To the archbishops and bishops appointed throughout Germany.

We have received the tearful complaint of the Jews of Germany: that certain princes, both ecclesiastical and secular, and other nobles and powerful men of your cities and dioceses, in order to seize and usurp their goods unjustly, are forming impious plans against them and inventing various and diverse pretexts.

They do not prudently consider that, as it were, from the archives of the Jews the testimonies of the Christian faith have come forth. Divine Scripture says, among the other commandments of the law, “You shall not kill,” and forbids them at the Passover festival to touch anything dead. Yet these men falsely charge the Jews with sharing among themselves the heart of a murdered boy during that festival, believing that their own law commands this, although it is plainly contrary to their law. They also maliciously accuse them if the corpse of a dead person should happen to be found anywhere.

By this and many other fabrications, raging against them, they strip them of all their goods, against God and justice and contrary to the privileges mercifully granted to them by the Apostolic See, even though the Jews have not been accused, have not confessed and have not been convicted in these matters. They press them with hunger, imprisonment, so many troubles and such great burdens, afflicting them with various kinds of punishments and condemning many of them to a most shameful death.

As a result, these Jews, living under the rule of the aforesaid princes, nobles and powerful men, are in a worse condition than their fathers were under Pharaoh in Egypt. They are miserably forced to go into exile from places inhabited by them and by their ancestors from time beyond memory. Therefore, fearing their own destruction, they have had recourse to the protection of the Apostolic See.

Therefore, since we do not wish the aforesaid Jews to be unjustly harassed, and since the Lord in his mercy awaits their conversion, while, as the prophet testifies, it is believed that a remnant of them will be saved, we command that you show yourselves favorable and kind to them. Whatever you find has been rashly attempted against these Jews in the above matters by the aforesaid prelates, nobles and powerful men, you are to restore lawfully to its proper state. Do not allow them from now on to be wrongfully troubled by anyone over these or similar matters.

Those who trouble them in this way, etc.

Given at Lyons, on the third day before the Nones of July, in the fifth year of our pontificate.

The same form was sent to the archbishops and bishops appointed throughout the kingdom of France.