Thirteenth-century canon law fused Muslims and Jews into one subordinate class

Evidence

These ideas are also extended to Muslims by subsequent legislation. The third Lateran council (1179) prohibited both Jews and Saracens from owning Christian slaves. At a time when the Cathar heretics, denied any legitimate role in Christian society, are slaughtered by the troops of the Albigensian Crusade (and subsequently rooted out by papal inquisitors), Muslims, though theologically classed most often as heretics, are attributed the de facto social status of Jews. Apart from Alfonso X, no Christian legislator of the thirteenth century offers any justification for this association. But the two groups, Muslims and Jews, are increasingly lumped together in ecclesiastical and civil legislation. Muslims are granted a legitimate, subordinate role in the Christian polity, but one which will (along with that of the Jews) become more precarious in the later Middle Ages. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1017

Categorization

• XREF: Grounds the existing vault claims about how Islamopohobia and anti-Judaism share genealogical roots — connects to Anidjar’s thesis on the Jew/Arab entanglement in European thought.
• QUESTION: Why did Alfonso X stand alone in offering a justification for this association? Worth chasing why Spain diverged from papal legislation.