Religious Others: Seeing the world through Christian eyes

Canon law conceived of various groups of non-Christians: references were made specifically to Jews, Muslims, and pagans, as well as to heretics and schismatics, which were technically Christian but held a special status. The types of non-Christians were therefore identified and specified through their religious adscription, thereby constructing a world of separate religious communities. This section shows how this world of religious communities was not created through study or knowledge of the religious features of non-Christian groups. Rather, other communities were constructed through the application of pre-established Christian interpretive frameworks, which emanated from a theologically-driven understanding of the World and of humanity as a whole. In doing so, Christian identity and non-Christian communities became inextricably linked.

Canonists’ conception of the various non-Christian communities was filtered through a very rigid and conservative typology, derived in part from Biblical and patristic sources, but also deeply influenced by late-imperial Roman law.Footnote ²⁷ Following this framework, canonists conceived of three types of communities: Christians, Jews, and Pagans (originally those citizens of the Roman Empire that had not converted to Christianity). This typology included both substantive constructions of the features of each group, such as theological notions of what a Jew is and the association of polytheism with Pagans, as we will see, and notions of difference that were explicitly constructed as a continuum among all the positions. In all cases, however, canonists constructed both Christian and non-Christian communities in parallel: the first one as the orthodox, true faith, and the latter ones as its mirroring heterodox Others.

This close connection between the Christian Self and the non-Christian Other is clear, and exceptionally explicit in the case of the Jews.Footnote ²⁸ Based on a juridical-theological image that had its origin in Augustine’s writings,Footnote ²⁹ canonists conceived of Jews as the witnesses of the Christian truth (testimonium veritatis). Jews were held collectively responsible for the death of Jesus, which led them to be punished by losing their government and being condemned to wander the Earth and live under Christians. Canonists, following Augustine, articulated this partly through the simile of Cain – the Jews – and Abel – Jesus, in which Cain was punished with exile and subjugation for the murder of his brother, much like the Jews were condemned to live scattered throughout the world for having killed Jesus. At the same time, this punishment served as a constant reminder for Christians of the truth of the Christian doctrine. Thus, Innocent III’s Constitutio pro iudeis, a papal bull for the protection of Jews, states that:

Moreover, the mythology of the Jewish witness not only depicted Jews as living stateless throughout Christian lands, but also the fact that they did so in a state of subordination, as perpetual servants of the Christians. Although part of this subservience was initially the service they provided in being the witnesses of the truth and keeping the Old Testament for Christians, the idea of perpetual servitude gradually evolved into a fully-fledged doctrine of actual Jewish subordination to Christians on account of their guilt for killing Jesus.Footnote ³¹ This idea was already enshrined in Gratian’s Decretum, which states that one cannot justly wage war against the Jews for they ‘are willing to serve’.Footnote ³² Subsequent canonistic commentaries reinforced this doctrine, with Hostiensis, for example, arguing that ‘although the Jews are enemies of our faith, they are our servants [servi] and are tolerated and defended by us’.Footnote ³³

Jews were then explicitly and functionally constructed as a subordinate Other. Indeed, the Jewish Other was not only a theoretical necessity for the Christian Self – in the way that most of the IR literature has pointed to identity formation as a fundamentally relational process – but also the main substantive attribute of the construction of Jewish-ness. As a result, the existence and nature of the Jews as a community was therefore inescapably tied to that of Christians, creating the first as a community to be punished and the second one as their superiors. At the same time, the punishment itself (their scattering, subjugation, and subservience) was a fulfilment of divine prophecies, and as such reinforced and proved the Christian truth. The Jew was thus a necessary Other within yet outside Christian society, with the function of permanently proving the Christian truth.

This distinctive subject position of the Jews, moreover, points to an important dimension of medieval identity formation and indeed of international relations that has been repeatedly overlooked. It could seem that the subordinate status of Jews and their condition of minority in Christian society would set these processes and interactions outside the purview of international relations and into some domestic or internal realm. This would however mean privileging modern forms of collective identification, which tie communities and territory.Footnote ³⁴ Instead, if we are to take the historicity of the different ways in which communities have historically been constructed, and thus the historicity of the international itself,Footnote ³⁵ seriously, the interaction between Christians and religious minorities in the territories of the former constitute true international relations.

