Primary Texts on History of Relations

Dialogika Resources

POPE STEPHEN IV, "Letter Against Jews Owning Land" (768)

[From Alexis Rubin, Scattered Among the Nations, p. 29]

For this reason We are touched by sorrow, anxious even unto death, since We have known through you that the Jewish people, ever rebellious against God and derogatory of our rites, within the frontiers and territories of the Franks, own hereditary estates in the villages and suburbs, as if they were Christian residents; for they are the Lord's enemies... Christian men cultivate their vines and fields, and Christian men and women, living with those same deceivers both in town and out of town, are day and night strained by expressions of blasphemy... What was sworn to and handed over to those unbelievers by the Lord himself... has been taken away deservedly, in vengeance for the crucified Savior.