The Canons on Jews and Muslims

The same council that required annual confession also passed canons that shaped the treatment of religious minorities in Latin Christendom for centuries, and any account of it that omits them is not an account of what happened. Canon sixty-eight required Jews and Muslims in Christian territory to be distinguishable from Christians by their dress, on the stated ground of preventing sexual relations between them by mistake. Canon sixty-nine barred them from public office. Others restricted their conduct in Holy Week and imposed obligations on converts.

Enforcement was uneven and depended on local rulers, and the badge and the distinctive hat appear in some kingdoms early and in others hardly at all. That unevenness is a historical fact and not a mitigation. The canons gave a general church council's authority to the principle that religious minorities should be marked and excluded from office, and later legislation across Europe cited them for centuries.

The atlas records this beside the pastoral reforms because they came from one assembly, in one month, under one pope, and were understood by the people who passed them as parts of a single programme of Christian order. Reading the reforming canons alone gives a false picture of what medieval church order meant, and reading the discriminatory canons alone gives a false picture of what the council was doing. Both belong in the record.