196 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
odo of Châteauroux, and from thirty-five accusations levelled against the Talmud,
probably repeated by nicholas Donin, from the purported ‘confessions’ of two
major northern French rabbis—which seem rather to be the notes of Christian
observers who interpreted their claims—and from two sets of Talmudic material
translated into latin by another learned convert, Theobold of Sézanne.221 We also
have rabbi Meir of rothenburg’s dirge on the burning of copies of the Talmud by
louis IX.222
Hence the original assault was launched by a southern French Jew, namely nicholas
Donin, just as a later missionizing campaign was initiated by another southern French
convert, the Dominican friar Paul Christian (Pablo Christiani).223 As we would ex-
pect, Jewish sources for the trial and condemnation of the Talmud are highly critical
of Donin.224 The Christian sources do not tell us what Donin’s credentials were nor
how he was able to insinuate himself into the papal court and gain the ear of the pope
himself—but possibly he had a connection with mendicants in Paris.225 Be that as it
may, it is clear that the assault on the Talmud from the 1230s onwards was launched
by a former Jew who had defected from Judaism, just as the innovative missionizing
campaign that began in the 1260s was the initiative of yet another defector. Donin
initiated thirty-five accusations.226 In particular, by claiming that Jews were neglecting
the ‘Written Torah’ in favour of a human/Jewish connivance—the Talmud—he argued
that they were deliberately disrespectful toward God.227
From then on the Talmud is mentioned frequently in Gregory IX’s correspond-
ence. In 1239 he ordered the bishop of Paris to receive his letters, forwarded by
Donin, detailing information he had received about certain books of the Jews,
including the Talmud, and to transmit them to the archbishops and kings of France,
England, Aragon, navarre, Castile, león, and Portugal.228 That same year he sent
letters to all the archbishops of France and England, Castile, and león explaining
how he had heard that the Jews had a book called the Talmud whose volume far
exceeded that of the Bible and which contained abusive and unspeakable material.229
He ordered that all these books be seized on the coming first Saturday of lent
while the Jews were at synagogue and that they were to be kept and guarded by the
friars; he emphasized that there must be no hesitation about promulgating a
221 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, pp.16–17; pp.102–21; pp.122–5.
222 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, pp.169–72.
223 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.91.
224 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.40.
225 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, pp.39–40
226 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, pp.46–7.
227 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.47.
228 Gregory IX, ‘Fraternitati tue presentium’ (9 June 1239), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.238–40; Simonsohn,
pp.171–2; see also ‘Si vera sunt’ (9 June 1239), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.240–2; Simonsohn, pp.172–3. There
is a vast amount of secondary literature on popes and the Talmud which cannot be discussed here; for
example, Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, pp.60–76; Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, pp.319–30;
Pakter, Medieval Canon Law and the Jews, pp.70–3.
229 For very recent secondary literature on the details of the trial of the Talmud, see Chazan, ‘The
Hebrew report of the Trial of the Talmud’, pp.89–93; Galinsky, ‘The Different Hebrew versions of
the “Talmud Trial” of 1240 in Paris’, pp.109–40; Piero Capelli, ‘rashi nella controversia parigina sul
Talmud del 1240’, in Ricercare la Sapienza di Tutti gli Antichi, Series 3, vol. 1, Miscellanea in onore di
Gian Luigi Prato, ed. M. Milani and M. Zappella (Bologna, 2013), pp.441–8.