The case of the Jews, therefore, shows that though the IR literature has focused overwhelmingly on the role of Muslims as the key Other for Christian identity, the Christian worldview relied on Jews as their constant and necessary Other. Related to this, a very obvious fact, which is nevertheless rarely noted in IR literature, is that Muslims presented a significant conceptual problem: we have seen the extent to which canonists relied on biblical and patristic sources for their ‘knowledge’ of other communities, but a significant number of these texts were written before the advent of Islam. Additionally, Christians related to Muslims in two different contexts: first, as full, organised Islamic polities in the Near East and North Africa, Muslims constituted both a threat to Christian control of certain territories, and a profitable commercial partner. Second, particularly from the twelfth and the thirteenth century, there were significant Muslim communities living under Christian rule in places such as the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily, as a result of territories changing hands through conquest.Footnote ³⁶

Muslims therefore constituted a complex challenge for canonists. For example, there was not a single medieval term to refer to Muslims. In Latin, the most common denominations were Saracens (Saracenus/Sarracenus) and Agarens (Agarenus, Hagarenus), although, as will be explored below, they were also referred to as pagans (paganus, gentiles). The origin of both Saracens and Agarens is biblical, and points to a certain assumed lineage or even ethnic origin of Muslims as descendants of Sarah or, alternative, of slave Hagar.Footnote ³⁷ Canonists’ scholastic definition of Saracen thus stated that:

The first line of the definition, once again, shows the extent to which the construction of non-Christians was implicated in that of the Christian community. Indeed, the first priority in the definition of Muslims (and also of Jews) was situating them in relation to Christian texts. As a result we get a continuum, whereby Saracens do not follow the Old or the New Testament; Jews accept only the Old Testament; and Christian have received both texts. Christian doctrine constitutes the basis for evaluating the differences between other religions, thus reinforcing these non-Christian groups as deviating from the true faith, that is, the Christian faith that has received both books.

In addition to constructing this continuum, this definition is paradigmatic of the rigidity of the tripartite typology of religious communities that canonists used, and as such of the specificities of this Othering process. Indeed, key to any Othering dynamic is the assignment of opposing attributes to both Self and Other through the use of seemingly objective ‘knowledge’.Footnote ³⁹ We can appreciate a particularly extreme version of this in the case of Muslims, exacerbated by the doctrinal problems mentioned above. The political nature of the ‘knowledge’ of the Other is manifest in the canonical definitions we have just seen, to the point that Samaritans were included as a category of Muslims.Footnote ⁴⁰

Indeed, despite these etymological and scholastic concerns, canon lawyers’ ‘knowledge’ of Islam seems greatly distorted to the modern reader. In a milieu in which the knowledge of and engagement with Muslims and their religion was slowly increasing, hardly any legal texts or commentators in the thirteenth century make reference to its monotheism, Muhammad, or any other aspects of Islam.Footnote ⁴¹ Actually, some even speak of the veneration of idols, equating it to classical and northern paganism. Hostiensis, for example, says that Muslims are ‘those who worship and adore multiple gods and indeed demons’.Footnote ⁴² Canonists therefore faced the challenge of dealing with Muslims with neither a conceptual and theological framework that conceived of the group nor any detailed knowledge of the features of the group. This situation, combined with the presence of the tripartite framework of non-Christian others, led to a debate and a variety of images that sometimes classified Muslims as pagans, other times as Jews, and sometimes even as heretics.Footnote ⁴³

