“Let us pray for the perfidious Jews” – striking early C13th Roman Missal leaf preserving the solemn Good Friday intercessions.

Leaf from a Roman Missal Manuscript on vellum Germany, 14th century

c. 270 x 210

Description
Leaf written in a clear early Gothic bookhand in brown ink, with bold red lombard initials and rubrication.

Substantial leaf from a medieval Roman Missal preserving part of the Solemn Intercessions for Good Friday (Feria VI in Parasceve), the most austere and emotionally charged ceremony of the liturgical year.

Text
The page records the formal sequence of intercessory prayers beginning “Oremus et pro…” and punctuated by the ritual responses “Flectamus genua” and “Levate.” Among the prayers are intercessions ‘pro paganis gentibus, pro haereticis et schismaticis’, and notably ‘pro perfidis Iudaeis’. In medieval Latin, perfidis meant “unbelieving” or “faithless” (in the sense of not accepting Christ), rather than the later English meaning of “treacherous.” Nevertheless, the formula — often translated into English as “Let us pray also for the perfidious Jews” — became one of the most controversial elements of the Roman Good Friday liturgy.

The Good Friday rite commemorates the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ. In medieval Europe, this annual focus on the events surrounding the Crucifixion could sharpen theological and social hostility toward Jewish communities, who were often portrayed in sermons and devotional literature as participants in Christ’s death. While the liturgical prayer itself petitioned for their conversion rather than harm, the broader Holy Week atmosphere sometimes coincided with heightened discrimination, forced disputations, expulsions, or outbreaks of violence in various regions of Europe. The text on this leaf thus stands at the intersection of devotion, doctrine, and the fraught history of Christian– Jewish relations.