To the Archbishops of Germany (1233 AD)
It ought to have sufficed for the perfidy of the Jews that Christian piety receives and tolerates them with consideration for humanity alone — those whom the Saracens, who persecute the Catholic faith and do not know the name of the Lord, do not admit to their cohabitation or company. For they, ungrateful for grace and forgetful of benefits, repay us with insult in return for kindness, and with impious contempt in return for goodness — they who, admitted into our familiarity through mercy alone, ought to recognize the yoke of the perpetual servitude they have rendered themselves worthy of through their own fault.
For we have received — and we relate it with grief and write it with shame — that the Jews settled throughout Germany have become so insolent that they dare to commit those excesses in contempt of the Christian faith which it is not only wicked to speak of, but even nefarious to think upon. They also keep Christian slaves, whom they cause to be circumcised and whom they compel to Judaize. Moreover, some who are Christian in name only, willingly transferring themselves to the Jews and following their rite, allow themselves to be circumcised and publicly profess themselves Jews. And although it was decreed in the Council of Toledo and likewise renewed in the general council that a blasphemer of Christ should not be placed in public offices over Christians — since it is far too absurd that such a one should exercise authority over them — nevertheless secular dignities and public offices are being entrusted to them, on account of which they rage against Christians and compel some to observe their rite. Furthermore, they keep Christian nurses and maids in their own houses, who commit in their presence such abominations as are an abomination to hear and a horror. And although the same general council provides that Jews of both sexes in every Christian province, and at all times, shall be distinguished from other peoples by the quality of their dress, such confusion has spread in some parts of Germany that no distinction can be discerned.
Since therefore it is an iniquity that one reborn in the wave of sacred Baptism should be defiled by the rite or conversation of unbelievers, and that the Christian religion should be oppressed by the dominion of the perfidious — if a blasphemer redeemed by the blood of Christ should hold him bound in servitude — we command your whole body, ordering each of you in your dioceses, churches, and parishes to have all the aforesaid and similar excesses of the Jews completely repressed, so that they may not presume to lift up the neck placed beneath the yoke of perpetual servitude in contempt of the Redeemer. You shall strictly forbid them to presume in any way to dispute concerning their faith or rite with Christians, lest under the pretext of such disputation the simple be drawn into the snare of error — which God forbid — invoking to this end, if necessary, the aid of the secular arm: compelling Christians who offer contradiction by ecclesiastical censure, and Jews by the withdrawal of communion with the faithful, with appeal set aside.
Given at Anagni, on the third day before the Nones of March, in the sixth year of our pontificate.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Vol. III – Translated by Claude.AI. Gregory IX, Prohibitio ne Iudaei Mancipia, Nutrices et Famulas Christianas Habeant. Bullarium Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum, Taurinensis Editio, Vol. III, Bull XXXVI. Turin, 1858.
Regesta Pontificum Romanorum
1. Gregory IX, no. 10243 — Lacrymabilem Iudaeorum in — Gregory IX writes on the pitiable state of the Jews of France and orders their plundered goods restored (1236 AD)
To the Archbishop of Bordeaux and the bishops of Saintes, Angoulême, and Poitiers, he writes concerning the pitiable state of the Jews in the kingdom of France, and commands them to take care that what has been plundered from those who have been despoiled be restored to them. September (?) year 10°. — “Lacrymabilem Iudaeorum in.”
Translation: Gregory writes to the bishops of the Bordeaux ecclesiastical province describing the lacrymabilis — “tear-worthy,” pitiable — condition of the Jews in the kingdom of France, who had apparently been subjected to mass spoliation. He commands the bishops to ensure that whatever has been seized from those plundered be restored to them. This is a protective letter, unusual in the context of Gregory IX who was simultaneously condemning the Talmud (see below). It is cited only in Raynaldus’s Annales (ad a. 1236 §48) and not in the Bullarium.
2. Gregory IX, nos. 10759, 10767, 10768 — Si vera sunt — Condemnation of the Talmud; seizure and burning of Jewish books (1239 AD)
No. 10759: To the archbishops throughout the kingdom of France he writes concerning the condemnation of the Talmud of the Jews, and commands them to arrange that on the first Saturday of the coming Lent, in the morning, when the Jews gather in their synagogues, all their books be seized and kept with the Friars Preachers or Minors. June 9, year 13°. — “Si vera sunt.”
