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“Apply to Muslims What Was Said of the Jews:” Popes and Canonists Between a Taxonomy of Otherness and Infidelitas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2014

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Extract

This article analyzes the targets of papal policies on Christians' relations with non-(Roman)Christians contained in canon law's On Jews, Saracens, and Their Servants in a historical period that has attracted comparatively little attention: the mid-thirteenth to the late fifteenth century. It argues the inherent ambiguity of the normative discourse on “proper” relations with “infidels.” On the one hand, popes and canonists faithfully preserved a taxonomy of otherness inherited from the church's ancient past. On the other hand, they often reduced all difference to the pastoral distinction between flock and “infidels.” The conflation of non-Christians occurred in multiple ways: through the explicit extension of a specific policy's targets, overt canonistic discussion, the tacit application of the law to analogous situations, or its simplification for use in the confessional. As a result, a number of policies aimed originally at a specific target were applied to all non-Christians. In the course of the later Middle Ages, a whole group of policies meant to define Christians' proper relations with others became potentially applicable against all non-Christians. In the words of a widely, if regionally disseminated, penitential work, all that was said of the Jews applies to the Muslims and all that was said of heretics, applies to schismatics.

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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2014 
Figure 0

Table 1.Brief Summary of X. 5.6, On Jews, Saracens, and their Slaves/Servants

Figure 1

Table 2.Expansion of the Targets of Papal Trade Restrictions.