The Disputation of Paris, in which four rabbis defended the Talmud against Nicholas Donin's accusations of blasphemy, began in the court of King Louis IX.

The Disputation of Paris, also known as the Trial of the Talmud, took place in 1240 at the court of King Louis IX of France. It followed the work of Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity who translated the Talmud and pressed 35 charges against it to Pope Gregory IX by quoting a series of blasphemous passages about Jesus, Mary, or Christianity. Four rabbis defended the Talmud against Donin's accusations.

A rabbi is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as semikha—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic eras, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis." Further, in 19th-century Germany and the United States, rabbinic activities such as sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside all increased in importance.

The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha) and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life and was foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews. The Talmud includes the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects, including halakha, Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, and folklore, and many other topics.

Nicholas Donin of La Rochelle, a Jewish convert to Christianity in early thirteenth-century Paris, is known for his role in the 1240 Disputation of Paris, which resulted in a decree for the public burning of all available manuscripts of the Talmud. Latin sources referred to him as "Rupellus," referring to his native La Rochelle.