Pluralità normata: delimitazioni nei confronti di ebrei e musulmani al tempo dello scisma alessandrino

On Thursday, 19 March, at 5 p.m. in Room F007, the fourth session of the annual series of seminars on the History of the Papacy will be held. On this occasion, Kordula Wolf of the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rome will give a lecture entitled ‘Normative Plurality: Delimitations towards Jews and Muslims of the Alexandrian Schism’. The scholar, drawing on considerations from the theory of boundaries and space, will explore the complexity of Christian-Jewish and Christian-Muslim relations during the pontificate of Alexander III. Focusing on the papal perspective and using selected examples, she will examine the complex interaction between regulatory frameworks and everyday practice. Specifically, the scholar will show how papal and ecclesiastical decrees delimited, at various levels, the scope of action of Jews and Muslims and shaped their relations with Christians. No longer simply classified as infideles and, in some respects, brought closer to the position of Jews, Muslims obtained for the first time under Alexander III a distinct legal status in canon law. Although many measures were reactions to local controversies and aimed at resolving them, they ended up accentuating the social friction that already existed between Christians and non-Christians in many regions. Furthermore, it will be highlighted how the delimitations relating to Jewish and Muslim populations, formulated in the conciliar canons and papal correspondence, reflect the effort to ensure obedience, strengthen internal cohesion and consolidate papal authority during the schism. In this way, the Pope and the Roman Church operated within an expanded context — not only in a geographical sense — while at the same time creating significant spaces for orientation through processes of exclusion and distinction.