standard commentary
of the Holy Scripture, assembled and widely distributed in the 12th century, this
concept was clearly manifested.70
On account of his two polemical tractates against Islam and Judaism written
consecutively, Peter the Venerable was already considered distinctive by his
contemporaries because he offered for the first time to western Europeans, treatises
concerning the two faiths, the Jewish and the Muslim, interwoven with Talmudic
and Koranic sources, cited verbatim within a well schematized argument.71 Peter
the Venerable wrote also a treatise against the “Petrobrusianos”, a heretic sect
following Peter de Bruis in the early thirties of the 12th century. The representation
of Islam and of “new” Talmudic Judaism as heresies, alongside an increasing
struggle against Christian heresies, particularly the Cathars in the late 12th century,
69 Peter the Venerable’s tractate, ‘Adversus Iudaeorum inveteratam duritiem’ aroused
minor reaction at the time. O. Limor, Jews and Christians in Western Europe, IV, pp.
27-65, suggested that the “Zeitgeist” of 12th century Renaissance which caused convergence between Christians and Jews especially in Biblical exegesis, moderated Peter’s
extremist references against Judaism. A. H. Cutler, The Jew as Ally of the Muslim, Ch.
3, pp. 52-80, claims on the contrary that Peter Alfonsi’s and Peter the Venerable’s antiJewish and anti-Islamic treatises had been in the origins of the 12th century Renaissance.
70 J. Cohen, ‘The Jews as the Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to
the Friars’, Traditio 39 (1983), pp. 1-27; G. LaPiana, ‘The Church and the Jews’, pp.
124-125.
71 Peter of Poitiers addressed the abbot of Cluny: “Solus enim vos estis nostris temporibus,
qui tres maximos sanctae Christianitatis hostes, Judaeos dico et haereticos et sarracenos,
divini verbi gladio trucidastis”, see Migne, PL, Petri Venerabilis, 189, col. 661. See
also, J. Kritzek, Peter the Venerable and Islam, p. 25.
[51]
Ilan Shoval
influenced the evolution of the theological conflict between Christianity and
Judaism. In the early 13th century the Papacy focused on the struggle against
heretical movements indiscriminately, in order to delineate more sharply the limits
of Christian society in front of those who were not Christians.72
The tendency to associate Jews, Muslims and heretics as “enemies of the faith”,
which dispersed remarkably during the 12th century and was further strengthened
among ecclesiastical circles as a consequence of the acquaintance with the Muslim
world and Talmudic Judaism on the frontier, set Catholic Europe as a relatively
homogeneous social and cultural entity against the unbelievers, and blurred simultaneously some of the distinctive features of the longstanding theological conflict
between Christianity and Judaism. 12th century Christians also pointed out similarities between Jews and Muslims, which further sharpened the Jews’ contrast to the
Christians. A. H. Cutler cited Peter the Venerable, Otto of Freising, Giraldus
Cambrensis and others, as indicating in their writings that both Jews and Muslims
practiced circumcision, considered themselves descendants of Abraham, and shared
related Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic, as holy languages. Peter the Venerable placed Judaism and Islam side by side, as religions repudiating the Christian
dogma of the Trinity.73 In addition to this, Jews and Muslims occasionally identified themselves with one another. Although this phenomenon originated in treatises composed by Jews in Islamic lands, such information was perhaps revealed
to Christians following Jewish migration to Christian territory or through Christian
occupation of Islamic land inhabited also by Jews. It possibly affected Christian
attitude toward the Jews in Spain. A. H. Cutler counted no less than five widely
72
Historians were preoccupied with the theme of a possible connection between the
appearance of heretical movements and the change in the status of the Jews, occurring
in the 12th century. Relations between Jews and heretics were examined, the amount
of knowledge one group had about the other and particular attention was drawn to the
Fourth Lateran Council, assembled in 1215 under the supervision of Pope Innocent III,
a council which defined above all the limits of Christian society against its domestic
and external foes. See E. M. Synan, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages, pp.
83-124; S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, part I; D. Berger,
‘Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’,
Harvard Theological Review 68 (1975), pp. 287-303. Also, J. Shatzmiller, ‘The
Albigensian Heresy as Reflected in the Eyes of Jewry’, R. Bonfil, M. Ben Sasson, Y.
Haecker, eds., Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry, Jerusalem 1988, pp. 333-352
(Hebrew).
73 A. H. Cutler, The Jew as Ally of the Muslim, pp. 92-94; J. Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable
and Islam, pp. 192-193; R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages,
Cambridge, MA 1962, p. 36; ibid., The Making of the Middle Ages, London 1993, pp.
37-42. Some of the Christian thinkers noted the resemblance between Jews and
Muslims in the proscription of pork.
[52]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
spread treatises written by Jews between the 9th and the 11th centuries, from which
a pro-Islamic Jewish attitude is perceived, emphasizing the affinity between Islam
and Judaism. It is not all clear whether these treatises reached Christians who
detected the Jewish position, nor is it well established how profoundly it affected
Christian attitudes to the Jews.74 The association of Jews and Muslims was manifested therefore both in the doctrinal sphere and in that of ecclesiastical law
engaged with converts. In the period of the Crusades, the Church was concerned
much more specifically with the status of the convert, be that a former Jew or a
former Muslim, despite the originally different theological implication of conversion to Christianity each one of them represented.75
The conversion of the Jews has been a substantial component of the Christian
theological view of Judaism. Pauline exegesis of the biblical name She’ar Yashuv
(“remnant shall be saved”), determined that the remainder of Israel that is in the
flesh, will eventually convert to Christianity, at the time of the Parousia.76 The urge
to Christianize the Jews depended also on other foundational concepts in Christian
thought, including the necessity to prove the position of Chistianity as successor
of Judaism, the impetus to redeem souls, and the missionary vigor impressed on
Christianity from early days. Considerable disagreement occurred with respect to
the manner by which the goal of converting the Jews should be obtained. There
were ecclesiastic figures who despaired of converting the Jews and even considered
their presence in Christian society no longer required theologically. Others, includ-
74 Included in these treatises are ‘The Story of Bustanai’, pertaining to the period between
650-900; the ‘Journey of Eldad ha-Dani’ from the 9th century; the ‘Chronicle of Nathan
the Babylonian’, from the 10th century, the epistolary correspondence between Hasdai
ibn-Shaprut and the Jewish Chazar ruler, and in particular, the ‘Scroll of Ahima’az’
from the 11th century. Cutler presented each of the mentioned treatises’ pro-Islamic
stand, and then tried to trail the way by which it reached Christian cognizance in
northern Europe, and finally, how it influenced the identification between Jews and
Muslims in Christian eyes. See A. H. Cutler, The Jew as Ally of the Muslim, Ch. 5, pp.
121-182.