‘Pagan’ was in some sense the obvious category in which to place Muslims. In the tripartite framework, pagan had basically the residual meaning of ‘non-Christian, non-Jew’, and thus canonists soon drew the parallel between the classical paganus, which referred mostly to those Roman citizens that had not converted to Christianity after the Christianisation of the Empire, and the new type of ‘non-Christian, non-Jew’ they were facing. As a result, the words paganus, gentili, and Saracenos or occasionally agarenos, began to be used interchangeably. In light of this, it is easier to appreciate the reason for the affirmations of Hostiensis and other canonists, who, partly out of ignorance, partly because of this parallel, posited that Muslims were polytheists and idolaters. Similarly, once the linguistic parallel between paganus and Saracenos had been established, the estrange inclusion of Samaritans becomes more understandable: ‘John 4:9 makes clear that Samaritans are not Jews; they must, therefore, be Saracens/pagans.’Footnote ⁴⁴

The construction of Muslims was therefore based on classifying them into a pre-established tripartite scheme that reinforced the superiority of Christianity, rather than on serious engagement with actual Muslim practices and beliefs. Although the awkward position of Muslims in relation to Biblical and patristic sources did not lead to a fully-fledged mythology like that of Jewish perpetual servitude, various engagements with Muslims in canon law construct the group as an instrument of God to send messages to Christians, or as directly serving a function for Christians. Gratian’s Decretum, for example, includes a letter of admonition to the English people that constructs the Saracens as a divinely sent punishment for the indecorous behaviour of the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, and potentially of the English to whom the letter refers.Footnote ⁴⁵ Saracens, much like Jews, lose purpose and agency and only exist as a tool in a divinely directed universe. One of the most extreme functional understandings of non-Christians in this sense is found in canonist Humbert de Romans, who claims that:

Saracens are therefore not only an occasional punishment to a people that misbehave, but rather, in a construction similar to that of Jews, become a group without agency, at the permanent service of Christianity.

Blurring distinctions

Canonists conceived of a world of religious communities through a very rigid typology that considered Christians, Jews, and pagans in a continuum of types where ‘Christian’ was the baseline category. However, this framework interacted with a second dynamic which relied less on the production of ‘knowledge’ and attributes of the Other, and more on their condition of existence vis-à-vis the Self, emphasising two distinct positions: peaceful, non-threatening minority under Christian rule and enemy. This aspect has led authors such as Norman Zacour to claim that ‘Jews or Saracens, they could best be perceived in their relationship to Christians, in peace or at war, passive or troublesome, silent or scandalous.’Footnote ⁴⁷ This section explores this claim, showing how in terms of both policy and ideas there was a progressive blurring of the distinction between non-Christian groups.

The canon Dispar nimirum has usually been taken as the paradigmatic example of the different conceptions between an external enemy and a peaceful minority living under Christian rule. This canon, the summary of which establishes that ‘we ought not to prosecute Jews, but rather Saracens’ is an extract from a 1063 letter by Pope Alexander II to the bishops of Spain and reads:

Although the canon differentiates between Jews and Muslims, it does so on the basis that the latter pose a threat to Christianity whether the former do not. It is therefore not a substantive conception of Muslims that justifies war against them, but rather the fact that they persecute Christians. Subsequent commentaries on this canon by later canonists highlight this particular aspect. For example, Johannes Teutonicus, on the ordinary gloss on this passage took the idea further by saying that ‘therefore, if Saracens do not persecute Christians we cannot attack them’. It is not because of their nature that Christians can attack Muslims, but rather because they are a threat. If they are not a threat, says Johannes Teutonicus, possibly thinking about Muslim communities under Christian rule, then Muslims ‘should not be harmed’.Footnote ⁴⁹ This idea, which became standard in subsequent canonical commentaries, indicates a second dynamic of Othering, one based not on the attribution of substantive trait to religious groups, but rather exclusively on the conditions of existence of those groups in relation to Christianity.

