THE JEWS OF ROUSSILLON

ROUSSILLON, today in southern France at the eastern slopes of the Pyrenees, was part of the Crown of Aragon until its final annexation by France in 1659. From 1275 until 1348 it was part of the Kingdom of Majorca that was established by Jaime I's will and ruled by a branch of the House of Aragon. From a Jewish point of view, the Jews of Roussillon remained part of Catalan Jewry. In religious and cultural terms, neither the Pyrenees nor the political boundary that lasted for about seventy-five years constituted a barrier. In taxation and communal organization the Jews of Roussillon were a distinct entity apart from Catalan Jewry and yet, until the establishment of the Kingdom of Majorca, they were not considered totally separated from their Catalan brethren.

Despite their affinity with Catalan Jewry, the Jews of Roussillon developed their own independent communal structure, the character of which became far more pronounced when they were part of the Kingdom of Majorca. Perpignan was a centre of learning in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and attracted many Jewish scholars and students. R. Menahem Ha-Meiri, the most famous scholar of fourteenth-century Perpignan, represents well the character and standard of Jewish scholarship in the area. The important role played by the Jews in finance and trade cannot be divorced from their cultural and religious achievements.

THE COLLECTA OF PERPIGNAN

For the period until 1276, when Roussillon was part of the Crown of Aragon under Jaime I, there is abundant information on the Jews of Roussillon in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon. Perpignan was the principal aljama in Roussillon. The Jews scattered in many towns and villages of the area, of which Villafranca de Conflent and Puigcerda were the most important, were all part of its collecta and under its jurisdiction. The collecta was referred to in many sources as ‘the Jews of Perpignan, Roussillon, Cerdagne, and Conflent', or simply aliama judeorum Perpiniani.

The Jews of the collecta shared a single judicial system and enjoyed royal protection in the various non-Jewish tribunals, where their rights were guaranteed by the king. Jaime I opposed attempts to have the Jews of the collecta tried before ecclesiastical courts.