Innocent, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son Louis, illustrious King of France, greetings and apostolic blessing.
The impious perfidy of the Jews, from whose hearts, because of the immensity of their crimes, our Redeemer has not removed the veil, but has permitted to remain, as is fitting, the blindness that has partially befallen Israel. They fail to recognize that it is solely out of mercy and piety that Christianity receives them and tolerates their cohabitation patiently. They commit heinous acts, which are shocking to those who hear them and horrifying to those who recount them.
For these ingrates to the Lord Jesus Christ, who patiently awaits their conversion through the abundance of His longsuffering, show no shame for their guilt and do not honor the Christian faith. Having disregarded or even scorned the Mosaic law and the prophets, they follow certain traditions of their elders, regarding which the Lord rebukes them in the Gospel, saying: "Why do you transgress the commandment of God and make it void for the sake of your traditions, teaching doctrines and precepts of men?"
Indeed, in these traditions, which are called the Talmud in Hebrew, a great book esteemed by them far exceeding the scope of the Bible, there are manifest blasphemies against God, Christ, and the Blessed Virgin, as well as convoluted fables, erroneous abuses, and outlandish absurdities. They teach and raise their children on these, and turn them completely away from the teaching of the law and the prophets, fearing that, if they understood the truth contained in the law and the prophets, which bear clear testimony to the only-begotten Son of God coming in the flesh, they might convert to the faith and humbly return to their Redeemer.
Not content with this, they employ Christian nurses for their children in contempt of the Christian faith and commit many vile acts with them. Because of these, it is to be feared by the faithful lest they incur divine indignation, enduring the indignities they unworthily perpetrate, which lead to the confusion of our faith.
Although our beloved son, the Chancellor of Paris, and the doctors of sacred teaching in Paris, under the mandate of our predecessor, Pope Gregory of happy memory, read and examined the aforementioned book of abuses, along with certain others and all their commentaries, and publicly condemned them to burning before the clergy and the people, and although you, as a Catholic king and most Christian prince, have provided fitting aid and favor in this matter, for which we commend your royal excellence with worthy praises in the Lord and offer acts of thanksgiving; nevertheless, since the profane abuse of these Jews has not yet ceased, nor has tribulation given them understanding, we earnestly entreat, admonish, and beseech your royal majesty in the Lord Jesus Christ to ensure, as you have piously begun and laudably pursued, that these detestable and enormous excesses committed in contempt of the Creator and in injury to the Christian name be duly and severely punished.
Therefore, we ask you to ensure that the aforementioned books of abuses, condemned by the same doctors, and generally all others with their commentaries that have been examined and condemned by them, be ordered to be burned by fire throughout your entire kingdom wherever they may be found. Firmly prohibit henceforth that they employ Christian nurses or servants, so that the children of the free may not serve the children of the bondwoman. Let them at least, as reprobate slaves of the Lord against whose death they wickedly conspired, recognize themselves as servants of those whom the death of Christ has made free and established as their masters.
Given at the Lateran, on the seventh day before the Ides of May, in the first year of our pontificate.
Translation: Machine translated from Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, edited by Henry Denifle, Volume 1, pg. 173-174