The following document is drawn from the Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXIII, which covers the first four years of the pontificate of Clement XII (1730–1734). After a comprehensive search of all 79,877 lines for every term associated with Jews — including Iudaei, Hebraei, synagoga, neophyti, catechumeni, ghetto, strazzaria, iudaizantes, and all related vocabulary — the volume contains no primary legislation directed at Jews whatsoever, and only a single item of secondary interest: a set of blood-purity (limpieza de sangre) statutes embedded in the constitutions of the Hieronymite Order of Spain, confirmed by Clement XII.
This is the most legislatively sparse volume in the series to date with respect to Jewish affairs. The near-total absence of Jewish-related content in Vol. XXIII reflects not neglect of the existing legal framework but rather that the framework was by this point well-settled. The chain of strazzaria confirmations had been completed in Vol. XXII (1729); the Holy Office decree on denounced Jews had received permanent apostolic authority in Vol. XXII (1727); and the machinery of the Roman House of Catechumens was operating under its existing authorizations. Clement XII had no occasion, in his first four years, to revisit any of these instruments.
Two further references appear in the volume but carry no legislative significance: an instruction that Scripture professors at the University of Cervera teach Hebrew grammar to aid biblical interpretation, and a paraphrase of Luke 4:44 noting that “Jesus Christ first traversed Judea and its neighboring regions.” Both are incidental.
I. Blood-Purity Statutes in the Constitutions of the Hieronymite Order of Spain — Constitution XI (October 11, 1730)
Constitution XI. Clement XII, year I. Confirmantur constitutiones Ordinis monachorum S. Hieronymi in Hispania — The Constitutions of the Order of the Monks of St. Jerome in Spain Are Confirmed. Dated at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, October 11, 1730, pontificate year I. Source: Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXIII, pp. 62–120.
Background
The Order of the Monks of St. Jerome in Spain (the Hieronymites or Jerónimos) was one of the most distinctly Iberian of all religious orders — founded in Spain in the late fourteenth century, patronized by the Castilian crown, and charged with the custody of El Escorial. Unlike most religious orders confirmed or reformed by the papacy during this period, the Hieronymites had no presence outside the Iberian world. Their constitutions had first been codified in 1415, promulgated in 1434, and had accumulated subsequent additions (extravagantes) over the following three centuries.
In 1730, the order’s Roman procurator, Friar Pedro Reinoso — a professed monk and master of sacred theology, procurator in the Roman Curia for Our Lady of Guadalupe, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, and other houses of the order — petitioned Clement XII to confirm the constitutions and their extravagantes, which had been compiled at the direction of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars under Cardinal Petra, into a single approved text. Clement XII confirmed this compilation by apostolic authority on October 11, 1730, in the first year of his pontificate.
Blood-purity provisions within the confirmed constitutions
Embedded within the confirmed constitutions are two provisions explicitly excluding persons of Jewish descent from membership in the order. These appear in the chapter governing the reception of candidates:
Article III (on the exclusion of neophytes and their descendants):
“No one can be received as a monk or lay brother of our Order who descends or traces his origin within the fourth degree from neophytes, or from those newly converted to our holy faith, or from Jews, under penalty of ipso facto major excommunication, incurred both by the one who professes while knowingly concealing this defect, and by those who knowingly receive him; and furthermore the profession shall be null and invalid. This has been confirmed by apostolic Bull.”
Article V (on the examination of candidates):
The constitutions require that every candidate for reception be examined about his family background, and that in that examination the prior and deputies are to determine, among other things, “whether they are old Christians, free from all stain and infection of Jews, Saracens, recent converts, or any other condemned sect; whether they are or have been free or enslaved; whether the candidate was born of legitimate matrimony.”
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXIII, pp. 100–102. Clement XII, Constitution XI, October 11, 1730. Translated from the Latin.
Historical note: limpieza de sangre in religious order constitutions. These provisions are a standard instance of the limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) statutes that had spread through Spanish institutions — civil, ecclesiastical, and military — from the mid-fifteenth century onward. The concern was with “Old Christian” status: descent from families who had been Christian for generations, as opposed to “New Christians” (conversos) who had converted from Judaism or Islam, and their descendants.
The Hieronymite Order was among the earliest Spanish religious institutions to adopt blood-purity requirements, doing so in the late fifteenth century in response to the controversies surrounding converso monks within the order. Their statutes, which Article III notes were already “confirmed by apostolic Bull” (a reference to earlier papal confirmations), establish a four-degree limit: a candidate with any Jewish great-great-grandparent on either side could be excluded. The formula in Article V — “free from all stain and infection of Jews, Saracens, recent converts, or any other condemned sect” — is characteristic of the genre, treating Jewish or Moorish ancestry as a form of biological contamination (“stain,” “infection”) transmitted through blood.
Clement XII’s act in confirming these statutes in 1730 is not an innovation — he is simply confirming the order’s existing constitutions as a whole, and the blood-purity provisions come along with everything else. He makes no special mention of them in the preamble or body of the confirming constitution. Nevertheless, by incorporating them into a newly confirmed corpus, he gives them renewed apostolic authority and insulates them against challenge for another generation.
It is worth noting the internal tension these statutes created with the papacy’s simultaneous maintenance of the conversion apparatus (the House of Catechumens, the College of Neophytes, dowry subsidies for neophyte women). The logic of that apparatus was that Jews who converted became full members of the Christian body. The logic of limpieza de sangre was that the taint of Jewish ancestry persisted through conversion and was heritable indefinitely. The two systems coexisted in chronic tension throughout the early modern period: the Church officially repudiated the theological claim underlying blood-purity statutes (since baptism washed away all prior status), while simultaneously confirming the institutional practices that rested on it. This confirming constitution is one more instance of that tension.
II. Non-Legislative References
Hebrew language instruction at the University of Cervera
In the constitutions of a Spanish religious congregation whose university statutes for the Royal and Pontifical University of Cervera are confirmed in this volume, the professor of Sacred Scripture is instructed to teach Hebrew grammar — specifically “from Bellarmine’s grammar or that of another approved author” — “so that the hidden meanings of Scripture may be more easily discovered.” The professor is also to “explain whatever pertains to the rules of that language and the properties of its speech.”
This is a purely academic and philological reference. The instruction to teach Hebrew grammar in the context of biblical studies was a standard feature of post-Tridentine Catholic university statutes, reflecting the humanist legacy of Hebraism as a tool for scriptural exegesis. It carries no significance for the legal or social situation of Jews.
Geographical reference to Judea
In the constitutions of a missionary congregation confirmed in this volume, Article XLVII begins: “Jesus Christ first traversed Judea and its neighboring regions with word and example; but since his charity extended to all, he said to the apostles: ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.'” The reference to Judea here is purely geographical and biblical, as part of a scriptural argument for the scope of missionary activity. It carries no legislative significance.