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Berechiah de Nicole

Berechiah de Nicole

1225 CE1270 CE · Rishonim · Lincoln

Berechiah de Nicole (c. 1225 – after 1270), known in English records as Benedict fil Mosse, was a Tosafist and rabbi of Lincoln — 'Nicole' in the Norman-French of medieval England — and a son of Moses ben Yom-Tov of London. A scholar bearing the honorific 'Magister,' he was caught up in 1255 in the notorious blood libel of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln: arrested and tried, he was released in January 1256 and his property restored. He remains one of the few named Torah scholars of medieval Anglo-Jewry before the expulsion of 1290.

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Stop 1 of 11225–1270Lived

LincolnלינקולןEast Midlands England — medieval Jewish center

What they did here

Lived in Lincoln — 'Nicole' — where he served as a rabbi and Tosafist and, by tradition, occupied the surviving stone 'Jew's House.' In 1255 he was imprisoned amid the Little Saint Hugh blood libel and released the following January with his property restored.

About Lincoln

Lincoln hosted one of medieval England's largest Jewish communities; the surviving 12th-century 'Jew's House' is among Britain's oldest extant townhouses. The 1255 blood-libel of 'Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln' was a paradigmatic medieval anti-Jewish accusation, leading to 19 Jewish executions. R. Yosef of Lincoln (Yom Tov of Joigny's circle) was a Tosafist.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Berechiah de Nicole’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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