No. 10767: To the bishop, prior of the Preachers, and minister of the Minors of Paris he informs them of the condemnation of the Talmud of the Jews and commands them that all books of that kind which they find be committed to burning and those who resist be restrained by ecclesiastical censures. June 20, year 13°. — “Si vera sunt.”
No. 10768: He urges the King of Portugal to arrange that all the books of the Jews of his kingdom be seized and kept with the Friars Preachers or Minors. June 20, year 13°. — “Si vera sunt.”
Translation of the common substance: These three entries record Gregory IX’s historic condemnation of the Talmud in 1239 — the first papal condemnation in history. If the things are true (the opening words) which are reported to us concerning the Jews of France — the Pope has been informed that the Jews have abandoned the Mosaic law for a book called the Talmud, full of blasphemies against Christ, the Virgin, and the saints. He therefore commands, first, that on the first Saturday of Lent, while the Jews are gathered in their synagogues and their books lie unguarded, all copies of the Talmud and related works be simultaneously seized throughout the kingdom and placed in the custody of the Dominicans and Franciscans. A parallel letter goes to the King of Portugal. A follow-up letter orders the Parisian inquisitors to have any Talmud copies found committed to burning. These are not in the Bullarium Romanum as independent entries (though the condemnation is referenced in later documents already translated).
3. Gregory IX, no. 10760 — Distribution of the Talmud letters to other kings (1239 AD)
To the Bishop of Paris he commands that the apostolic letters concerning the books of the Jews, to be presented to him by Nicholas, formerly a Jew, be transmitted to the archbishops and to the kings of France, England, Aragon, Navarre, Castile and León, and Portugal. June 9, year 13°.
Translation: Gregory instructs the Bishop of Paris to serve as distribution hub: a Jewish convert named Nicholas is to bring him the letters against the Talmud, and the Bishop is to forward copies to every archbishop and king of the major western realms simultaneously, ensuring a coordinated Europe-wide seizure. This is a logistics letter for the Talmud campaign.
Source. Regesta Pontificum Romanorum – Translated by Claude.AI. Gregory IX, Letters. Potthast, August, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, Vol 1. 1957.
DECRETALS OF POPE GREGORY IX. COMPILATION
BOOK ONE.
TITLE II. CONSTITUTIONS. — CHAPTER II.
The Constitution looks to the future, and not to the past.
Gregory in the Register.
Knowing how zealous your brotherhood has been for the Christian slaves that the Jews buy from the borders of Gaul, we declare that your solicitude has pleased us so much that our deliberations have also decided to forbid them from this kind of business. But when Basil the Hebrew came with other Jews, we learned that this purchase of the republic had been ordered by various judges against them, and that it would happen that they would be brought between pagans and Christians alike. Hence it was necessary that the cause be so carefully arranged that neither the mandators be frustrated, nor those who claim to obey against their will endure any unjust suspensions. Accordingly, your brotherhood should provide for this to be observed and scrutinized with vigilant solicitude, so that on their return from the aforementioned Christian province, the slaves that they may have brought with them, should either be given to the mandators, or certainly sold to Christian buyers within forty days, and that after this number of days has passed, none should remain with them in any way. But if some of the same slaves have perhaps incurred such an illness that they cannot be sold within the established days, care must be taken that, while they are restored to their former health, they are similarly removed in every way, because it is not fitting to call a thing that is free from fault a loss. But whenever something new is established, it is wont to impose a form on future things in such a way that it does not commend past things to many expenses; if any slaves remain with them from the purchase of the past year, or have recently been taken away by you, while they are placed with you, they have the license to alienate them, lest they incur a loss before the prohibition without knowing it, which it is right for them to bear afterwards as forbidden.
TITLE III. ON RESCRIPTS. — CHAPTER VII.
If, when the see is vacant, it is written to the chapter, that the bishop who is acting as bishop should confer a prebend on someone, if the bishop is created without having executed the mandate, and the conferral of prebends concerns him, he is bound to fulfill it. This he says according to the commonly approved reading. Abb. Sicul.