75 Complicated situations concerning property, inheritance rights and conjugal laws
occupied the canonic jurists and the Church acted often to relieve the burden of the
proselyte even adopting a remarkable flexibility, for instance in the sphere of permitting
cosanguinous marriage. See J. M. Powell, ‘The Papacy and the Muslim Frontier’, pp.
199-200. According to Canon law, cosanguinous marriage of the second, third and
fourth grades were forbidden. According to Jewish and Muslim law, such marriages
were allowed. In 1187, Pope Clemens III anounced in an epistle addressed to Spain,
that Jewish and Muslim proselytes who married relatives uncongruently with canonic
law, were not required to divorce. See S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews,
p. 245.
76 Rom. 9:26.
[53]
Ilan Shoval
ing most popes, to whom the Augustinian formula was still relevant, demanded
tolerance, but they in general disagreed about how much pressure should be exerted
on the Jews in order to obtain their conversion. Forced baptism has been widely
exercised in Visigothic Spain. Local clergy in close collaboration with the Visigothic
monarchy, took a variety of measures to prevent proselytes from renouncement.
Pope Gregory I, who held office during that time, approved the oppressive policy
adopted by King Reccared against the Jews with the intention of converting them.77
The canons issued by the Church councils of Toledo, assembled in the course of
the 7th century, which referred to forced conversion, were partly accepted by the
Holy See, and were particularly influential on ecclesiasticalic legislation during the
12th century.78 The official stand adopted by the Papacy following the Crusaders’
massacre of Jews and forced conversion in 1096, was formulated in the abovementioned bull, designed to protect the Jews. Yet that bull, which included a
paragraph forbidding forced baptism, failed to prevent Pope Innocentius III from
intertwining the 7th century royal and ecclesiastical Jewish policy, and the forced
conversion of Jews during the Crusades and thereafter. The pope argued that forced
baptism indeed contradicted Christian belief, but whoever accepted the holy sacrament of baptism, was actually considered a Christian, and must be forced to adopt
the Christian faith.79
The Church’s concern with respect to the existence of Jewish and Muslim
converts, even led it to a confrontation with the secular authorities. This confron77
S. Katz, ‘Pope Gregory the Great and the Jews’, The Jewish Quarterly Review 24
(1933-1934), pp. 113-136; ibid., The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish Kingdoms
of Spain and Gaul, Cambridge MA. 1937, p. 29. Gregory I established three leading
principles with respect to converting the Jews: No forceful conversion should be
permitted; they should be persuaded to accept baptism and they should be encouraged
materially. His response to the occurrences in Spain, was therefore a deviation from
his own policy. On the suggested reasons for that, see S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See
and the Jews, pp. 40-42. King Reccared was converted from Aryan Christianity to
Catholicism in the year 587, an act which led to the change in the policy toward the
Jews. See G. LaPiana, ‘The Church and the Jews’, p. 121; B. Bachrach, Early Medieval
Jewish Policy in Western Europe, Minnesota 1977.
78 This was particularly the case in the field of child baptism, a problem which became
urgent following the Crusades. The Canonic jurist Gratianus adopted in the 12th century,
the relevant Canon of the fourth Toledan Church council presided by Isidor of Seville
in 633, which decreed that children of proselytes who practiced Judaism, should be
taken from their parents and raised by Christians and if necessary, in monasteries.
Gratianus, Decreta, II, c. XXVIII, qu. I, c. 10, 11. See S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See
and the Jews, p. 253, note 52.
79 Innocent III formulated the principle which was later accepted as the Church’s official
stand, in a question addressed by the Archbishop of Arles, in 1201. See S. Simonsohn,
The Apostolic See and the Jews, pp. 198-199.
[54]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
tation occurred in the frontier region, when conformity evolved between the
interests of Jews and Muslims and those of the secular rulers, albeit due to different
reasons: the Jews and the Muslims on their part wanted to prevent conversion, and
made efforts to make it hard for proselytes with respect to inheritance law, even
to the point of total disentitlement, whereas the secular rulers, the kings, on their
part ruled in their legislation the confiscation of the Jewish proselyte’s property,
once he was baptized, because of the consequential economic loss of profit caused
to their treasury, and also due to the principle according to which these Jews’
property belonged to the kings.80 Pope Alexander III (1159-1181) related to that
issue in an epistle he addressed to the bishops of Spain concerning the rights of the
converts, and subsequently proposed the resolution accepted at the Third Lateran
Council (1179), which ordained that a proselyte to Christianity should under no
circumstances be deprived of his property.81 Neither voluntary nor forcible conversion were a common phenomenon in the 12th century kingdom of Aragon and
therefore there is hardly any documentation relating any explicit confrontation
between ecclesiastic and secular authorities on this matter.82 While he insisted in
80 The formula which related the Jews to the royal treasure was not an innovation made
by Alfonso II of Aragon. The connection between the Jews and the royal treasure in
Spain had already appeared in the Visigothic era, and in northern Europe, for the first
time in a privilege given by emperor Heinrich IV to the Jews of Worms, in 1090. See
A. Linder, The Jews in the Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages, Detroit 1997 (pp.
267-330, relating to Visigothic legislation; p. 355, relating to German legislation). This
connection might conceivably originate in early Imperial Roman period. See M.
Goodman, ‘Nerva, the Fiscus Judaicus and Jewish Identity’, Journal of Roman Studies
79 (1989), pp. 40-44. Alfonso II of Aragon was the first to describe as slaves of the
king those who belonged to his treasure.
81 N. P. Tanner S. J., ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, I, Nicea I to Lateran V,
Georgetown 1990, p. 224: “Si qui praeterea Deo inspirante ad fidem se converterint
christianam, a possessionibus suis nullatenus excludantur, cum melioris conditionis
conversos ad fidem esse oporteat quam, antequam fidem acceperunt, habebantur. Si
autem secus factum fuerit, principibus vel potestatibus eorumdem locorum sub poena
excommunicationis iniungimus, ut portionem hereditatis et bonorum suorum ex integro
eis faciant exhiberi”. This Canon was subsequently included in Canon law. See A.
Ftriedberg, ed., Corpus Iuris Canonici, Graz 1959, II, Lib. V, tit. VI, c. 5.
