AJS Review 27:1 (2003), 23-72 BETWEEN OFFICIAL AND PRIVATE DISPUTE: The Case of Christian Spain and Provence in the Late Middle Ages by Ram Ben-Shalom Literary and historical evidence of religious disputes that took place Jews and Christians during the Middle Ages exists in a variety of source manuscripts and Latin documents concerning such encounters survive f disputations that were held in Paris (1240), Barcelona (1263), and Tortos 1414). Some of these were written by participants themselves after the scribed. Some were produced by Christian authors as protocols, either d after the disputations. Significant discrepancies concerning the same d to be found between the Christian and Jewish accounts.' Other material subject exists in the literature of the Christian Adversus Iudaeos (dating antiquity and the early Middle Ages) and in the Jewish polemical literatu ing from the twelfth century). Pioneer studies have also recently appear the records of the Spanish Inquisition, in which much evidence was fou cerning such disputes.2 Amos Funkenstein made an important preliminary classification of C arguments used in the Middle Ages against the Jews.3 His distinction bet "old polemic" and various types of "new polemic" was accepted by schol nevertheless made distinctions or took issue over questions of periodizati the aims and identity of the groups and institutions that adopted the new Jeremy Cohen formulated a complementary classification presenting f I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Ora Limor for her critical suggestio preparation of this article. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the assistance of th versity of Israel. 1. See Y. Baer, "Towards a Critique of the Disputes Between Rabbi Yehiel of Paris Moses ben Nahman," (Hebrew) Tarbiz, 2 (1931), pp. 172-187; Baer, A History of the Jew tian Spain (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1966), II, pp. 176-181; H The Talmud in the Eyes of Christianity: the View of Post-Biblical Jewish Literature in the Christian World, 500-1248 (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 1970), pp. 227-34 an, Barcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of 1263 and its Aftermath (Berkeley: Univers fornia Press, 1992), pp. 1-80; J. Riera I Sans, La Cr6nica en Hebreu de la Disputa d (Barcelona: Fundacio Salvador Vives Casajuana, 1974). 2. See E. Gutwirth, "Gender, History and the Judeo-Christian Polemic," in O. Limor Stroumsa, eds., Contra Judaeos (Tiibingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1996), pp. 257-278. 3. A. Funkenstein, "The Changes in the Religious Dispute between Jews and Christian Twelfth Century," (Hebrew), Zion, 53 (1968), pp. 125-144; Reprinted in A. Funkenstein, Historical Consciousness in Judaism and its Cultural Surroundings (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: 1991), pp. 82-102. 4. See J. Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of MedievalAnti-Judaism (Ith 23