The same to the Bishop of Tournai. (And below:) For some time before your promotion, letters emanated from us, if we remember correctly, in which we gave the dean and the church entrusted to you, while you were still in the same chapter, a mandate and an order, that our beloved son P., the bearer of the gifts, who originated from the Jewish nation and by divine grace humbly and devoutly accepted the faith of Christ, by reason of his conduct, and by reason of the letters in which he has so advanced that he is not undeservedly considered worthy of ecclesiastical favor, upon receiving our letters, they should receive him as a canon, and should liberally confer upon him the prebend, if any were vacant, or which might happen to be vacant at first. (And below:) But they themselves, as we have received in the same M.’s report, upon receiving our letters after your consecration, because the donation of prebends concerned you, could not, as they asserted, order our order to be duly executed. When therefore the prescribed P., as he asserts, urgently requested you on our part about this, you answered him that you had received no command from us, and so you dismissed him from your post with an unfinished business. Which you should not have done at all, if you had paid more careful attention to the dates of the letters; since at the time when the letters themselves were given, you were of the chapter itself, as you were archdeacon and canon of the same church, although you had not yet been consecrated bishop. (And below:) But for the fact that he was a Jew, you should not disdain him. (And below:) We command your brotherhood to receive him as a canon of your church, and to assign him a stall in the choir and a place in the chapter.
BOOK THREE.
TITLE XXXIII. ON THE CONVERSION OF INFIDELS. — CHAPTER II.
If one of the unbelieving spouses comes to the faith, while the other remains in the error of unbelief, the common offspring is assigned to the other.
Gregory IX, Bishop of Argentina. From your letters we have learned that a certain man, led from the error of Jewish blindness to Christ the true light and the way of truth, having left his wife in Judaism, urgently requested in court that their four-year-old son be assigned to her, to be brought to the Catholic faith, which he himself had adopted. To which she replied that, since the child is still an infant, for which reason he needs more maternal comfort than paternal, and is known to have been burdensome to himself before birth, painful during childbirth, and laborious after birth, and from this the legitimate union of a man and a woman is called more marriage than patrimony, the said child should more conveniently remain with her, than he should pass with his father, having been brought anew to the Christian faith, or at least follow neither, until he reaches the legitimate age. Hence, after many other allegations: but you, having retained the aforesaid child in your power for a while, desired to consult us as to what you should do in this case. But since the son is in the power of his father, whose family he follows, and not his mother’s, and at such an age no one should remain with those persons about whom there may be suspicion that they are plotting against his safety or life, and the boy after three years should be kept and remain with the father who is not suspected, and the boy’s mother, if he were to remain with her, could easily lead him to the error of infidelity: to your brotherhood we respond in favor of the Christian faith in particular, that the same boy should be assigned to the father. [Date of Perugia XVII. Kal. Iun. A. II. 1229.]
BOOK FOUR.
TITLE VI. WHO CLERICS OR VOWERS MAY CONTRACT MARRIAGE. — CHAPTER VII.
A solemn vow impedes and annuls marriage after it has been contracted.
Innocent III. To the Bishops of Lisbon and Colimbria. By the insinuation of our noble woman I., it was revealed to the apostolate that, having been ordained as a girl and in her tender years, she had married Marcus Sancius, who was shortly afterwards killed by the enemies of the cross of Christ… Finally, seeing herself forced and destitute of everything, and considering nevertheless that she had made a vow against her will, he was dismissed, and by the advice of her parents she was publicly united in matrimony with P. Michael, by whom she bore four sons in due course…she hid herself in the house of a certain Jew for three weeks, and in the church of S. Maria de Veiga for six weeks, so that she did not dare to leave thence even for human necessities. [Dat. Lat. Kal. Dec. 1199.]
TITLE XIV. ON CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY. — CHAPTER IV.
Infidels, united in a degree prohibited by canon law, are not separated after baptism.
Innocent III. To the Archbishop and Chapter of Tirreni. You wished to consult us about unbelievers converted to the faith, whether, if they were united before their conversion according to the institutions of the Old Law or their traditions regarding the degrees of consanguinity, denoted by the canon, they should be separated after baptism. On this, therefore, we have decided to answer your Consultation that a marriage thus contracted before conversion is not to be separated after the bath of baptism, since the Lord, when asked by the Jews whether it was permissible to divorce a wife for any reason, answered them: “What God has joined together, let no man separate,” thereby indicating that there was marriage between them. [Dat. Lat. III. Kal. Jan. 1198.]
TITLE XX. ON DONATIONS BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE. — CHAPTER V.