82 A document dated October 2nd, the sixth year of the reign of King Louis of France, deals
with the status of a father and son, apparently Muslims who served as slaves to
Christians after their conversion to Christianity: P. de Bofarull y Mascaro, Traslado de
los Registros de Cancillería de los reyes de Aragón, Pergaminos, VII, Barcelona 1818,
pp. 155-156, (Carpeta 37, Ramón Berenguer IV, 1143-1148), Doc. 142: (...) “In Dei
nomine. Ego Guillermus Compagni et filia mea Pelegrina tibi Arnallo Guillermi et filio
tuo Petro Guillermi quos Christianos facere decrevimus cartam ingenuitatis facimus
ut inter christianos perfecte christiani efficiamini... damus animas vestras Deo qui illas
creavit ad immaginem suam ad serviendum sibi... unde ab ista hora in antea inter
[55]
Ilan Shoval
protecting the Jews, King Jaime I of Aragon stood out among 13th century European
rulers, in conforming with ecclesiastic policy concerning converts’ rights and
actively supported the missionary drive of the friars among his Jewish and Muslim
subjects to the point of neglecting economic interests.83
The bearing upon the conversion of Jews among the clergy was re-examined
against the background of prevalent tendencies, although hesitant, to convert the
Muslims.The conversion of the Muslims was hardly ever an essential part of the
Christian theological concept of Islam and therefore in the summons for the
Crusades the conversion of the Muslims was not explicitly mentioned among the
crusaders’ goals.84 But already from the writings of Gregory VII and Hugo, abbot
ingenuos et nobiles viros testificandi, causandi litigandi et respondendi, vendendi et
emendi ceteraque negocia exercendi licenciam habeatis. Preterea personas vestras ad
nostrum servicium et ad nostrum fidelitatem retinemus...”
83 In 1242 the king issued a decree according to which a Jewish or a Muslim proselyte
was allowed to retain his property. The children of such a proselyte and other relatives
who were not baptized were forbidden to claim any part in his property while he is alive,
and only after his death could they demand their right full share of his inheritance. The
king also decreed heavy fines on whoever uttered insults against converts. This
legislation reflects the deep involvement of Mendicant friars in political affairs in the
kingdom of Aragon which reached one of its climaxes in the Disputation of Barcelona
and in subsequent events. King Jaime I’s Jewish policy was highly complex and it
would be inaccurate to argue that he executed strictly ecclesiastical policy. He was
certainly compelled more often than his predeccessors in the 12th century to take into
consideration local clergy and papal positions with regard to Jews and Muslims. See
Y. T. Assis, The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry, Leiden 1997.
84 Joachim de Fiore (c. 1135-1202), the Calabrian monk, developed his own doctrine with
respect to the role Islam had in Christian eschatological history. In his view, the
Muslims were ‘the beast from the sea’ mentioned in the vision of Daniel, which will,
along with Christian heretics (the Patarines), waged war on the Church in 1196, and
subsequently drew near the end of days. Joachim foresaw a Christian Monastic Order
to be established in the near future, which would preach the faith, convert the Jews and
the Muslims, and precipitate the coming of the last age. This doctrine is known to have
influenced later Christian thinkers, but it also had prominent influence on Pope Innocent III. The latter summoned a Crusade in 1213 and referred to Muhammad and his
followers the Muslims, according to the Joachimite doctrine. A. H. Cutler pointed out
that text alongside others from Innocent III’s time, as crucial for the understanding of
the pope’s attitude toward Islam and the Muslims. Cutler also argued, that the pope
believed that the Jews in western Europe, identified with the Muslims and suspected
as fifth columnists within Christian society, should be distinguished and vehemently
removed from the Christians as a prerequisite to their mass conversion towards the
Parousia, expected by Joachim to occur in the year 1284. Here lies in Cutler’s view,
the identification between Jews and Muslims appearing in the Canons of the Fourth
Lateran Council. See A. H. Cutler, The Jew as Ally of the Muslim, pp. 183-204. A
different interpretation was suggested according to which, the identification between
[56]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
of Cluny in the 11th century, as from these of Peter the Venerable in the 12th, arises
clearly the aspiration to convert the Muslims in the areas recently conquered in
Spain.85 Attempts to persuade Jews to convert were rarely made and occurrences
of forced baptism of Muslims were even scarcer, particularly because they contradicted the secular rulers’ policy toward subjected Muslims, a policy constituted
primarily on economic considerations.86 B. Z. Kedar described Peter the Venerable’s attitude toward mission and conversion among the Muslims as “a rhetorical
formulation”. His call to Christians to love their Jewish and Muslim neighbors and
convert them by reason alone, apparently did not contradict his fervent support for
their elimination, and in fact, he hoped their conversion would turn to be the main
objective of the Crusades. In order to prepare this process adequately, he wanted
to provide the Catholics with the necessary resources, as he did with respect to
newly discovered Talmudic Judaism revealed to him in Spain.87
Bernard of Clairvaux argued with respect to Muslims under Christian rule, that
if they had been subjugated in a similar way as the Jews were, the Christians would
have expected their conversion with similar anxiety.88 In spite of the marked
85
86
87
88
Muhammad and the Antichrist made by Innocent III, should be seen solely as a rhetoric
instrument. See B. Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission, pp. 112-116. Some of Joachim’s
views were disqualified in the Fourth Lateran Council. The influence attributed by
Cutler to Joachim de Fiore on Pope Innocent III, seems to be exaggerated.
B. Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission, pp. 45-46, referred to Gregory VII, to Urban II and
to Hugo of Cluny. See also, N. Hunt, Cluny under St. Hugh: 1049-1109, London 1967,
pp. 48; 87; 149. On the mission among the Muslims in the Crusader east, see B. Z.
Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims of the Frankish Levant’, ibid., ed., The Franks in the
Levant, London 1994, pp. 135-174.
An epistle from an anonymous French monk addressed to Al-Muktadir, the Muslim
ruler of Zaragoza has reached us, in which the monk encourages the ruler to convert
to Christianity. Delegations of Cluniac monks reached Muslim territories and risked
capital punishment for blasphemy, with the intent to persuade the Muslim ruler, who
recruited the Andalusian scholar, Al-Baji to dispute with the Christians on his behalf.
See D. M. Dunlop, ‘A Christian Mission to Muslim Spain in the 11th Century’, AlAndalus XVII (1952), pp. 259-310. On a proselyte slave and the struggle between the
ecclesiastical and secular authorities on his account, see B. Z. Kedar, Crusade and
Mission, pp. 48-54. On the role taken by the Military Orders in the conversion of
Muslims, see A. Forey, ‘The Military Orders and the Conversion of Muslims in the
Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002), pp. 1-22.
B. Z. Kedar, ibid., pp. 99-106; J. Kritzek, Peter the Venerable and Islam, pp. 220-291.
Ibid., pp. 60-61; Appendix 4/c, p. 216: “Si Iudaei penitus atteruntur, unde iam sperabitur
eorum in fine promissa salua, in fine futura conversio? Plane et gentiles, si essent
similiter subiugati, in eo quidem iudicio essent exspectandi similiter quam gladiis
appetendi”. See also, B. Z. Kedar, ‘Muslim Conversion in Canon Law’, Proceedings
of the Sixth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Berkeley 1980, eds., S.
