Council of Albi explained

The Roman Catholic Council of Albi was held in 1254 by Louis IX of France on his return from the Seventh Crusade, under the presidency of Zoen, Bishop of Avignon and Papal Legate for the final repression of the Albigenses, the reformation of clergy and people and the Catholic church's relation to the Jewish people.

Along with the Councils of Narbonne in 1227 and 1243, the Council of Toulouse, the Councils of Béziers in 1232 and 1246, the 1242 Council of Tarragona, and the 1248 Council of Valence, this council established a body of legislative precedent for the Inquisition.^[1]

Rulings

Rulings enacted by the Council of Albi included the following:

• a decree banning monks from wearing deep brown or mulberry robes, and requiring canons regular to wear plain black or white^[2]
• a decree ordering the seizure of the property of all those the Inquisition condemned to prison for heresy^[3]
• a ban on Jews selling meat in public marketplaces^[4]
• a requirement for officials to take an oath of support for the Inquisition every three years^[5]
• a requirement for duplicates of inquisitorial records to be archived^[6]
• a ban on Jewish people wearing wide cloaks, considered too similar to priestly garments^[7]
• a fine for failing to attend Mass on Sundays or leaving early, with exemptions for illness, distance, or other serious cause^[8]
• a ban on lawyers representing defendants at trials for heresy^[9]

The council's restrictions on usury, stricter than those established in previous canon law, ordered that:^[10]

• neither secular nor ecclesiastical judges should compel debtors to pay usury
• Jews should be required to swear on the Torah when testifying about whether a loan included usury
• restrictions on usury should be applied to all loans, including those between Jews

Notes and References

1. Book: Sackville . L. J. . A Companion to Heresy Inquisitions . 28 February 2019 . Brill . 978-90-04-39387-5 . 108–140 . 23 January 2024 . en . The Church’s Institutional Response to Heresy in the 13th Century.
2. Book: Izbicki . Thomas M. . Netherton . Robert . Medieval Clothing and Textiles 1 . 2005 . 110 . Forbidden Colors in the Regulation of Clerical Dress from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) to the Time of Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464).
3. Lea . Henry C. . Confiscation for Heresy in the Middle Ages . The English Historical Review . 1887 . 2 . 6 . 235–259 . 23 January 2024 . 0013-8266.
4. Jordan . William Chester . Problems of the Meat Market of Béziers, 1240-1247. A Question of Anti-Semitism . Revue des études juives . 1976 . 135 . 1 . 31–49 . 10.3406/rjuiv.1976.1817 . 23 January 2024.
5. Hill . Derek . The Inquisition and Popular Pressure in the Languedoc . Nottingham Medieval Studies . January 2019 . 63 . 95–110 . 10.1484/J.NMS.5.118195 . 23 January 2024 . en . 0078-2122.
6. Sherwood . Jessie . The Inquisitor as Archivist, or Surprise, Fear, and Ruthless Efficiency in the Archives . The American Archivist . April 2012 . 75 . 1 . 56–80 . 10.17723/aarc.75.1.a2712l7ur075j10h . 23 January 2024.
7. Book: Lipton . Sara . Images of Intolerance: The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible moralisée . 28 September 1999 . University of California Press . 978-0-520-92158-0 . 17 . en.
8. Gutntven . John Joseph . 1942 . The Precept of Hearing Mass: A Historical Conspectus and Commentary . PhD . Catholic University of America.
9. Book: Fudgé . Thomas A. . Medieval Religion and its Anxieties: History and Mystery in the Other Middle Ages . 2016 . Palgrave Macmillan US . 978-1-137-56610-2 . 51–87 . 23 January 2024 . en . Piety, Perversion, and Serial Killing: The Strange Case of Gilles de Rais.
10. Mell . Julie L. . The Discourse of Usury and the Emergence of the Stereotype of the Jewish Usurer in Medieval France . The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender: Volume II . 2018 . 3–112 . 10.1007/978-3-319-34186-6_1 . 23 January 2024 . Springer International Publishing . en.