Jews offered a different but allied problem. There was a large and prosperous Jewish community in the south of France–Cathar territory–and, as we have seen, there may well have been Jewish ideas mixed up in the genealogy of Catharism. So although Innocent forbade attempts to convert Jews by force, he did advocate ghettoisation–physical separation–which not only limited contact but implied that they were social pariahs. It was at the Fourth Lateran Council, held towards the end of Innocent’s papacy in 1215, that it was decreed the Jews should wear a yellow patch ‘so they could be easily
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