The commentaries on Dispar nimirum thus create the hypothetical of Muslims living in peace and in doing so placed them in a position comparable to that of Jews. Elsewhere in commentaries, however, we find more substantive associations of Jews and Muslims in the treatment they are to receive from Christians. Indeed, canonists progressively used the extensive canons on the treatment of Jews to think through the conditions of Muslims, therefore blurring the distinction. This was officially sanctioned in the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which in canon 69, after a series of prescriptions that regulated the conduct of Jews living under Christian rule, sweepingly stated ‘the same we also extend to pagans’.Footnote ⁵⁰ Through this, the treatment to be received by Jews and Muslims was therefore unproblematically blurred, minimising the distinction between both and merely taking into account how they allegedly related to Christians.

This blurring, however, extended beyond the mere way in which Christians related to the different non-Christian groups and in some cases included substantive conceptions of religious beliefs and practices. The previous section already highlighted the problems in classifying Muslims within a very rigid framework, and how they were generally assimilated to pagans. In parallel to this, however, starting at the turn of the thirteenth century, there is a tendency to assimilate Muslims to Jews based on specific Islamic practices: despite the fact that the mentions of Muslims as polytheistic continue well into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, from the turn of the century there seems to have been an awareness among canonists of some practices, particularly regarding food, which led canonists to conclude that ‘Muslims Judaize’.

Despite the sweeping assimilation in treatment of Jewish and Muslim communities under Christian rule, Gratian’s Decretum included one exception: the prohibition to eat with Jews did not apply to ‘pagans’.Footnote ⁵¹ The decretists, commenting on the Decretum in the first few decades after its appearance, accepted the distinction, which was based on the teachings of the Greek Church father John Chrysostom. Writing in the 1180s, however, canonist Huguccio asked himself:

Without the ability to distinguish between Muslims and pagans, therefore, some canonists started to perceive Jews and Muslims as similar, or rather, to argue that Muslim practices made them functionally equivalent to Jews. While these commentaries show some engagement with the cultural practices of the groups they were constructing, the fact that the move was extracting Muslims from the pagan category and equating them to Jews shows once again the rigidity of the Christian-centred framework. As a result, while still maintaining a tripartite typology, the treatment of non-Christians in the thirteenth century seems to progressively converge towards two ways of being vis-à-vis Christians, and consequently two types of relations. On the one hand, peaceful non-threatening minorities under Christian rule, both Jewish and Muslim, which are afforded some toleration, and external enemies – mostly Muslim polities – against which war could be waged.Footnote ⁵³

We have therefore seen that the construction of religious others is more nuanced and internally polyvalent than the IR trope of the ‘infidel’ portrays. Not only this, but the analysis also has shown that despite the insistence of IR in portraying Islam as the main Other of Christianity, Jews were crucial to Christian identity-formation, not only being the constant, subservient reminder of the truth of their faith, but also in some cases providing the abstract template for the knowledge of Muslims. Finally, this section also reveals the extent to which the construction of the Christian Self was reliant on the existence of these communities.

Segregation: Two criteria of difference in interaction

An examination of the interaction of both modes of Othering analysed above shows that the central behavioural principle behind the regulation of minorities was segregation. Moreover, while the second framework points towards a convergence in the consideration of minorities, this section shows that the fact that the tripartite framework dynamics above operated by creating a continuum of positions with Christians as the baseline made proximate positions to Christians more rather than less dangerous, and in doing so it argues that only by paying attention to how both frameworks interacted can we understand the subject positions of non-Christians.

Commenting on a passage that banned Jews from having Christian slaves, the author of the late-twelfth century Summa Animal est substantia, claimed that ‘Jews have the Law and for that reason they can pervert Christian servants faster than gentiles, who don’t have it. Therefore, we should not sit at the table of Jews, but we can sit at the table of gentiles, that is, pagans.’Footnote ⁵⁵ The fact that Jews follow the five books of the old Testament that constitute the Talmud made them more similar to Christians, and therefore much more dangerous and less preferable than pagans/Muslims. Indeed, early decretists highlighted how through their obsession with ‘following literally the law of Moses’,Footnote ⁵⁶ Jews not only misinterpret, but also abuse Christian Biblical doctrines, at the same time that the proximity of both faiths makes them a bigger threat than pagans/Muslims.Footnote ⁵⁷