Innocent III, Archbishop of Compostela and all the bishops appointed in the kingdom of Legion… she hid herself in the house of a certain Jew for three weeks… since the clerics were accustomed to being supported by these for the most part in those parts, with these withdrawn they were forced not only to beg, but to dig, and to serve the Jews in the church and the reproach of all Christianity. [Date. Lat. VIII. Kal. Iun. 1199.]
BOOK FIVE.
TITLE VI. OF THE JEWS, SARACENS, AND THEIR SERVANTS.
CHAPTER I. If a slave, bought by a Jew, has become a Christian for the sake of trade, or desires to become one, he is redeemed for 12 solidi. From the Council of Matena. By the authority of God, we decree in this council that no Christian slave shall henceforth serve a Jew, but that, on payment of 12 solidi for every good slave, any Christian shall have the right to redeem the slave, either for freedom or for service. And if he desires to become a Christian and is not permitted, let him do the same, for it is wrong to hold in bonds of slavery one whom Christ the Lord has redeemed, blaspheming Christ.
CHAPTER II. A Jew cannot have a Christian as a slave, but he can have him as a member of the adscription. Gregory, Bishop of Lucca. We have been informed by many that Jews living in the city of Lune were holding slaves in Christian service. This matter seemed to us all the more harsh, as your brotherhood’s patience was more laborious. Indeed, it was necessary for you, in respect of your place and in view of the Christian religion, to leave no occasion for simple souls to serve Jewish superstition, not so much by persuasion as by the right of power. For this reason we exhort your brotherhood that, according to the path of the most pious laws, no Jew should be permitted to retain a Christian slave in his possession: but if any are found among them, their freedom should be preserved with the aid of protection from the sanction of the laws. But those who are in their possessions, although themselves are free by the strictness of the laws, nevertheless, because they have adhered longer to cultivating their lands, as those who are obliged by the condition of the place, they should remain to cultivate the fields, granting the usual pensions to the aforesaid men. They shall also carry out all that the laws prescribe concerning colonists or natives, and nothing beyond this burden is further indicated to them. But if any of the Jews wishes to transfer any of these to another place, or to retain them for another service: let him impute to himself the right of colonist by his rashness, and the right of lordship to himself by the severity of the law.
CHAPTER III. The Jews can retain the old Synagogues, they cannot demand new ones. The same to the Bishop of Genoa. The Jews of your city came here and complained to us that Peter, who was led by their superstition to the worship of the Christian faith by God’s will through his synagogue, which is located in Caralis, having recruited some undisciplined people, on the day following his baptism, that is, on Sunday, on the very feast of Easter, had occupied it with grave scandal without your consent; and had placed there an image of our Mother of God, Dominica, and a venerable cross, and the white robe with which he had been clothed when he rose from the fountain… Just as the legal definition does not allow the Jews to erect new synagogues: so it allows them to have old ones without unrest.
CHAPTER IV. On Good Friday it is not permitted for Jews to keep doors or windows open. Alexander III. Because we do not have a certain canon on these matters, from which you wrote to us in your letters about the Jews, we intimate to your brotherhood by the sign of the present, that your clergy, having called together in one body, generally by our authority as well as yours — forbid that the Jews should not have their doors or windows open on the day of Good Friday, but should keep them closed all day. Also, do not permit any pious Christian to dwell with them, but generally enjoin upon all, that no Christian should dare to remain in their service, lest perhaps from their conversation they be converted to the perfidy of Judaism.
CHAPTER V. Christians who serve Jews, or Saracens or pagans in their homes should be excommunicated. And secular princes should be excommunicated who presume to rob baptized Jews of their goods. The same from the Lateran Council. Jews or Saracens are not permitted to have slaves in their houses, neither under the pretext of raising children, nor for service or any other Christian cause. But those who presume to live with them are to be excommunicated. If any moreover, by the inspiration of God, have converted to the Christian faith, they are in no way excluded from their possessions, since it is necessary that they have been converted to the faith in a better condition than they were before they accepted the faith. But if otherwise has been done, we enjoin upon the princes or powers of those places, under pain of excommunication, to cause a portion of their inheritance and their goods to be exhibited in their entirety to them.
