HONORIUS°

HONORIUS °, name of four popes.

honorius i, pope 625–38. In a letter addressed to the episcopate of Spain which has not been preserved but the contents of which are known from the reply of Braulion, bishop of Saragossa, Honorius rebuked the bishops for excessive mildness in their treatment of the Jews. The anti-Jewish legislation adopted by the Sixth Council of Toledo may perhaps have resulted from this letter (see *Church Councils). Braulion's reply also reveals, however, that the pope had authorized some Jews who had been forcibly converted in Spain and had taken refuge in Rome to return to Judaism.

honorius iii (cencio savelli), pope 1216–27, was particularly concerned with the application of the decisions of the Fourth Lateran Council on the Jews. Although he renewed the Sicut Judaeis*bull in 1217, he reminded certain Spanish bishops during the same year that they must enforce the wearing of the Jewish *badge and insist on payment of church tithes due on houses owned by Jews which had formerly belonged to Christians. He took up this matter again in 1218 and 1219. Even though he agreed to the suspension of the badge for the Jews of Castile in 1219 and those of Aragon in 1220 in order to halt their move to Muslim Spain, he nevertheless reinforced this obligation in Castile from 1221. He also intervened with the bishop of Bordeaux in this matter. Concerned about the employment of Jews as diplomatic envoys and public officials by Christian kings, he made representations to the kings of Aragon and Leon in 1220 and the king of Hungary in 1221. In that same year he reminded the archbishop of Bourges of the prohibition on the construction of new synagogues. Aside from the Sicut Judaeis bull, his interventions in favor of the Jews were few: in 1219, he counseled against the imposition of new financial burdens on the Jews of Champagne other than the cancellation of the interest on the debts of the crusaders (against the *Albigenses), and in 1220 he took Azzach, a Jewish notable of Barcelona, under his protection. Honorius drew up an Ordo romanus defining the rules of the solemnities of the Roman Catholic Church; the participation of the Jews in the solemn welcome of the popes formed part of this.

honorius iv (giacomo savelli; b. 1210), pope 1285–87. Honorius renewed the Sicut Judaeis bull, and in 1286 wrote to the archbishops of Canterbury and York reaffirming the decisions of the Lateran Councils and called upon the English bishops to protect the people from "excesses" of the Jews and especially from their proselytizing activities. He pointed out the danger of the study of the Talmud and called for counter-activities including sermons.

bibliography:

honorius i: B. Blumenkranz, Les auteurs chrétiens latins… (1963), 103–4; E. Amann, in: Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 7 pt. 1 (1930), 92–132. honorius iii: Vogelstein-Rieger, 1 (1895), 231f.; J. Clausen, Papst Honorius iii (1895), 45f.; H.X. Arquilliere, in: Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 7 pt. 1 (1930), 135–8; S. Grayzel, Church and the Jews… (1966²), 142–79, and index. honorius iv: Vogelstein-Rieger, 1 (1895), 251; B. Pawlicki, Papst Honorius iv (1896), 114; Roth, England, 77, 83, 129.

[Bernhard Blumenkranz]