This idea of the proximity of Jews as threatening is explicitly articulated through the idea of Jews as treacherous guests hosted out of kindness but who, from this close position to Christians, work incessantly to betray them and pervert the Christian faith:

Jews are like a treacherous mouse or snake, living within Christians and always ready to pervert them. Consequently, behavioural prescriptions of canon law with regards to Jews focused not on conversion or elimination, but rather on segregation and minimising interactions. The canons and papal decretals therefore were destined to regulate and minimise as much as possible all interaction between Christians and Jews (and by extension, although with exceptions, Muslims). In this respect, for example, the idea of perversion and contamination lays behind the repeated and extensive canonist prohibitions for Jews to hold office and have Christian servants and nurses. This was a chief concern of the Church and of canonists, to the point that the title devoted to Jews (and Muslims) in all but one of the canonical collections from the thirteenth century onwards was ‘[c]oncerning the Jews, the Sarracens, and their servants.’ Gratian’s Decretum already forbid Jews from holding office, lest they ‘offend the Christians’Footnote ⁵⁹ and similar prohibitions were made by the Third and Fourth Lateran Councils. The rationale behind this is clear: a people condemned to Perpetual servitude for their crime cannot be in a position of power vis-à-vis Christians, even more so because this position of power may corrupt the integrity of their Christian faith, or as the Decretum claimed ‘lest the Christian religion being subject to Jews, should be polluted’.Footnote ⁶⁰

In certain cases, this concern for ‘pollution’ of Christians reaches a physical level.Footnote ⁶¹ Various canons expressed concern that Jews would convert or circumcise Christians if they were to find themselves in a position of authority.Footnote ⁶² Similar regulations also try to prevent intercourse between Jews and Christians,Footnote ⁶³ or condemn the physical desecration of hosts by Jews.Footnote ⁶⁴ Through these provisions, therefore, canonists and ecclesiastical officers sought to construct, confirm, and maintain a hierarchical relation between Jews and Christians that involved the subordination of the former to the latter, and even more, the physical separation between both groups to the benefit of the Christian faith.

The unique position of Jews in relation to Christians – the fact that they were outside of Christian society but necessarily tied to it – thus made them at the same time closer and more threatening to Christians than Muslims were. In both cases, however, the prescription of canon law was based on the separation between Christians and religious minorities, rather than a destruction of difference, with a view of preserving the purity of the Christian faith.

Toleration: Conversion, universalism, and humanity

As counterintuitive as this may seem in light of the standard IR imagination of the period, a second behavioural principle in canon law was toleration. We saw in the case of segregation that it was not only difference, but also its counterpart of similarity, that played a crucial role in inter-religious dynamics. This is even more so the case for toleration, as this rested on a universalist notion of humanity and a specific theology of conversion that portrayed Jews and Muslims as humans and potentially Christians.Footnote ⁶⁵

Given that canonists constructed their communities in terms of religion, conversion was the way of moving from one community to another. The boundary of the Christian community was in this sense very flexible: conversion was not only conceivable but actively encouraged. Indeed, as is well known, it was one of the central goals of the Church to convert unbelievers and lead them to the path of salvation, eventually leading to the Christianisation of the whole of humanity. This duty was already established in the Bible, as Jesus sent the Apostles to spread the message to all peoples of the world.Footnote ⁶⁶ Since Christianity accepted only one God and one path to salvation, and at the same time had a fairly egalitarian notion of humanity, this resulted in an aspiringly universal religion and worldview, one that aimed at reaching all human beings. In doing so, an extremely powerful basis for equality was established, insofar as all human beings became potential Christians.