Kuttner and K. Pennington, (Vatican 1985), pp. 321-332.
[57]
Ilan Shoval
difference between the impact the Jews’ and Muslim’s conversion had on Christian
theology, Bernard identified the principal obstacle the Catholic Church faced in its
efforts to convert the unbelievers, if only by persuasion. He had pointed out the
similarity in the pattern of relations practiced by the secular Christian authority with
non-Christian populations, which did not coincide with the objectives of the
Church at least in his time. As with respect to the Jews in the 11th and 12th centuries,
worldly considerations which guided both kings and ecclesiastical leaders, posed
severe opposition to conversion objectives among the Muslims as well.89
In the 12th century, the theological conflict between Christianity and Judaism,
and that between Christianity and Islam, were two distinct conflicts, although
interwined. Indeed the themes of polemics between Christianity and the two other
religions were essentially different. The Jews were preserved with their theological-historical capacity as a living testimony to Christianity’s success, whereas the
Muslims were mainly perceived as a political foe, and Islam was widely known as
idolatry. Yet a variety of newly crystallized opinions among Christian thinkers,
brought together the theological conflict between Christianity and the two other
religions and blurred the differences existing in Christian thinking regarding them.
A 13th century pope expressed his view with respect to Jews and Muslims as if the
conflict between Christianity and the two religions was identical: Urban IV complained in 1263 about the state of affairs in Hungary, where allegedly both Jews
and Muslims dominated Christians. He condemned them jointly to “perpetual
servitude”.90 More than a few Christians perceived the affinity of Islam to Judaism
89
Apart from that reason, Kedar, Crusade and Mission, pp. 10-14 remarked that Christians knew about the perils missionaries traveling to Muslim lands might be exposed
to, a factor which deterred some, but attracted others in the hope of winning martyrdom.
Kedar also examined the Christian polemic literature destined to convince the Muslims
to convert and found that Christian writers failed to alter their prejudices regarding
Islam despite new and reliable information reaching them, so that there actually was
no chance they could have contended seriously with counter-arguments presented by
the Muslims. Alongside with N. Daniel in his research on Christian-Muslim encounters
in the Middle Ages, Kedar concludes that the physical proximity of Christians and
Muslims, played a relatively minor role in shaping the knowledge about the latter’s
beliefs, and therefore, polemical literature was really destined to a Christian audience,
in order to strengthen self persuasion. Similar arguments were proposed with regard
to the polemical literature of Christians and Jews. See O. Limor, Jews and Christians
in Western Europe, III, pp. 30-38; 46-48, ibid., Appendix A; also ‘The Disputor’, in
J. Katz, Between Jews and Gentiles, Jerusalem 1977, pp. 109-115 (all in Hebrew).
90 S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews, p. 100, note 17: “The lumping together
of Jews and Moslems in this context evidently cannot be justified by extending the
punishment for the death of Jesus to include Moslems. It is related to the ‘classification’
of Moslems along with Jews in Canon law, for instance, or when the repressive bulls
[58]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
and therefore, in the light of the relatively new conflict between Christianity and
Islam, the age old conflict between Christianity and Judaism, sharpened and
obtained a previously unknown urgency. The discovery of the Talmud, even though
not yet sufficiently understood in Christian circles, practically disclosed, simultaneously with the disclosure of the conflict with Islam, a new conflict with Judaism,
which would bear decisive consequences not solely on the polemics between the
two religions but also on the attitude of the Church toward the political existence
of Jews within Christian society. The theological differences between the Christian-Jewish and the Christian-Muslim conflicts, became more and more ambiguous
as 12th century frontier regions in Spain and elsewhere brought Jews and Muslims
under Christian rule. This process urged ecclesiastical jurists to identify between
Jews and Muslims not only theoretically. However, the decisive urge to that
identification was set forth by secular legislation.
The Church, the Jews and the Muslims in the Aragonese Frontier
Papal activity related to Jews and to Muslims as well as that of the local Church
in late 11th and 12th centuries Spanish frontier, emphasized legislation destined to
maintain separation between Christians and non-Christians, and prevent the latters’
domination over Christians.91 The Church had no direct jurisdiction over Jews and
Muslims. A relatively large part of the Muslim population came under ecclesiastical lords in Aragon but that did not aggravate their living conditions, on the
contrary, it usually improved them. Apart from economic considerations which
dissuaded secular rulers from encouraging missionary activity, it should be pointed
out that this restrained policy of the Church toward non-Christians in the frontier
was largely influenced by the fact that across the swiftly modified border lines,
of Eugenius IV and Nicholas V, originally directed at Spain, were extended to Italy in
the fifteenth century. The inclusion of Moslems in the categorie of Jews in Italy was
largely superfluous, since few Moslems survived in Italy at this time, even in Sicily”.
91 Although the main political conflict at that period was between Christians and Muslims,
and vast numbers of Muslims remained on lands overtaken by Christians, the Church’s
apprehension regarding contact between Christians and non-Christians was not necessarily intertwined with demography. Due especially to their concentration in urban
centres, the Jews were much more influential than the Muslims, who were clearly the
larger minority group in the frontier. See J. O’Callaghan, ‘The Mudejars of Castile and
Portugal in the 12th and 13th Centuries’, J. M. Powell ed., Muslims under Latin Rule,
1100-1350, New Jersey 1990, p. 25; Y. Baer, ‘The Political Condition of the Jews in
Spain at the Time of Rabbi Yehuda ha-Levi’, Essays on the History of the Jewish
People, II, Jerusalem 1996, p. 9 (Hebrew).
[59]
Ilan Shoval
there stood Muslim frontier societies, which had the experience of rule over nonMuslims, including Christians.92 On both sides of the border, Mediterranean civilization shared a common fundamental concept with respect to exerting rule over
another monotheistic population, which was founded at least theoretically, on
avoiding forced conversion. The Church compromised willingly with secular
demands, expressed in the frontier by both secular and ecclesiastical lords, which
refused to surrender the economic benefits of non-Christian populations which
came under their rule. The demands of these lords, from the king to the last of the
knights participating in the Reconquista, and the policy toward Jews and Muslims
emanating from such requirements, overruled the theological doctrines and decisively directed the targets of the Church. The economic constituent, the utility
(utilitas) by which the conquered populations were measured, was not religiously
defined, and therefore legislation in the frontier appertaining to Jews and Muslims
was almost identical, and moreover, often identical to legislation relating to the
Christians themselves. Surrender agreements, municipal legislation and contracts
signed between Christians on the one hand and Jews and Muslims on the other, all
had a decisive influence on the manner by which the Church, in its practical policy,
identified Jews with Muslims. It can be generally concluded that the policy adopted
by the Church in the frontier regions toward non-Christian populations, was mainly
a response to the policy of the secular authorities. The practical activity of the
Church concerning Jews and Muslims which found its expression in papal correspondence with secular rulers and with local Church leaders in the frontier, was
indeed influenced by renewed conceptual alignment of the Church with respect to
Judaism and Islam as domestic and external foes, but to a far greater extent this
practical activity was guided by the secular authority’s attitude toward the Jews and
the Muslims.
