13th–14th centuries
Disputation of Barcelona
1263·Barcelone
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
public trial of the Talmud before James I; Nahmanide must go into exile and the work is censored
Before Jacques Iᵉʳ of Aragon, his court, and the preaching friars assembled at the royal palace of Barcelona, Nahmanide was called upon to debate publicly with Pablo Christiani, a Dominican convert who claimed to demonstrate through the Talmud itself the coming of the messiah. Unlike the disputation of Paris, the rabbi was granted the freedom to respond, and the controversy centered on interpretation rather than the condemnation of a book.
The king acknowledged the quality of his defense; the Dominican order nonetheless obtained the censure of certain talmudic passages and the prosecution of Nahmanide for the account he subsequently published. The master of Gérone left Aragon and settled in the Land of Israel, where he revived the community of Jerusalem.
- Period :
- 13th–14th centuries
- Type :
- Trials and executions
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- Espagne
Nahmanide, *Sefer ha-Vikuah* ; Robert Chazan, *Barcelona and Beyond* ; Yitzhak Baer, *A History of the Jews in Christian Spain*.