Race and Ethnicity: Canon 69

The attempt to limit contact with Jews in public and keep their public authority diminished forced them to wind up being more crucial than ever to society as the money-lenders for which they were reviled.

Canon 69 of the Fourth Lateran Council decreed that Jews should be prevented from exerting any kind of political authority:

Since it is absurd that a blasphemer of Christ exercise authority over Christians, we on account of the boldness of transgressors renew in this general council what the Synod of Toledo wisely enacted in this matter, prohibiting Jews from being given preference in the matter of public offices, since in such capacity they are most troublesome to the Christians. But if anyone should commit such an office to them, let him, after previous warning, be restrained by such punishment as seems proper by the provincial synod which we command to be celebrated every year. The official, however, shall be denied the commercial and other intercourse of the Christians, till in the judgment of the bishop all that he acquired from the Christians from the time he assumed office be restored for the needs of the Christian poor, and the office that he irreverently assumed let him lose with shame. The same we extend also to pagans.

The Third Synod of Toledo in 589CE was organized by Bishop Leander of Seville who had worked to convert the Visigoths and King Reccared from Arianism to Roman Catholicism. It resulted in Visigothic Spain officially becoming part of the Roman Catholic Church. Its14th Canon forbade Jews to take Christian wives or concubines or slaves. Children from such a union were to be baptized. Jews were disqualified from any position that would give them authority over Christians. Christian slaves forced into following Jewish practices were to be freed.

Note that anyone who does hire or appoint a Jew to a position of authority where they make decisions that affect Christians is himself guilty and deserving of punishment. The Jew will be forced to return any material gain he had from Christians during the time in office, the value to be used for poor Christians.

(I apologize for "getting political," but I cannot help thinking of a current situation in the United States where immigrants are castigated for "taking jobs" from Americans, when the "crime"—if there is one—was committed by the business owners who, knowing the law, hired non-citizens in the first place. The workers suffer and the folk responsible are untouched.)

Denied the opportunity for many positions for which a Jew might have plenty of knowledge and skill—was this a reason why some Jews turned to lending money? If this was one profession that you were allowed and  Christians did not generally go for, why not become a money-lender, which in some ways gave you more power over Christians than any public office? There were, of course, other options for employment, as in becoming a scribe as depicted in the illustration above, showing Jewish scribes from a 1283 Spanish work.

In the later Middle Ages, even as Jews were looked on with suspicion if not outright hostility, Jews were sometime valued for the skills they possessed. It was not unknown for the wealthy and nobility to retain Jews as physicians.

The final Canon of the Fourth Lateran, number 70, was concerned with apostasy. We'll wrap this up next time.

Reccared's Reign

Reccared chairs he Third Council of Toledo
(you can buy the poster)

Imagine being a king. You do your best for your country:

• Unite various territories of the peninsula
• Defend against Frankish attacks
• Establish a new set of laws that offer equality to all
• Killing your own rebellious son to preserve your kingdom and its religion
• Create new currency

...and then your favorite other son changes everything after your death.

Poor Liuvigild, King of the Visigoths on the Iberian Peninsula. A steadfast Arian Christian, when his son Hermengild converted to Catholic Christianity and rebelled he had to deal with it harshly, didn't he?

Upon Liuvigild's death in 586, his other son, Reccared, became king. Bishop Leander of Seville, who had converted Liuvigild's elder son Hermengild and was therefore exiled by Liuvigild, returned to Spain shortly after. Leander convened the Third Council of Toledo in May 589, which Reccared hosted. During the Council, Reccared read a statement—a statement so theologically astute that the assumption is it was written for him by Leander—in which he accepted Catholic Christianity, rejecting Arianism and declaring Catholic Christianity the official religion of his Visigothic lands.

Many nobles followed his example. The Hispano-Roman indigenous population that the Visigoths had conquered in Spain was largely delighted with the change of heart in ruling class. Reccared's reign is considered an important turning point in the history of eliminating one of the major rivals to Catholic Christianity.

The Legacy of Liuvigild

Liuvigild on one of his campaigns
detail from an ivory reliquary, 11th c.

Liuvigild was mentioned yesterday as the Visigothic King in the Iberian peninsula who killed his own son, Hermengild, after the son was converted from Arian Christianity to Roman Catholic Christianity. Liuvigild then exiled Bishop Leander of Seville who was responsible for converting Hermengild and preaching against Arianism.

Sounds pretty harsh. There's always at least one other side to a story, however.

Liuvigild ruled Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) and Septimania (a territory in what is now southern France, on the Mediterranean). He was born about 525. He first came to the throne in 568, when his brother, King Liuva I, named Liuvigild co-king and heir. At his brother's death in 571/2, he became sole ruler, and set about to make sure all the Iberian Peninsula was united, a goal he largely accomplished by 577.

One of his acts as king was to revise the Codex Euricianus ["Code of Euric"], a set of laws designed before 480 by King Euric of the Visigoths. The earlier version stratified society between Goths and non-Goths. Liuvigild's version, called the Codex Revisus ["Revised Code"], gave equal rights to both the Visigoths under his rule and the conquered Hispano-Roman population.

He was married twice. His first wife, Theodosia, bore him two sons, Hermengild and Reccared. After her death, he married the widow of Athanagild, who had been king before Liuva and Liuvigild. Reccared became his father's favorite; Liuvigild even founded a city which he named after Reccared: Recopolis.

Liuvigild also minted a new coin, based on a Roman design. The Visigoths, by virtue of moving into and taking over much of the Roman Empire, considered themselves its heirs. Liuvigild struck a coin with a design that resembled one that had just been produced by the Byzantine Emperor Tiberius II.

Liuvigild died in 586. He was succeeded by Reccared.