A sweeping analogy between Jews and Muslims is to be found in secular
legislation in the frontier. The Church, which intended to affect that legislation, had
accepted the analogy, concentrating its efforts on a defensive action; to protect
Christianity against influence originating from the proximity of Christians to nonChristians. The central efforts of ecclesiastical activity through canonic legislation
was dedicated to the preservation of a separate identity of Jewish and Muslim
societies in order to protect Christians from erroneous deviation and prevent
subjugation of Christians to the infidels’ governance. The embarrassment caused
92
F. Codera, La dominación arábiga en la frontera superior, Madrid 1879; ibid., ‘Límites
probables de la conquista árabe en la Cordillera pirenaica’, Boletín de la Real Academia
de la historia L (1906), pp. 5-86; J. Millás Vallicrosa, ‘La conquista musulmana de la
region pirenaica’, Pirineos II (1946), pp. 53-67; Al-Himyari, Al-Rawd al-Mi’tar fi Habr
al-Aktar, Beirut 1984, p. 27 (Arabic).
[60]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
by Christian subjugation to Jewish governance had already prevailed in the core
of ecclesiastical legislation decreed by early Christian emperors. Since then, and
all along the Middle Ages, ecclesiastical legislation was destined to uproot this
contemptibly regarded social phenomenon and adapt the social reality to the
theological principle of Jewish subordination to Christians, that is to “perpetual
servitude”. With the advance of the Reconquista, the issue of Muslim rule over
Christians arose as a consequence of secular legislation which often equated nonChristians with Christians juridically. The Church treated the issue with similar
means as it did with the Jews. The Church did so without having on its side as a
justification, the theological principle valid with respect to the Muslims. No evident
connection between canonic legislation or local Aragonese ecclesiastical and foral
legislation can be traced, and thus it appears that the initiative for the separation
of Christians and non-Christians in frontier daily life, was developed and implemented by secular rulers. Furthermore, this legislation was expanded to treat the
Muslims even though the theological component of keeping them humiliated under
Christian rule was absent. The Third Lateran Council, convoked by Pope Alexander III, which discussed Jewish and Muslim exertion of authority over Christians
was assembled in 1179, three years after the Teruel formula appeared, in which
such exertion was prohibited.93
The Church council assembled at Coyanza in 1055, applied Visigothic
legislation on the Jews prohibiting joint dwelling and dining.94 The Church
council in Gerona, in 1068, had ordered the Jews to pay the tithes on land
acquired from Christians.95 Pope Gregory VII referred to the Jews in two epistles
addressed to King Alfonso VI of Castile, in which he demanded to prevent Jews
from holding public office, lest the Church of God will be subjugated to the
Devil’s synagogue. The pope even rejected Judaism alongside Islam and Pagan-
93 Whereas canonic law in 1234 was considered by scholars a motive to secular legislation
by Frederick II in 1236, secular legislation regarding Jewish, and later Muslim servitude in Teruel, anticipated Canon law in this theme.
94 In mid 11th century, two trends worked simultaneously in the Iberian kingdoms — the
one, revival of Visigothic legislation and its implementation, the other, its adaptation
to the changing circumstances of the Reconquista. With respect to the Jews, as
mentioned above, Fernando I, king of Castile-León explicitly ordered to cancel the
whole Visigothic corpus of legislation concerning the Jews, and jointly with Pope
Alexander II worked on the drafting of Christian-Jewish relations on the grounds of
legitimate juridic existence to the latter. On the Coyanza council with respect to the
Jews, see F. Baer, Die Juden, II, p. 4, doc. 8: “Nullus etiam christianus cum judaeis
in una domo maneat nec cum eis cibum sumat”.
95 J. Parkes, The Jew in the Medieval Community, p. 42.
[61]
Ilan Shoval
ism.96 During the 12th century, prior to the Third Lateran Council, difficulties
emanating from the contact along the frontier between Christians on the one
hand and Jews and Muslims on the other, became more frequent and more
widespread.97 The popes were required to solve issues arising from such contacts, thereby expanding ecclesiastical law destined originally to separate the
Jews from Christian society, and imposing it on the Muslims as well. In the
Third Lateran Council a variety of issues regarding Jews and Muslims were
discussed. Bringing together these issues in one Canon without clearly declaring
its implementation on Jews, Muslims or on the two populations together points
to the fact that this legislation was originally destined to the Jews, and was
subsequently expanded to the Muslims when they came in growing numbers
under Christian rule and posed to the Church the same difficulties posed
previously by the Jews alone due to identification made by secular authorities
between them.98 In the Third Lateran Council a demand was presented to allow
Christians to testify against Jews in ecclesiastical courts without restriction,
parallel to the permission given to Jews to testify against Christians, trying to
prevent preference being given to Jews as often given in secular courts. The
argument that accompanied such a demand was that Jews must be placed in an
inferior status to Christians, not conversely. Presumably, the law was supposed
to be implemented on the Muslims as well, but the absence of the theological
background to the humiliation of the Jews from the Christian-Muslim conflict,
in addition to the fact that Canon jurists frequently addressed the Muslims as
pagans, made it difficult for the council attendants to include the Muslims in this
96
E. Caspar, ‘Das Register Gregors VII’, MGH, Epist, Select., 2, p. 571: “... ex debito
inhibere compellimur, dilectionem tuam monemus, ut in terra tua iudaeos christianis
dominari vel supra eos potestatem exercere ulterius nullatenus sinas. Quid enim est
iudaeis christianis supponere atque hoc illorum iudicio subicere nisi ecclesiam Dei
opprimere et sathanae synagogam exaltare et, dum inimicis Christi velis placere, ipsum
Christum contemnere?”; also ibid., 2, p. 189: “Et inter omnes seculares principes, qui
preponant Dei honorem suo et iustitiam lucro, non cognosco. Eos autem, inter quos
habito, Romanos videlicet, Longobardos et Normannos, sicut saepe illis dico, Iudeis
et paganis quodammodo peiores esse redarguo”.
97 The First (1128) and Second (1139) Lateran Councils, had slight influence. Their
canons were subsequently included in the Decreta of Gratian but they have no reference
either to Jews or Muslims. See F. Suárez Bilbao, El fuero judiego en la España
cristiana, pp. 34-36.
98 Ibid., p. 189. The extent of identification becomes evident in the example of King Roger
I of Sicily, who failed to distinguish between Jews and Muslims. He delivered in 1095
to the Church’s control in Palermo a large number of Muslims, but many of them
undoubtedly had Hebrew names. See S. W. Baron, Social and Religious History of the
Jews, IV, p. 243, note 22.