CHAPTER VI. Christians who bring prohibited goods to the Saracens, or sail in their ships, are to be excommunicated and deprived of their goods, and are made slaves of their captors. The same in the same. So much so that the minds of some have been seized by a savage desire, that those who boast of the Christian name bear the weapons, iron, and chains of the Saracens, and become equal or even superior in malice to them, while they supply them with weapons and necessities for attacking Christians. There are also those who, out of their greed, exercise the rule and care of the government in the Saracen pirate ships and helmets. We therefore consider such to be cut off from ecclesiastical communion, and subject to excommunication for their iniquity, and to be fined by the Catholic princes of the world and the consuls of the cities, with the deprivation of their property, and to be made slaves of their captors, if they are captured. We also order that frequent and solemn excommunications be pronounced against them by the churches of the maritime cities.
CHAPTER VII. The Jews can reform the old synagogues to their former state; they cannot demand a new one. The same. He advised (And below:) that you should not suffer the Jews to build synagogues anew where they did not have them. But if the old ones have fallen down, or are threatening to fall down, that they rebuild them, it can be tolerated with equanimity, but not that they exalt them, or make them larger or more precious than they are known to have been before; who certainly ought to consider this as a great thing, that they are tolerated in the old synagogues and their observances.
CHAPTER VIII. Christians should not be in the household service of Jews. The same. To this end, by the authority of these present things, we command and enjoin, that you completely forbid all Christians who are within your jurisdiction, and, if necessary, address them with ecclesiastical strictness, that they themselves do not constantly expose themselves to the service of the Jews for any reward; that you also take care to forbid their midwives and nurses from presuming to nurse Jewish infants in their own homes, since the customs of the Jews and ours do not agree in any way, and they would easily, through continuous conversation and constant familiarity, at the instigation of the enemy of the human race, incline the minds of the simple to their superstition and perfidy.
CHAPTER IX. Jews are not to be baptized against their will, nor forced to do so, nor punished without trial, nor robbed of their possessions, nor molested during their festivals, nor their cemeteries violated, nor their bodies exhumed. Clement III. Just as the Jews should not presume in the synagogues without permission to do more than is permitted by law, so they should not suffer any prejudice in what is granted them. We, therefore, since they prefer to remain in their own hardness rather than to know the words of the Prophets and the secrets of their scriptures, and to have knowledge of the Christian faith and salvation, nevertheless, since they ask for our protection and assistance, out of the meekness of Christian piety and in the footsteps of our predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs of happy memory, Calixtus, Eugenius and Alexander, we admit their petitions, and we indulge them as a shield of our protection. For we have decreed that no Christian should compel unwilling Jews to come to baptism by force. But if anyone has fled to Christians for the sake of faith, after his will has been made known, he should be made a Christian without calumny; for he is not believed to have the faith of Christ who is not voluntarily, but is forced to come to Christian baptism against his will. No Christian shall presume to kill or wound any of them without the judgment of the earthly power, or to take their money from them, or to change the good customs which they have had up to this point in the region in which they live, especially in the celebration of their festivals, let no one disturb them in any way with clubs or stones. Nor shall anyone demand forced services from them, except those which they themselves have been accustomed to perform in the past. To this end, in order to counteract the depravity and greed of evil men, we decree that no one shall dare to mutilate or invade the cemetery of the Jews, or to dig up buried bodies under the pretext of money. But if anyone, having learned the tenor of this decree, recklessly, which is far from it, presume to go against it, let him suffer the danger of his honor and office, or be punished by the sentence of excommunication, unless he corrects his presumption with worthy satisfaction.
CHAPTER X. He sets forth two indulgences for those who preach to the pagans. Same. How praiseworthy it is (And below:) O brother bishop, agreeing to your petitions, we grant to you and your companions, when you go out to preach the faith of Christ to the pagans, by apostolic authority, that you may be permitted to use these foods with modesty and thanksgiving, observing the quality of the times according to canonical sanctions, which are set before you by the infidels themselves. Moreover, we grant that any religious or clerics, qualified to announce the gospel truth to the Gentiles, having sought and obtained the permission of their prelates, who wish to adhere to you, may have the free faculty of carrying this out by apostolic authority without any contradiction.
CHAPTER XI. It is permissible to go to Alexandria to redeem captives, provided they swear that they will not bring any aid or support beyond the article of redemption. Anyone who carries or sends prohibited goods, even after truces, is excommunicated, and truces do not come with an appeal for peace. The same. Your brotherhood has informed us how some of your citizens are able to go to Alexandria to recover their fellow citizens who are held captive there. We think this can be done lawfully, provided that they do not bring anything with them there in their merchandise or in any other way, from which the Saracens, except for the article of redemption, can derive any advantage or support, which they will also confirm before you by oath. Those who also, after a truce made in overseas parts, have come to Alexandria with trade, if they have taken prohibited merchandise for the purpose of profit, do not escape the bond of excommunication, just as neither do those who, not going in their own persons, have sent merchandise to them by messengers.
