198 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
Gregory’s purpose was to show that the Talmud’s teachings were absurd. In par-
ticular he wanted this ‘oral Torah’ to be investigated since Jews claimed it was not
a human creation, but of divine origin—in which case he could justify his steps
against it as reasonable and appropriate.240 So he projected the possibility—even
the likelihood—of dire consequences in letters he despatched via nicholas Donin.
He also showed his awareness of possible Christian objections to the unprece-
dented and harsh step of burning the Talmud which would in effect abrogate the
rights of Jews and their protected status in Christian society. He wanted to forestall
such objections by drawing attention to the specifically papal impetus for such
harsh action—up to and including burning the Talmud—and by demanding eccle-
siastical censure against objectors.241
So the trial took place in Paris in 1240. The charges were substantiated at least to
the satisfaction of the ecclesiastical jury. rabbi Yehi’el tried to convince the com-
mittee of high-ranking churchmen to delay the proceedings, saying that the rightful
place to clarify an issue so central to all Jews was not locally but at the papal court.242
There followed a delay between the condemnation in 1240 and the burnings in
1241 or 1242, which may reflect the opposition that Gregory IX had envisaged.
Such burnings of Jewish books were indeed remarkable since the Talmud had been
known to, and permitted by, the Church for centuries.
Although to us burning books appears barbaric, this was common practice in
the medieval world. Competing prayer books of the roman and Mozabaric rite
were burned at Toledo in 1085, the philosopher Abelard (1079–1142) was forced
to burn his own book at the Council of Soissons (1121), the writings of Arnold of
Brescia, whose work had been condemned at the Council of Sens in 1241, were
burned on papal orders, Cathar texts were routinely destroyed both in France and
in rome, and the pamphlets which nachmanides wrote after the Disputation of
Barcelona were burnt on the order of the Dominicans. Indeed Jewish groups them-
selves appealed to the Dominicans to burn as heretical Maimonides’ Guide for the
Perplexed at Montpellier in 1223.243
According to the Bonum universale de apibus of Thomas of Cantimpré, a student
in Paris in the 1230s, after their books had been confiscated, Jewish leaders subse-
quently asked for them to be returned. Although they were supported in this by
the archbishop of Sens, the highest ranking clergyman involved in the proceedings,
when he died in 1241 the weight of his intercession diminished and the burnings
commenced.244 of all the rulers of Christian Europe, only louis IX heeded
Gregory IX’s injunction to seize copies of the Talmud and other Jewish writings
and submit them to ecclesiastical authorities for inspection.245 Hence a number of
books were confiscated in France; although even here it is difficult to know how
240 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.45.
241 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, pp.19–20.
242 Galinsky, ‘The Different versions of the “Talmud Trial” of 1240 in Paris’, p.121; p.123; p.127.
243 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.344.
244 Thomas of Cantimpré, Bonum universal de apibus (Douai, 1627), pp.17–18. See The Trial of the
Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.22.
245 Galinsky, ‘The Different versions of the “Talmud Trial” of 1240 in Paris’, p.109.