[62]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
Canon, despite the identification adopted by secular legislation.99 The Third
Lateran Council prohibited Jews and Muslims to employ Christians as slaves
and nursemaids in their houses, and threatened anathema on whoever shared
residence with them.100 With respect to converts, the council treated Jews and
Muslims jointly. It endeavored particularly to prevent splitting the neophyte
from his property as a result of Jewish, Muslim or even Christian secular
legislation. A special Canon was dedicated in the Third Lateran Council to the
prohibition of arms trade between Christians and Muslims. Reference to Christians in command on board of Muslim vessels engaged with such trade, attests
to the nature of inter-relations in the frontier.101
The campaign led by the Papacy against Jewish power over Christians, as
reflected in the canons of the Third Lateran Council, had its origins in the theological concept regarding Jewish subordination, inferiority and servitude, which
99 N. P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. I, Concilium Lateranense III,
1179, Canon 26, p. 224: “Testimonium quoque Christianorum adversus Iudaeos in
omnibus causis, cum illi adversus Christianos testibus suis utantur, recipiendum esse
censemus, et anathemate decernimus feriendos, quicumque Iudaeos christianis voluerint
in hac parte praeferre, cum eos subiacere Christianis oporteat et ab eis pro sola
humanitate foveri”.
100 Ibid., pp. 223-224: “Iudaei sive Sarraceni nec sub alendorum puerorum obtentu nec
pro servitio nec alia qualibet causa, christiana mancipia in domibus suis permittantur
habere. Excommunicentur autem qui cum eis praesumpserint habitare“. The Corpus
Iuris Canonici (A. Friedberg, ed., Graz, 1959), II, Lib. II, tit. XXVIII, c. 29, adds to
the council’s resolutions a prohibition on erecting new synagogues. Prohibition on
cohabitation referred apparently to Christian servants, see S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic
See and the Jews, p. 139, note 136. Alexander III who presided the council had sent
four epistles regarding Christians serving the Jews. One to the bishop of Marseilles, two
to Richard, archbishop of Canterbury and one to the bishop of Bourge. The Iberian
rulers or prelates under whose jurisdiction in the frontier regions this issue concerned
Muslims as well as Jews, and appeared to be more acute, were not among his correspondents. The pope allowed Christians to lend money to the unbelievers, but in the
Third Lateran Council he withdrew from that stand and prohibited Christians to be
engaged in money lending. Jews and Muslims were excluded. See N. P. Tanner,
Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, II, Can. 25, pp. 223-224.
101 Ibid., p. 223, Can. 24. See J. M. Powell, ‘The Papacy and the Muslim Frontier’, p. 189.
On the prohibition of arms trade in the fuero of Teruel, see F. Tur 413, p. 219; Fuero
563, pp. 318-319. The fuero of Cuenca includes Jews and Muslims in its prohibition
under penalty, of taking weapons outside the city. A distinction must be made between
legislation engaged with the arms trade and its production and legislation engaged with
holding weapons by Jews and Muslims under Christian rule and their participation in
military activity alongside the Christians. See also, P. León Tello, ‘Disposiciones sobre
judíos en los fueros de Castilla y León’, pp. 281-282.
[63]
Ilan Shoval
despite the absence of a legal foundation, weighed considerably among clergy and
laymen. This however was not enough to deter the kings of Aragon to appoint Jews
and Muslims to offices which entailed rule over Christians. This theological
concept is at the core of the current discussion, because scholars have rightly
pointed out a connection between it and the special status of the Jews as “servi
regis”. But here it is the position of the Church ruled by the pope, as explicitly
spoken in the resolution of the Third Lateran Council, referring collectively to
Jewish and Muslim exertion of power over Christians (and utterly rebuffs it),
without having the issue of Muslim sovereignty over Christians evolve on the same
theological background which existed with respect to the Jews.102 Most Decretals
referring to the Jews contained bulls or canons of Church councils, relating to
Jewish serfdom, which were issued starting from the 12th century, particularly
during the days of Popes Alexander III and Innocent III. They, and the larger part
of Canon jurists reiterated the servitus of the Jews according to the familiar
Augustinian phrase, and included in ecclesiastical law, the Muslims as well.103 A
decade after the Third Lateran Council, discussion of Jews and of Muslims appeared jointly in canonic law. Between the years 1188-1192, Bernardus of Pavia
issued his compilation of decretals, known as the “Breviarium Extravagantium”,
102 The first papal phrase indicating Jewish serfdom in its social-political meaning is
related to pope Alexander II in the sixties of the 11th century. In his epistle to the bishops
of Spain dated 1063, he distinguished the Jews from the Muslims remarking on the
services the Jews are doing for the Christians, and this epistle was eventually included
in the Decreta Gratianum. In Islamic attitude to “the people of the Book”, the Jews and
the Christians, as reflected in the contract of Umar, the latter were condemned to
humiliating subordination to the Muslims. Some historians assert that the “contract of
Umar” was part of the legacy of Byzantine Christian legislation regarding the Jews
prior to the appearance of Islam. See E. A. Synan, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle
Ages, p. 54, on the possibility of a connection between the status of Christians under
Islamic rule, and the concept of Jewish servitude in Christian Europe. See also, M. R.
Cohen, ‘Islam and the Jews: A Myth, a Counter-Myth, History’, in H. Lazarus Yaffe,
ed., Muslim Writers on Jews and Judaism, Jerusalem, 1996, pp. 23-24 (Hebrew).
103 On Pope Innocent III’s opinion on this subject, the wide use he made of the theological
concept of servitude, as well as on St. Thomas Aquino’s opinion with respect to Jewish
servitude, see S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews, pp. 96-98. Innocent III
had written in an epistle he sent in 1208 to Petrus de Courtenay, count of Nevers, “...
Christian princes must not assist the blasphemers subjugate the servants of the Lord,
but rather enforce on them the servitude they turned themselves deserving for, when
they raised their profane hands on the one who intended to grant them real freedom,
and had turned on themselves and on their descendants, his blood”. On the resolutions
of the fourth Lateran Council regarding the Jews and the Muslims, see N. P. Tanner,
ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Concilium Lateranense IV- 1215, Cans.6770, pp. 265-267; J. M. Powell, ‘The Papacy and the Muslim Frontier’, pp. 190-193.
[64]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
in which the title “De Iudeis et Sarracenis et eorum servis” appears.104 Bernardus
of Pavia identified Muslims with pagans and replaced the latter in the traditional
heading of that article, “De Iudaei, Pagani et Haeretici”, with the Muslims.105
Conclusion
The reality that transpired through the study of the linkage between the term “servi
regis” and the theological motive, clarified through a comparison with another
religiously defined conflict as a unique circumstance characteristic of the frontier
region, appeared to be quite different from the reality portrayed by historians
concerned with the institution of Jewish servitude.