CHAPTER XII. Those who have any commerce with the Saracens in time of war, or who provide them with aid, are excommunicated. The same. Which was once a precept (And below:) Indeed, although this was strictly forbidden in the Lateran Council, we nevertheless, by the advice of our brothers, suppose all those to be excommunicated who have already had any more merchandise with the Saracens, either by themselves or through others in ships, or by any other means, have thought to provide them with any material aid or advice, as long as the war between us and them lasts. We therefore command and strictly command you, that neither by you, nor by your ships, nor by any other means, do you transmit merchandise, advice or other aid to them, lest, if perhaps some, hardened in their malice, presume to act otherwise, they not only fall under that excommunication by the very law, but also incur the wrath of the living God.
CHAPTER XIII. Jews must not have Christian nurses or servants; those who do otherwise are forbidden to have dealings with Christians. Innocent III. To the Archbishop of Senon and the Bishop of Paris. Although the Jews, whom their own fault subjected to perpetual slavery, when they crucified the Lord, whom their prophets predicted would come in the flesh for the redemption of Israel, Christian piety should receive and support the cohabitation of those whom the Saracens, who persecute the Catholic faith and do not believe in the one crucified by them, cannot support, but rather have expelled from their borders, crying out more vehemently against us, because they are supported by us, who truly confess that our Redeemer was condemned by the very gallows of the cross, nevertheless they should not be ungrateful to us, so as to repay Christians for their grace the insult and contempt of familiarity, who, as if mercifully admitted into our familiarity, inflict on us that retribution which, according to the common proverb, they are accustomed to show their guests, a mouse in a bag, a serpent in their lap, and a fire in their bosom. We have also learned that the Jews make Christian women the nurses of their children, and what is not only unspeakable but also unthinkable, when on the day of the Resurrection of the Lord they happen to receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ, they make them pour the milk into the latrine for three days before they suckle them. Moreover, they commit other detestable and unheard-of acts against the Catholic faith, for which the faithful must fear lest they incur divine indignation, when they unworthily suffer them to perpetrate acts that bring confusion to our faith. We have therefore asked our most beloved son in Christ, Philip, the illustrious king of the Franks, and we have also commanded the noble man M., Duke of Burgundy, and Countess of Trent, to so restrain the excesses of the Jews, that they may not presume to raise their necks, which have been subjected to the yoke of perpetual servitude, against the reverence of the Christian faith. We therefore strictly forbid them, that henceforth they should have nurses or servants who are Christians, that the sons of a free woman should serve the sons of a slave woman, but that, as slaves rejected by the Lord, for whose death they have wickedly conspired, they should recognize themselves at least by the effect of their work as the servants of those whom the death of Christ has made free and those slaves. When they have already begun to gnaw like a worm, and to sting like a serpent, it is to be feared that fire, received in the bosom, may consume what has been eaten. Wherefore we command your brotherhood by apostolic writings, that you should diligently warn the aforesaid king and others on our part and effectually induce them to do so, that the perfidious Jews may in no wise henceforth be insolent, but under servile fear may always pretend to be ashamed of their guilt, and may revere the honor of the Christian faith. But if the Jews do not release the nurses and servants who are Christians, you, supported by our authority, strictly forbid all Christians, under pain of excommunication, from daring to exercise any commerce with them. [Dat. Id. July. 1205.]
CHAPTER XIV. A Jew who strikes a cleric is punished temporally, and if he cannot be punished in fact, he is forbidden to have intercourse with Christians until he has made satisfaction to the victim of the injury. The same. You have requested that the Apostolic See instruct you on how you should proceed against a Jew who has laid violent hands on a certain cleric. To which we briefly reply to your brotherhood, that if the said Jew exists within your jurisdiction, you punish him with a pecuniary penalty, or some other temporal penalty, as is appropriate, causing the injured party to be given appropriate satisfaction; otherwise you warn and induce his master to make competent satisfaction to the injured party and to the Church. But if his master neglects to do so, you forbid all Christians by ecclesiastical censure from presuming to engage in commerce with the Jew himself before he has made satisfaction. [Dat. Lat. VII. Id. Iun. Pont. nostr. Ao. XV. 1212.]
