(a) Is your Excellency aware of the existing evil?
(b) What measures does your Excellency propose to take, with a view to put an end to it?
Dr. Byk, Dr. Rappoport, Piepes-Poratynski, Dr. Rosenstock, Dr. Trachtenberg, Dr. Kolischer, Yaworski, Bilinski, Dziednszycki, Gorski, David Abrahamovicz, Dielemba, Struszkiewicz, Gizowski, Moysa, Wladimir Gniewosz, Bogdanowicz, Pientak, Milewski, Dr. Walewski, Ratowski, Lewicki, Roszkowski, Henzel, Popowski, Weigel, Kareis, Auspitz, Straucher, Tittinger, Sokolowski.
POPE INNOCENT IV. (5th July, 1247).
To the Archbishops and Bishops of Germany.
We have received a pitiable complaint from the Jews of Germany. They say that some nobles, lay and ecclesiastical, and other powerful and notable men within your cities and dioceses, designing to seize and usurp their goods unjustly, devise against them impious counsels and invent diverse pretexts. Without considering that testimonies to the Christian Faith have proceeded from their records and that the Sacred Scripture among other precepts of the Law says: “Thou shalt not kill,” and forbids them at their Passover ceremonies to touch any dead flesh, they falsely accuse the Jews of using in these same ceremonies the body of a murdered child, thinking that the said practice is required by their Law, whereas it is clearly contrary to their Law. And they cast upon the Jews, with malicious intent, any corpse that by chance is discovered at any place. Attacking them with these and other inventions, and without formal accusation, confession or conviction, and in despite of the privileges conceded to the Jews by the clemency of the Holy See, they despoil them of their goods (contrary to the law of God and to justice), and they visit them with hunger, imprisonment, and so many calamities and afflictions, punishing them with diverse punishments (even condemning many of them to shameful death) that the Jews, living under the rule of the said princes, notables, and powerful men in worse plight than were their fathers under Pharaoh in Egypt, are compelled to leave places where they and their ancestors have dwelt from time immemorial. Hence, in fear of extermination, they have thought it necessary to have recourse to the protection of the Holy See. Now, therefore, being unwilling that the Jews should be unjustly harassed (for God in his mercy awaits their conversion, seeing that, on the testimony of the Prophet, it is believed that the remnant of them is destined to be saved), we order that you show yourselves favourable and well disposed to them, and whenever you find any violent attempt made against them, with respect to the matters mentioned above, by the prelates, nobles, and powerful men aforesaid, you shall see that the matter is treated according to law, and shall not in future permit the Jews to be improperly molested on these or similar charges by any persons whatever. Those who molest them you shall summarily restrain by your ecclesiastical censure.
POPE INNOCENT IV. (1247).
To the Archbishop of Vienna.
Divine justice has not cast down the Jewish people without preserving the remnant of them for salvation. Therefore, it is an act of zeal that deserves no commendation, or of cruelty that is worthy of detestation, when Christians, either through greed for wealth or thirst for blood (disregarding the merciful nature of the Christian Church, which allows the Jews to live in its midst and to practise their own rites), plunder, torture, and slay them without trial. Now, the Jews living within your province have lately brought before the Holy See a pitiable complaint. They say that certain prelates and nobles of the province, desirous of having a pretext for cruelty towards them, have accused them of the death of a girl who is said to have been found secretly murdered near Valréas, that they have inhumanly committed some of them to the flames without legal trial or confession, while they have despoiled others of all their possessions and driven them away, and that—against the wont of the Mother who, herself free, brings forth children that they may be children of freedom—they have compelled their children to be baptised against their will. Now, since we are unwilling to tolerate such things—as, indeed, we could not do without transgressing the will of God—we hereby command you to deal according to law with such attacks on the Jews, of the nature that has been described above, as are made by bishops, nobles, and rulers. You shall not permit the Jews to be unjustly ill-treated on these or similar grounds, and you shall restrain the evil-doers by the summary use of ecclesiastical censures.