Medieval Sourcebook:
Agobard of Lyon: On the Insolence of the Jews To Louis the Pious (826/827)
Translated by W.L. North from Agobardi Lugdunensis Opera Omnia, Opusculum XI,
ed. L. Van Acker, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis 52, Turnholt: Brepols
1981, pp. 191-95.
Introduction
Written in 826/27 directly to Emperor Louis the Pious, Agobard's treatise "On
the insolence of the Jews" is in large measure an exposé of what he perceived to
be the arrogant and fundamentally impious actions of the imperial missi and Evrard,
master of the Jews, towards the Christian community of Lyon and their un-Christian support
and encouragement of the Jewish population in Lyon. In other words, it is a letter of
protest against a Jewish policy under Louis that was fundamentally favorable to this
religious minority. To argue against such a policy, Agobard claims to make known the
subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which the Jews were working against the Christian
community, whether it was in selling Christians into slavery, cursing Christians and
Christ (i.e. blasphemy), or forcing their domestic servants to adhere to the rhythms of
Jewish life. His solution to many of these problems was an enforced stricter segregation
of members of the two faiths from one another in all aspects of life.
As with Agobard's other responses to the status and power of the Jews in Lyon, this
work reveals a Jewish community that was not only fully integrated into the lives of
members of the Christian community but also one that could claim a considerable amount of
cultural and political prestige, a prestige that Agobard feared would make Judaism seem
attractive in the eyes of his Christian congregation.
Text
To his most Christian, truly pious, and always august emperor Louis, the most fortunate
triumphal victor in Christ, Agobard, the most downcast of all your servants.
When omnipotent God – Who knew before time itself and foreordained that you would
be a pious rector in these truly demanding times – raised your prudence and zealous
religion over the other mortals of your time, there is no doubt but that you were prepared
as a remedy for the dangerous times about which the Apostle speaks: In the last days
the dangerous times shall begin, and there shall be men who love themselves, greedy,
puffed up, etc.[II Timothy 3:1-2] and who, although they have the appearance of
piety, nullify its strength.[II Timothy 3:5] From times such as these nothing more
should be expected than what is already seen, except for the release of Satan and the
public trampling of the holy City for the forty-two months, which shall occur through the
head of all the iniquitous, Antichrist.[cf. Apocalypse 11:2]
Therefore since this is the way things are, I beseech your most tranquil
long-sufferingness that you lend your most patient ear to the words with which I, the
least of your servants, consider it most necessary to admonish your most holy solicitude
concerning such a vital matter, a matter which is either uniquely or especially one to
which your governance more than all others should bring aid.
If I could pursue my account of the matter while passing over in silence the names of
the responsible parties, I would gladly do so. But because it cannot be done, I commit
myself to your goodness and patience as I surrender myself to the dangers and inform you
of what is ruinous to pass over in silence. There came Gerric and Frederick who were
preceded by Evrard,[1] your agents (missi) in fact yet not doing your will
completely but rather acting on behalf of another. They showed themselves to be terrible
to the Christians and mild to the Jews, especially in Lyon, where they set up a
persecuting faction (pars persecutionis) against the Church and they goaded the
church to many groans, sighs, and tears.
[1] Evrard held the office of magister Iudeorum under Louis the Pious. It is not
known whether he himself was a Jew. On this office, see B. Bachrach, Early Medieval
Jewish Policy in Western Europe, Minneapolis, MN 1977, 99-101.
Because this persecution was directly principally against me, I should not recount the
whole, unless perchance your most clement concern should wish to know. But if your
kindness allows, I shall begin to intimate it briefly, insofar as it was injurious to the
Church of Christ.
When the Jews first arrived, they gave me a message in your name and another one to the
man who rules the district of Lyon in place of the count; [this message] ordered him to
offer aid to the Jews against me. We absolutely did not believe that such messages as
these issued from your judgment, although they were read out in your sacred name and
sealed with your ring. The Jews began to rage with a certain odious insolence, threatening
that we would be afflicted with every sort of injury by the agents whom they had obtained
to take vengeance upon Christians. After them, Evrard arrived and repeated the same thing
and said that your majesty was truly angry with me because of the Jews. Then the
aforementioned agents arrived, holding in their hands a tax code(?) (stipendialis
tractoria) and a capitulary of sanctions which we do not believe exists by your
command.
For these reasons, the Jews were made joyful beyond measure and the Christians saddened
– and not only those who fled or hid or were detained, but the rest as well who saw
or heard. In particular, it was because the Jews' opinion received such confirmation that
they irreverently began to preach to the Christians what they ought to believe and hold,
openly blaspheming the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ. This perversity was
strengthened by the words of your agents who whispered in the ears of certain people that
the Jews are not abominable, as many think, but are held dear in your eyes and because
some of their people were saying that they are considered better than Christians.
I, your unworthy servant, was not in fact in Lyon [at the time] but was far away on the
case of the monks of Nantuadensium, who were fighting among themselves because of a
certain rivalry. Nonetheless I sent our agents with a short letter to those men [saying]
that they should command whatever they wanted and we would obey what they had enjoined.
But we received no indulgence from them. Consequently, certain of our priests whom they
threatened by name, did not dare to show their faces.