This egalitarian notion of humanity came to be crucial in some discussion of non-Christians. Paradigmatic in this sense was Pope Innocent IV’s discussion of the legitimacy of infidel power.Footnote ⁶⁷ While commenting on a bull that dealt with the nature of crusading vows, Innocent IV asked whether it was legitimate to invade lands owned by infidels. The issue was far from evident. As we have seen, constructions of infidels repeatedly emphasised their inferiority, subordination, and even evil nature, and as such the possibility of excluding them, as sinners, from aspects such as property and rulership was a very real one.Footnote ⁶⁸ His reply, however, was that infidels could legitimately have property and jurisdiction, since these are established not ‘for believers, but for all rational creatures’.Footnote ⁶⁹ Property and jurisdiction belonged to the realm of natural law, common to all humans, and could therefore be held legitimately by infidels.Footnote ⁷⁰

Innocent IV, however, went further than this. In what constitutes an unprecedented extension of papal power, he claimed responsibility for all human beings:

While the Othering processes we have seen had a marked hierarchical character, and were based on fairly pressing concerns for purity, they were underpinned by a notion of similarly. Christians and non-Christians are equal; they are both sheep, all under the jurisdiction of the pope – the only obvious difference of course being that Christians already recognise it. What separates them is whether they belong to the Church or not, that is, whether they have been baptised. Potentially, however, all infidels can become Christians through conversion, as by nature they are the same. Thus, non-Christians are at once Others and potential Selves, the transition happening through conversion.

The understanding of conversion at the time was marked by an emphasis on divine grace and free will. Indeed, canonists emphasised the voluntary nature of conversion – and the ensuing prohibition to coerce it. A very significant pronouncement in this respect was canon 57 of the Fourth Council of Toledo, which Gratian incorporated in his Decretum. This canon clearly stated that ‘force incites no one to believe. … Thus they are to be induced by the free use of their will to convert rather than impelled by force.’Footnote ⁷² The emphasis on free will is clear. Conversion cannot be coerced, as it only happens voluntarily through God’s grace and free will.

This idea, moreover, not only applied to the conversion of minorities or to missionary activity. In a context of increasingly violent interactions with neighbouring, non-Christian polities, the prohibition of forced conversion was also considered to apply to them. As canonist Johannes de Ancona stated, ‘If you say “they will be converted through invasion” then I answer, they are not to be forced into faith, because only God’s grace is able to achieve this.’Footnote ⁷³ The way in which canonists envisaged their own community, therefore, was eminently voluntaristic, placing an emphasis on both free will and God’s grace as determinants of membership.

This importance placed on free will seems to therefore create a space for tolerance as a principle guiding the relations between Christians and non-Christians:Footnote ⁷⁴ if conversion cannot be coerced and must happen voluntarily, non-conversion becomes by extension a legitimate position: the construction of the Christian Self as voluntary had the necessary counterpart of the voluntary condition of the Other, who must therefore be respected. This idea of toleration of non-Christians is repeatedly emphasised by canonists, even in contexts where the overall discourse stresses the inferiority and even formal subordination of Christians to non-Christians. For example, Canonist Hostiensis in his famous discussion of the legitimacy of infidel power,Footnote ⁷⁵ and after having established that non-Christian rule is illegitimate and can be abolished through war by Christians, reiterates up to three times that this in no case means that war should be used for the purposes of conversion, ‘because everyone is to be left to free will, and only God’s grace is valid in this calling’. As a result, infidels that do not wish to convert, and as long as they recognise the superiority of the Church, ‘must be tolerated’.Footnote ⁷⁶ Contrary to what we might expect if we only focus on the crusades, medieval canon law established a clear basis for the toleration of non-Christian communities.

Elimination: Humanity and universal reason

We arrive at a third principle of inter-religious relations: elimination. This section analyses the conditions of possibility for the idea of the elimination of non-Christians that pervades the IR literature by drawing attention to the inherent tensions between universalism and exclusion in the Othering modes that we have examined so far. On the one hand, not believing made non-Christians inherently inferior, threatening, and subject to a great amount of (legal) violence in their treatment by Christians. On the other hand, however, this had to be reconciled with the fact that all non-Christians were potentially Christians, to the point that all of them were meant to convert at some point before the Second Coming. The extensive universalistic basis of a human community understood as composed of equal human beings – the idea of the ‘sheep’ in Innocent IV’s commentary – needed to be reconciled with an extremely exclusive and hierarchical understanding in the relations between communities.