CHAPTER XV. Jews and Muslims of both sexes must wear a dress in Christian lands by which they are distinguished from Christians, and on the day of the Lord’s Passion they must not go out into public, nor leap out in insult to the Creator. The same in the General Council. In some provinces the Jews or Saracens are distinguished from Christians by their diversity of dress; but in others a certain confusion has grown so widespread that no difference can be distinguished. Hence it sometimes happens that through error Christians mix with Jews or Saracens, and Jews or Saracens with Christian women. Therefore, lest the excesses of such damnable mixing be able to have a diffusion under the veil of error of this kind of further excuse: we decree that such people of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times be publicly distinguished from other peoples by the quality of their dress, since this same thing is also enjoined upon them by Moses. But on the days of lamentation and the Lord’s Passion they shall not come out into public, because some on such days, as we have heard, are not ashamed to walk more ornately, and do not fear to mock Christians who, in commemoration of the most sacred Passion, display signs of lamentation. But we most strictly forbid them, lest they presume to in any way to offend the Creator. And since we should not conceal the reproach of Him who has blotted out our reproaches, we command that presumptuous people of this kind be restrained by the secular rulers with the addition of a fitting reprimand, lest they presume to blaspheme the Crucified One in any way for us.
CHAPTER XVI. He who places a Jew or a pagan in charge of public offices is rebuked by the provincial council, and the superior is denied the commerce of Christians until he has laid down his office and restored the proceeds for the use of poor Christians according to the bishop’s providence. The same in the same. Since it is extremely absurd for a blasphemer of Christ to exercise the power of authority over Christians, which the Council of Toledo has provided for, we renew in this general council, because of the audacity of the transgressors, forbidding that Jews be preferred to public offices, since under such a pretext they are very hostile to Christians. But if anyone entrusts such an office to them, he shall be restrained by a provincial council, which we command to be held every year, after a prior warning and with the severity that is appropriate. But such an official shall be denied the communion of Christians in commerce and other matters for so long as whatever he has acquired from Christians on the occasion of the office thus undertaken is converted to the use of poor Christians according to the providence of the diocesan bishop, and he shall resign with shame the office which he has irreverently assumed. We extend the same to pagans.
CHAPTER XVII. The general council repeats the Lateran council above. Thus, and adds the penalty of satisfaction, to be imposed at the time of absolution. The same in the same. To liberate the Holy Land (And below:) We excommunicate and anathematize, moreover, those false and impious Christians who, against Christ himself and the Christian people, bring weapons, iron, and helmets to the Saracens; also those who sell them helmets or ships, and who exercise the care of governance in the pirate ships of the Saracens, or give them any advice or assistance in machinery or in any other way to the detriment of the Holy Land; and we decree that they themselves shall be fined by the deprivation of their goods, and shall be the slaves of their captors, ordering that this sentence be publicly announced throughout all the maritime cities on Sundays and feast days. And the bosom of such shall not be opened to the Church, except the whole of what they have received from such condemned commerce, and that they shall transmit the same amount of their own to the support of the Holy Land, so that they may be punished by the just judgment in which they have transgressed.
CHAPTER XVIII. Jews or pagans are not to be placed in charge of public offices, and if royal rights are sold to them, a Christian who is not suspected should be placed in charge of collecting them. Gregory IX. To the Bishops of Astoria and Lucca. From the special affection which we bear towards the illustrious king of Portugal, we command (And below:) that you diligently persuade the king himself not to appoint Jews over Christians in public offices, as is contained in the general council, and, if he has perhaps sold his revenues to Jews or pagans, that he may then appoint a Christian who is not suspected of imposing burdens on the clergy and churches, through whom the Jews or the Saracens may obtain royal rights without injury to the Christians.
CHAPTER XIX. He sums himself up. The same. No Jew shall be permitted to buy or retain in his service a baptized person or one who wishes to be baptized. But if he has bought someone for the sake of trade, who has not yet converted to the faith, and who has subsequently become or desires to become a Christian, he shall be immediately removed from his service, having paid 12 shillings for him. But if within three months he has not put him up for sale, or has bought him to serve himself, neither shall he himself sell him, nor shall anyone else dare to buy him, but he shall be brought to the rewards of freedom without paying any price.
Source. The Latin Library – DECRETALIUM D. GREGORII PAPAE IX. COMPILATIO.