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Jews and Cathari in Medieval France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

John M. O'Brien
Affiliation:
Queens College, City University of New York

Extract

The flourishing of Catharism in southern France was accompanied by marked prosperity among southern French Jews. While the Cathari were openly professing their heresy and winning converts in the courts of influential nobles, the position of the Jews was noticeably ameliorating. The Jews of Languedoc, for example, held land in franc alleu, collected tolls, and occasionally even worked as bailiffs. Indeed, their social and political status compared favorably with that of their co-religionists in any part of Europe.

Type
Jews and Cathari
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1968

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References

1 Saige, Gustave, Les juifs de Languedoc (Paris, 1881).Google Scholar For the infeudation of Jews in Languedoc see ibid., Pièces Justificatives, VI, VII, X, XII, and XIII.

2 Ibid., Graetz, , History, p. 390,Google Scholar and Newman, Louis I., Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements (New York, 1925), pp. 138207.Google Scholar

3 Newman, , Jewish Influence, p. 136.Google Scholar

4 The clearest secondary description of this aspect of Catharan theology may be found in Borst, Arno, Die Katharer (Stuttgart, 1953), pp. 156162.Google Scholar

5 Dollinger, I., Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters (New York, 1890), Dokumente, p. 197.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., Dokumente, p. 196.

7 The Cathari offered extreme proof of the God of the Old Testament's evil activities. See the document from the Archives of the Inquisition of Carcassonne included in the appendix to Lea, H. C., A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (New York, 1958), I, pp. 563567.Google Scholar

8 William of Puy-Laurens reports an interesting debate between a bishop and a heresiarch in Puy-Laurens, Guillaume d, “Chronique”, Collection des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France (Paris, 1824), pp. 214215.Google Scholar

9 Newman, , Jewish Influence, p. 138.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., p. 142.

11 Ibid., p. 143.

12 Ibid., p. 140.

13 Saige, , Juifs, p. 16.Google Scholar

14 See Histoire litteraire de la France, XXVII, p. 518.Google Scholar

15 Saige, , Juifs, p. 17.Google Scholar

17 Adler, M. N., ed., The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (London, 1907), p. 4.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 2.

19 Ibid., pp. 2–4.

20 Grayzel, Solomon, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth century (Philadelphia, 1933), Document 23, p. 24.Google Scholar

21 See Emery, Richard W., The Jews of Perpignan in the Thirteenth Century (New York, 1959).Google Scholar

22 Grayzel, Documents, Councils, III.

23 Ibid., IV.

24 Ibid., V.

25 Ibid., VII.

26 Ibid., Innocent III, 5.

27 Ibid., p. 83.

28 Ibid., Innocent III, 18: “Etsi Judeos, quos propria culpa submisit perpetue servituti, cum Dominum crucifixerint, quern sui prophete predixerant ad redemptionem Israel in carne venturum …”.

29 Ibid., Innocent III, 24: “ … quare Judei, contra quos clamat vox sanguinis Jesu Christi, etsi occidi non debeant, ne divine legis obliviscatur populus Christianus, dispergi tamen debent super terram ut vagi, quatenus facies ipsorum ignominia repleatur, et querant nomen Domini Jesu Christi”.

31 Ibid., Councils, X.

32 Ibid., Innocent, 14.

33 Ibid., 17.

34 Ibid., 23.

35 Ibid., 24.

36 See Runciman, Steven, The Medieval Manichee (New York, 1961), pp. 8, 15,Google Scholar and Guiraud, Jean, Histoire de j'inquisition au moyen âge (Paris, 1935), pp. 8485 who explains that the vegetarianism of the Catharist was a result of their belief in metempsychosis.Google Scholar

37 See the interesting remarks of Nelson, Benjamin N., The Idea of Usury (Princeton, 1949), p. 7.Google Scholar

38 Borst, , Katharer, p. 125.Google Scholar

39 Wacholder, Ben Zion, “Cases of Proselytizing in the Tosafist Responsa”, Jewish Quarterly Review, LI, pp. 288315.Google Scholar