A key theological development of the twelfth-century renaissance was what Abulafia has called the ‘Christianisation of Reason’. Reason was integral to the human condition, a tool that God himself had given to men and that made him distinct from animals. As a result, since reason came from God, it was also a tool to get to Truth and prove faith. Reason therefore became at the same time a mark of humanity and an instrument for Christianity.Footnote ⁷⁷ A consequence for this in terms of theology was that the non-conversion of Jews was increasingly portrayed in terms of their lack of reasoning ability.

Canonists display a similar pattern. Within the framework of the testimonium veritatis, an element that was frequently deployed to emphasise the religiously inferior nature of the Jews was the ‘axiomatic identification of Judaism with the literal interpretation of the Bible’.Footnote ⁷⁸ For example, Ramon de Penyafort’s in his influential Summa de poenitentia proceeded to define the Jews by saying that ‘Jews are those who follow literally the law of Moses, and practice circumcision and everything else that is prescribed by that law [alia legalia faciendo].’Footnote ⁷⁹ Similarly, as we have seen, Innocent III in his bull Constitutio pro Iudeis claimed that:

‘Fail to understand it’ stands in clear opposition to other passage in the same text, that claimed that Jews ‘prefer to remain hardened in their obstinacy’. Indeed, even if the Jews followed the Old Testament, the coming of Christ had changed the nature of the text. Centuries of Biblical exegesis had produced canonical interpretations that reconciled both texts, usually through an allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament as not only according but also forecasting the coming of the Redeemer. The Jews were thus the people that did not understand that everything in the Old Testament foretold the New, and rather maintained a literal interpretation of it, which led to them performing abhorrent practices such as circumcision, or following different dietary practices. By reducing the entire identity of the group to their inability to comprehend the text, the inferiority not only of their beliefs and practices, but also to a certain extent of their reasoning ability was highlighted.

We find a similar attitude towards Muslims in the consilia of Oldratus de Ponte, an early fourteenth-century canonist. In his consilium 72, Oldratus considered whether ‘a war against the Saracens of Spain is licit’.Footnote ⁸¹ As a trained canonist, he brought up the debate between Hostiensis and Innocent IV on the legitimacy of infidel power, siding with Hostiensis and concluding that ‘all are subject to Christ, the sheep, the oxen and the cattle of the field’. The first difference between Oldratus and Innocent IV is obvious: while the latter was starting from a basis in which everyone subject to the pope were sheep – albeit from different flocks – in Oldratus we find a variety of animals. The sheep were Christians, which God had entrusted to Peter for his care. But by the oxen and the cattle of the field he meant ‘Saracens who, like beasts deprived of all reason, desert the true God and worship idols.’Footnote ⁸² Oldratus therefore takes the implications of Christian reason to their furthest-reaching conclusion. Human beings have reason, which proves the Christian Truth. Consequently, Muslims, with their refusal to convert, polytheism, and idolatry, cannot possibly have reason, and are therefore no longer humans, but rather they are like beasts, like the ‘oxen and the cattle of the field’. This way, Oldratus solved the tension between universalism and exclusion present in many other canonists: by redefining humanity through reason, and identifying reason with the Christian faith, he allowed for the exclusion of some from the idea of humanity. As a result, the universalism of the Church is protected, as those who do not convert are no longer human.

The logical consequence of this process of Christianising reason and redefining humanity was the enabling of the possibility of elimination. If, as we saw with the rationale of segregation, non-Christians posed a threat to the purity of Christianity, but given their exclusion from humanity, conversion was no longer a possibility, elimination became a much more legitimate practice. Indeed, in the consilium mentioned above, Oldratus uses this very same reasoning to justify the waging of war against Muslims. It is worth noting however, that this dynamic of destruction is only available after a process of absolute Othering, once all similarities between the Christian Self and the non-Christian Other have been discarded to the point that the Other is no longer human.