Ramon de Penyafort’s Responses to Questions Concerning Relations Between Christians and Saracens: Critical Edition and Translation

Abstract

Toward the end of 1234, a letter arrived at the papal curia from the Franciscan minister and the Dominican prior residing in Tunis, posing a series of 40 questions concerning their ministry to the Catholic community of Tunis—primarily on whether certain sins called for excommunication, or whether they were mortal or venial. The ecumenical councils and pontifical decrees had indeed established the rules in principle, but they had not imagined all the particular cases that these friars encountered in Tunis. Raymond of Penyafort, confessor and penitentiary to Pope Gregory IX, explains that the pope gave his answer to each of these questions and that he, Raymond, wrote them down and sent them to the two friars. Questions and answers are preserved in a text known as the Responsiones ad dubitabilia circa communicationem christianorum cum sarracenis, dated January 19, 1235. Each section contains first a question posed by the friars and then the pope’s response, transmitted by Raymond. The questions concern the legality (or not) of a whole series of transactions with Muslims: from selling them nails to secretly baptizing their children. This text offers us precious information on the Latin Christian community of Tunis, which is numerous and diverse. There are merchants: Genoans, Pisans, and “Spaniards” (no doubt Catalans). There are clerics: Franciscans and Dominicans, of course, but also the priests from the maritime cities, associated with their funduqs. There are mercenaries, crusaders, converts to Islam, captives, slaves, and even persons serving as pawn for loans. This chapter consists of an introduction to the text, a new critical edition of the Latin text, and an English translation.