An inquiry into the relationship between the Papacy, the Church and the king
in the Aragonese frontier regions during the late 11th and 12th centuries, confirms
the consolidation of a reciprocal agreement between the Papacy’s reformist tendencies and the political needs of the kingdom of Aragon. The Papacy acted laboriously in this period, through the local Aragonese Church, to establish the Roman
Church’s supremacy over the ever expanding, politically transfiguring kingdom.
The Papacy struggled to consecrate a uniform Roman liturgy, and involved its legal
staff meticulously in the organization of local dioceses, clerical appointments and
proprietary profits. Although the Papacy demanded commitment on behalf of the
Aragonese kings to wage war against the Muslim enemy and helped the same kings
104 A. Friedberg, ed., Corpus Iuris Canonici, Leipzig 1879-1881, (repr. Graz, 1955), II,
Lib. V, tit. VI, ‘De Iudeis, Sarracenis et eorum servis’. See also ibid., ‘De Iudaeis et
Sarracenis: On the Categorization of Muslims in Medieval Canon Law’, Proceedings
of the Sixth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, S. Kuttner and K.
Pennington eds., Berkeley 1980 (Vatican 1985), p. 208, where M. Stickler raised the
possibility that William of Tyre, the chronicler who recorded the resolutions of the
Third Lateran Council, consistently described the Muslims as infidels, not as pagans.
For that reason they were named Sarraceni in the Canons of the council rather than
“pagani”. Putting together therefore, Muslims and Jews, the old infidels, was a result
of the way in which William of Tyre defined the Muslims, but Bernardus of Pavia did
not accept his view.
105 M. Stickler, ‘De Iudaeis et Sarracenis’, pp. 211-212. Peter the Venerable in his treatise
‘Liber adversus nefandam haeresim sive sectam Sarracenorum‘, did not conclude
decisively whether the Muslims were pagans or heretics and had deliberately left the
question open. Other Canon jurists had included the Muslims among the heretics,
although due to legislative implications which might have evolved from such inclusion,
the concept that prevailed in Canon law was that the Muslims were pagans. Stickler
did not elaborate on the issue of identification of Jews and Muslims in Canon law, exept
from asserting that the Muslims had replaced the pagans.
[65]
Ilan Shoval
through eager encouragement of northern European Crusade initiatives, there exists
in the sources hardly any direct reference to the policy pursued by the kings of
Aragon toward the Jews and the Muslims who came under Christian rule. The
peculiar circumstances dominating the frontier regions had a restraining effect on
papal and as a consequence on ecclesiastical involvement in the relationship
between the rulers of that kingdom and the subordinated Jews and Muslims.
Beyond that, the Church found itself confronting a new theological as well as
juridico-political conflict with Islam, which was not only happening simultaneously with the age old conflict with Judaism and the Jews, but also appeared to be
immensely influential on the latter. The lasting conflict between Christianity and
Judaism evolved into a different theological conflict, bearing new political consequences, due to the outburst of the Christian-Muslim encounter along the frontier.
The Crusades illustrated the change acutely. Dominant figures in twelfth century
Latin Europe made claims to denounce the unbelievers scattered at home, i.e. the
Jews, before waging war on unbelievers beyond the borders of Christianity, i.e. the
Muslims. Popes and Church leaders were required often to stress the differences
between Jews and Muslims, and to relocate the Christian-Jewish conflict on its
ancient background, upon which the Jews’ protected existence within Christian
society was allowed.
This task became ardous due to changes in the character of the Christian-Jewish
conflict. New information concerning Judaism that reached the Christians by way
of the frontier regions, the Aragonese in particular, afforded the latter with sufficient reasons to revise Christianity’s relationship with “Talmudic” Judaism, on the
theological level as well as on the legal and political levels derived from it. Church
leaders incessantly maintained an ambiguous position, in which on the one hand
the Jews’ status as a theologically protected group was reassured, and on the other
hand they were severely condemned as deviants from aberrant yet orthodox
Judaism, being counted like the Muslims on Satanic heretical sects. In addition, the
idea of converting the Muslims, which surfaced along with Christian expansion on
the frontier, again raised intensely the question of converting the Jews, opened it
to a renewed discussion, and added to the increasing identification by the Christians
of the Jews with the Muslims.
A crucial influence on the identification of Jews and Muslims in ecclesiastical
law is to be related to the likeness in the way these two populations were treated in
frontier regions by secular rulers. This reality dictated the increasing identification
apparent in ecclesiastical law, with respect to Jews and Muslims. One can detect with
relative ease, the appearances of the Christian theological concept with regard to the
Jews. But the clear similarity, and the parallel legal and political definitions of Jews
and Muslims did not coincide with the content of the theological conflict between
Christianity and Islam, and therefore it is difficult to explain why the Church
[66]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
integrated the identification of the two groups into the compilations of ecclesiastical
law. It has been pointed out that the policy adopted by secular rulers in the frontier
towards the Muslims, a policy dictated above all by considerations of economic
utility, was the major factor in the evolution of the linkage, and in the course of time
almost complete identification made by the Church, between the Jews and the
Muslims.106 The resemblance manifested in the legislation appertaining to the Jews
and the Muslims had its origins in the King’s policy rather than that of the Church.
At the time Muslim cities surrendered to the Christian conquerors, and were
forced to serve the Christian king, there remained no satisfying reason not to justify
their protection in the same manner Pope Alexander II, who actually demanded to
distinguish the Jews from the Muslims and justified protection over Jews as serving
the Christians. The ecclesiastical authority reacted to a reality formulated by the
secular authority in the frontier zone very much due to the Church’s dependence
on the secular rulers, with regard to its activities and its emphasis on defending the
Christian faith and diminishing external influences.107
The claim for supreme hegemony was a fundamental part of Papal policy from
mid eleventh century onwards, but its vigor in the frontier regions depended more
on corroborating co-operation on behalf of the secular authority, than on implementing this policy legislatively. In the same manner secular rulers subjugated the
Jews to their laws, they did so with respect to the Muslims; in the same way secular
authorities limited missionary activity amongst the Jews because of inheritance
interests, so did they limit such activities amongst the Muslims. As the principles
of utility and necessity delineated by the kings guided the Church’s bearing upon
the Jews, so did similar principles with respect to the Muslims. Especially in the
12th century advancing frontier region, where Jewish and Muslim involvement in
Christian society was relatively widespread, was the power of the Church relatively
modest when it came to the enforcement of ecclesiastical legislation.