We suffered these things from the Jews' supporters and for no other reason but that we
preached to Christians that they should not sell Christian slaves to them; that they
should not allow these Jews to sell Christians to Spain nor to possess them as paid
domestics lest Christian women celebrate the Sabbath with them, work on Sundays, eat with
them during Lent, and their paid servants eat meat on these days; and that no Christian
should buy meats sacrificed and butchered by Jews and sell them to other Christians; and
that they should not drink their wine or other things like this.
For it is the practice of the Jews that when they slaughter an animal to eat and kill
it using three cuts so that it is not strangled, if the liver appears to be damaged when
the entrails are opened, or if a lung clings to the side or breath inflates it, or bile is
not found, and other things like this, the meat is considered to be unclean by the Jews
and sold to the Christians and these meats are called by the insulting expression
"Christian beasts" (christiana pecora). With regard to the blood which
the Jews both consider to be unclean and do not use except to sell it to Christians, if it
should happen to flow into the earth anywhere, even into a filthy place, they swiftly draw
it out of the ground and put it in a vessel to preserve. And as for how they do other
things worthy of reproach concerning the blood, there are not only many Christian
witnesses but also many Jews.
That the Jews daily curse Jesus Christ and the Christians in all their prayers under
the name "Nazarenes" not only the blessed Jerome attests, who writes that he
knew them intimately and was inside their skin,[2] but many of the Jews also bear witness
to this. On this matter, for the sake of example, I spoke to the Christians in this way: If
there is a man who is faithful and a lover of his elder and lord and he senses that
someone is his lord's enemy, detractor, reviler, and a threat to him, he does not wish to
be this man's friend, table companion, or sharer in his food. But if he should be [this
man's friend, etc.] and his elder and lord learns this, [the lord] would judge that the
man was not faithful to him. And therefore, since we know that the Jews are blasphemers
and men who curse, so to speak, the Lord God Christ and his Christians, we should not be
joined to them through the sharing of food or drink in accordance with the rule (modus)
that was given long ago and commanded by the holy fathers in their words and examples. For
the rest, because they live among us and we should not be wicked to them nor act contrary
to their life, health, or wealth, let us observe the rule (modus) that has been ordained
by the Church. The way in which we should be cautious or human towards them, is not at all
obscure but has been clearly expounded.
[2] Jerome, In Amos I.1.12; Jerome, Epistula 129. 4.
Most pious lord, I have mentioned only a few out of the many things concerning the
faithlessness of the Jews, our admonition, and the wounding of Christianity that is
occurring through the supporters of the Jews, since I do not know whether [this news] can
even come to your attention. Nonetheless, it is absolutely necessary that your pious
solicitude know how the Christian faith is being harmed by the Jews in certain ways. For
when they lie to simple Christians and boast that they are dear to you because of the
patriarchs; that they enter and leave your sight with honor; that most excellent people
desire their prayers and blessings and confess that they wished they had the same author
of the law as the Jews; when they say that your counselors are aroused against us for
their sake, because we forbid Christians from drinking their wine; when, in trying to
claim this, they boast that they have received from Christians many, many pounds of silver
from the sale of wine and cannot find out, after running through the canons, why
Christians should abstain from their food and drink; when they produce commands signed
with golden seals in your name and containing words which, in our opinion, are not true;
when they show people women's clothes as if they were sent to their wives by your kinsmen
or matrons of the palaces; when they expound upon the glory of their forefathers; when
they are permitted, contrary to the law, to build new synagogues – [when all this
occurs] it even reaches the point when naive Christians say that the Jews preach to them
better than our priests. And this was particularly true when the aforementioned agents
ordered that the markets that usually occur on Saturdays should be moved lest [the
Jews’] Sabbatism be impeded, and they let [the Jews] choose on which days they had to
go to market from then on, claiming that this suited the utility of the Christians because
of the Sunday vacation. In the end, it proved to be more useless to the Jews since those
who are near, because they buy the necessary food on Saturday, spend Sunday more freely at
the celebration of the Mass and at preaching, and those who come from a distance on the
occasion of the market, attend the evening and morning offices after the celebration of
the Mass has been performed and return home with edification.
Now then, if it should please your most benign kindness to listen, let us say what the
Churches of the Gauls and their rectors, kings as well as bishops, should hold to
regarding the separation of the two religions, namely that of the Church and that of the
Jews, and what they should pass down in writing and leave to posterity to be maintained,
and how it is consonant with authority, that is the Acts of the Apostles and takes its
origin from the Old Testament. From these it is shown how detestable enemies of the truth
should be considered and how they are worse than all unbelievers, as divine Scripture
teaches, and what unworthy things they think about God and heavenly matters. We have
discussed all of these things with our brethren and have sent [these writings] to be
presented to your most expansive excellence.
After the preceding note had been dictated, a certain man from Cordoba arrived, fleeing
from Spain. He said that he had been stolen as a little boy by a certain Jew of Lyon 24
years before and sold, and that he had fled this year with another boy from Arles who had
been likewise stolen by a Jew six years earlier. When we sought out those known to the man
who was from Lyon and found them, some said that others had been stolen by this same Jew,
others bought and sold, and that this year another boy was stolen and sold by a Jew. At
that moment it was discovered that many Christians are sold by Christians and bought by
Jews and that many unspeakable things are perpetrated by them which are too foul to write.
Source.
© W.L. North, 1998
Translated by W.L. North from Agobardi Lugdunensis Opera Omnia, Opusculum XI,
ed. L. Van Acker, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis 52, Turnholt: Brepols
1981, pp. 191-95.
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Paul Halsall, January 1999
halsall@fordham.edu
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