To the noble Count of Nevers. Against the Jews.

So that Cain would be a wanderer and fugitive upon the earth, yet not be killed by anyone, the Lord placed upon him a mark, a sign of trembling of the head. In the same way, the Jews, against whom the voice of the blood of Jesus Christ cries out, although they must not be killed, lest the Christian people forget the divine law, must nevertheless be scattered across the earth as wanderers, so that their faces may be filled with shame and they may seek the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

For blasphemers of the Christian name should not be supported by Christian princes in the oppression of the servants of the Lord. Rather, they should be restrained in servitude, which they have deserved, since they laid sacrilegious hands upon the one who had come to bring them true freedom, crying out that his blood should be upon them and upon their children.

But, as has been reported to us, certain secular princes, not keeping their eyes fixed on God, before whom all things are bare and open, although it is shameful to exact usury on their own behalf, receive Jews into their towns and villages so that they may appoint them as agents for the collection of usury. These Jews do not hesitate to afflict the churches of God and the poor of Christ.

When Christians who have borrowed from Jews pay back the principal and more, the officers and servants of those powerful men often seize pledges and sometimes even imprison the Christians themselves, forcing them to pay the heaviest interest. As a result, widows and orphans are stripped of their inheritances, and churches are deprived of tithes and other customary revenues, while Jews hold castles and villages and completely refuse to answer to church prelates concerning parish rights.

No small scandal is also caused by them in the Church of Christ. Since they refuse to eat the meat of animals slaughtered by Christians, considering it unclean, they obtain by the favor of princes that butchers hand over animals for them to slaughter. After cutting them up according to the Jewish rite, they take from them whatever they wish and leave the rest for Christians. Jewish women do similar things with milk that is publicly sold for feeding children.

They also presume to do another thing no less detestable to Christians. At the time of the grape harvest, a Jew, wearing linen coverings on his feet, treads the grapes. After extracting the purer wine according to the Jewish rite, they keep from it whatever they please and leave the rest to faithful Christians as if it had been defiled by them. From this wine the sacrament of the blood of Christ is sometimes made. Moreover, protected by the favor of powerful men, they do not admit Christian witnesses against themselves, however good and free from objection those witnesses may be.

Our venerable brother, the Bishop of Auxerre, wishing to remove such abomination from his diocese, took counsel with prudent men and forbade such things to be done there under penalty of anathema. In a solemn synod, he instructed the priests present to prohibit such practices in their churches under penalty of excommunication. Many of the faithful, obediently complying, chose to abstain from the practices described above.

But certain nobles and powerful men, along with their ministers, paying attention to the gifts of the Jews, which corrupt their hearts, presumed to frighten with threats and insults some of the faithful who, out of obedience and fear of the sentence pronounced, had decided to abstain from such things. They even seized some of them and forced them to pay ransom, refusing to release them except according to the wishes of the Jews. And so that they might not be restrained from such conduct by a sentence of excommunication against their persons or interdict against their lands, they try to protect themselves by the obstacle of an appeal made to the Apostolic See, in mockery of ecclesiastical discipline.

Furthermore, if a sentence of excommunication or interdict is ever issued against Christians on account of the Jews, the Jews boast because, through them, the instruments of the Church are hung upon the willows of Babylon, and priests are also deprived of their revenues.

But you, as we have heard, although as a Catholic man and servant of Jesus Christ you ought, out of reverence for him, to resist Jewish superstitions so that the enemies of the cross may not exalt themselves against the servants of the Crucified, give special favor to them. In the offenses named above, they have you as their chief defender.

Would your anger not be greatly kindled against one subject to you if he gave help to your enemy? How much more, then, should you fear offending God, since you do not fear to favor those who presumed to fasten the only-begotten Son of God to the cross and who still do not cease from blasphemies?

Therefore, wishing to remove from the people the scandal that has arisen from this and to abolish the excess of such presumption, which you are said to have committed against Christ and his Church, we ask, admonish and exhort your nobility in the Lord. By apostolic letter we command you to correct the aforesaid matters yourself in such a way, and to refrain from similar conduct in the future, that you may appear to have zeal for the orthodox faith and that we may not be forced to set our hands to their correction. According to the Apostle, we are ready to punish all disobedience, since we have been appointed by the Lord to tear up what must be torn up and to plant what must be planted.

Given at Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of February, in the tenth year of our pontificate.