Limited secular legislation destined to separate Jews and Muslims alike from
Christians, was practically the only expression of the theological concepts with
respect to the status of these populations. Yet I suggest that both Jews and Muslims
106 N. Daniel, The Cultural Barrier, Edinburgh 1975, p. 164; J. M. Powell, ‘The Papacy
and the Muslim Frontier’, p. 189
107 J. M. Powell, Muslims under Latin Rule, 1100-1350, pp. 206-207. The Church’s
dependence on the secular authority was exemplified clearly in the matter of tithe
payment by both Muslims and Jews on land purchased from Christians. see Ch. 3, and,
A. García y García, ‘Judíos y moros en el ordenamiento canónico medieval’, I Congreso
Internacional ‘Encuentro de las tres Culturas’, (3-7 octubre, 1982), Toledo 1982, p.
169. It should also be taken into consideration that clergymen of all ranks were
“secular” seigniors, and the legal norms by which they administered their affairs, were
secular rather than canonic legislation.
[67]
Ilan Shoval
were given the legal status of “servi regis”, in a reality where slavery existed
literally, a definition which may point out to an apparent co-operation between the
secular ruler and the ecclesiastical authority, by which the unbelievers were subjugated to Christian rule.108
The issue of the Jews’ official authority over Christians, which was pivotal in
12th century ecclesiastical legislation, because of its incongruence with the theological concept concerning them, was treated in canonic law in a similar manner with
regard to Muslims. That occurred because the reality created by secular legislation
in the frontier regions, compelled Canon law jurists to confront an identical
problem. Although Canon legislation was the concrete expression of a campaign
against Christian subordination to non-Christians, the identification between Muslims
and Jews penetrated the sphere of theological concepts. Identification between
Jews and Muslims became a matter of recurrence during the 12th century, and was
accepted in the course of the 13th, unhindered in ecclesiastical juridic literature.109
Historiographical research on the theme of appearance of the term “servi regis”
to define the legal status of the Jews in High Middle Ages, offered a variety of
accountable interpretations to the reasons why Christian rulers chose that term to
denote the Jews under their rule. This research shifted about between over-emphasis
laid upon the German manifestation and a cross-European generalizing comparison.
The study attempted here of the original appearance of the term in the 12th century
kingdom of Aragon, refers to the same interpretations to the motives, although
conducted within a different conceptual framework, that of “frontier regions”, as well
as through a comparative methodology made with another non-Christian population
which was defined identically to the Jews. It becomes clear that the circumstances
108 To support the argument of greater weight related to the royal-secular interest in the
12th century frontier zone, than that given to ecclesiastical policy, a comparison may
be drawn between Papal attitudes toward Jews and Muslims in the Iberian frontier
regions and its attitudes toward these populations in the frontier regions of Sicily or the
Crusader kingdoms of the East. See D. Abulafia, ‘The End of Muslim Sicily’ in J. M.
Powell, Muslims under Latin Rule, pp. 103-133. J. M Powell himself, in an article on
Frederick II and the Muslims in Sicily, emphasized the principles of necessity and
utility, as the ones guiding the German Emperor’s policy toward the Muslims. Yet
unlike 12th century Spain, the Church has become more decisive in its demand to
implement Canon legislation toward Jews and Muslims, and therefore the relationship
between the Emperor and Pope Gregory IX turned hostile. See J. M. Powell, ‘Frederick
II and the Muslims: The Making of an Historiographical Tradition’, L. J. Simon, ed.,
Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of R. I.
Burns, I, Leiden 1995, pp. 261-269
109 The compilation of ‘Decretales’ arranged by Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241), appears
in the Corpus Iuris Canonici, Lib. V, tit. VI. The structure attests to the lack of effort
to distinguish between Jews and Muslims. See A. García y García, ‘Judíos y moros en
el ordenamiento canónico medieval’, p. 171.
[68]
“Servi Regis” Re-Examined
which determined the status of the Jews changed significantly from one European
kingdom to another, and that the apparently similar terms used in the Holy Empire,
in England, in France, in Sicily and in Aragon, are not to be easily compared with
one another. It is here suggested that the interpretations to the appearance of the term
“servi regis” in Aragon, are closer than interpretations proposed previously in that
field of research, to reveal its origins and to decipher its implication.
It appears that the formulae expressing the status of the Jews as “servi regis”
in the European kingdoms outside Aragon, reflects a rigid juridic precept current
among various royal courts, that fossilized as these courts strayed from the circumstances which had originated that precept.
In the 13th century circumstances had changed. Following the advance of the
Reconquista activity in Aragon, royal interests altered and secular rulers inclined more
willingly to the pressures of the Church which had turned aggressive by this time. The
breach between the Church’s positions and the political and economic benefits the king
had derived from the Jews and the Muslims had decreased, and the more conventional
Christian attitude which already prevailed in northern Europe in the 12th century, had
also spreaded in the Iberian peninsula. Until that change of circumstances, the local
Church in Aragon, like the Papacy, settled with its attitude and its almost complete
dependence on the secular ruler’s policy toward non-Christian populations in the
frontier, with the term he had designed for them — “servi regis”.110
110 Raymundus de Peñaforte, (1185-1275), a Dominican monk who served as counselor
to Jaime I, King of Aragon (1213-1276), was among the prominent figures to execute
that shift. See S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews, pp. 126ª 204 (Hebrew
version); R. I. Burns, ‘Canon Law and the Reconquista: Convergence and Symbiosis
in the Kingdom of Valencia under Jaume the Conqueror, 1213-1276’, V International
Congress of Medieval Canon Law, The Vatican 1980, pp. 387-424. A survey of the
Church’s attitude toward Jews and Muslims in the 13th century exceeds this paper’s
purpose, but it is worthwhile to indicate that the tendency to identify Jews and
Muslims deepened the aggravation of the Church attitude toward both societies. This
tendency was revealed in the sphere of missionary efforts: imposing preaching by
Mendicants to both Jews and Muslims, approved by King Jaime I after the dispute
in Barcelona, in 1263. In the sphere of polemical literature, in the influential treatise
of the Dominican Raymundus Martini, ‘Pugio fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos’, see
R. Chazan, Church, State and the Jew in the Middle Ages, New York 1980, pp. 1-9.
On identification of Jews and Muslims in the important Castilian law compilation of
the 13th century, the ‘Siete partidas’, see J. O’Callaghan, ‘The Mudejars of Castile and
Portugal’, pp. 30-46; M. L. Ledesma Rubio, ‘La sociedad de frontera’, p. 47; Y. T.
Assis, The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry. A comparative study on the legal status
and living conditions of Jews and Muslims under Christian rule in 13th century
kingdom of Valencia, discussing the change that occurred in Church policy in the
Aragonese Crown in R. I. Burns, Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Crusader
Kingdom of Valencia, Cambridge 1984.
[69]