Review Article Jews, Jean Régné, and the Medieval

REVIEW ARTICLE

JEWS, JEAN RÉGNÉ, AND THE MEDIEVAL CROWN OF ARAGON

LARRY J. SIMON

Yom Tov Assis, Jewish Economy in the Medieval Crown of Aragon, 1213-1327: Money and Power. Brill's Series in Jewish Studies, vol. 18. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997. Pp. xii, 261.

Yom Tov Assis, The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry : Community and Sociery in the Crown of Aragon, 1213-1327. London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1997. Pp. xx, 380.

Robert I. Burns, S.J., Jews in the .Notarial Culture: Latinate Wills in Mediterranean Spain, 1250-1350. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996. Pp. x, 267.

Jean Regne (1883-1954) was born in Armissan (Aude), and spent most of his life as the archivist for the Departement of the Ardeche. His numerous local history publications on "I'ancien pays de Vivarais" may or may not be remembered today, though presumably his many archival inventories and guides are still consulted.' His most famous monograph, which originally appeared as a series of articles in the Revue des Études Juives, is his Etudes sur la condition des,7uifs de Narbonne du au XI VP siècle published in 1912. Writing in 1959 the late Richard W. Emery considered it then to bc the "best study we have of a southern Frcnch Jewish community"; the work was reprinted as recently as 1981 . Any acclaim accorded his study of Narbonnese Jewry

' See the partial listing of his works in the CatalogueGénéral des livresimprimés de la l3ibliothegue Nationale,auteurs vol. 118 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1938), 1-7. 2 Revuedes I,,tudes,7uz*ves,55 (1908), 1-36, 221-43; 58 (1909), 75-105, 200-225; 59 (1910), 59- 89 ; 61 (1911), 228-54;62 (1911), 1-27, 248-66 ;and 63 (1913), 75-99; first published in book form (Narbonne: F. Caillard, 1912);reprinted (Marseilles:Lafittc Reprints, 1981).See Richard W. Emery, 77ieJews oj'Perpignanin the ThirteenthCentury An : EconomicStudy hased on NotarialRecords (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 1. Emery's note three is incomplete. 286

pales in comparison, however, to the fame of his frequently consulted and cited 3,456 regesta drawn from the royal registers of four kings of Aragon: Jaume I (1213-76), Pere III (1276-85), Alfons III (1285-1291), and Jaume II (1291-1327). '1'hese documentary abstracts appeared over many years in the Revue des Études Juives, and were reprinted under one cover in 1978 by Magnes Press with subject, place, and person indexes by Yom Tov Assis and Adam Gruzman.? These abstracts have been used and reused, and-some would also argue-occasionally misused by several generations of scholars.' The catalogue is known even among non-Hispanists, who marvel at the wealth of documentary evidence it summarizes. David Romano, more than forty ycars ago, discussed Regne's work under the various headings of general vision, method, general errors, and errors of detail. While Romano is far more approving of Regne's work than the work of Joseph Jacobs, discussed in the same article, he argued that "el principal defecto de su trabajo reside en haber tomado como punto de partida el `Indice de Registros,' en vez de acudir directamente a los registros." This resulted in increased errors with names, dates, and even content; left out registers not covered in the centuries-old, handwritten "Index of Registers" found in the reading room of the Crown of Aragon Archives; and especially "como quiera en el Indice, por tratarse de resumenes, solo se da una breve noticia del contenido del documento, omitiendose muchos detalles, resulta que todos los hebreos que actuan en la administracion real, en asuntos que no guardan relacion con los judios en cuanto tales, raramente aparecent cita- dos en los indices. 115 Perhaps because the Jewish functionaries of Pere III is

3 "Catalogue dcs Actes de Jaime ler, Pedro III et Alfonso III, rois d'Aragon, concernant les Juifs," Revue desÉtudes 7ul.'Ves, 60 (1910), 161-201; 61 1 ( 1 9 11-43; 1 ) , 62 2 ( 1 9 138-73; 1 ) , 633 (1912), 245-68; 64 (1912), 67-88, 215-35; 65 (1913), 61-88, 196-223; 66 (1913), 252-62; 67 (1914), 53-81, 195-224; 68 (1914), 198-221; 69 (1919), 135-220; 70 (1920), 74-87, 195-208. "Catalogue d'Actes pour servir a 1'histoiredcs Juifs de la couronne d'Aragon sous le regnc dc Jaime II (1291-1327),"Revue des Etude.s?uives, 73 (1921), 195-209; 75 (1922), 140-78; 76 (1923), 58-93, 183-210; 77 (1923), 177-99; 78 (1924), 102-48. Historyof the Jewsin Aragon:Regesta and Documents,1213-1327, edited and annotated by Yom Tov Assis in association with Adam Gruzman, Hispania Judaica, 1 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1978). ' Robcrt I. Burns, SJ., in "King Jaume's Jews: Problem and Methodology" in his Huslints, Chn*stians,and ?etvsin the CrusaderKingdom of ValenciaSocieties : irc Symbiosis (C:ambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 129, has stated: "Thc temptation to press catalog information into the service of scholarship on the Jews of King,Jaume's Valencia is a general affliction among the few who approach this field at all.... The best of catalogs makes a feeble foundation for research. Their short paraphrases lack context, detail, nuance, the impact of the original lan- guage, or the corrective subsidiary information of the full text." ' David Romano, "Analisis a los repertorios dc Jacobs y Regne," Sqàrad, 14 (1954), 247- 64 (259). The "Indices de Jose I,laris" is in 21 vols. and dates from the late seventeenth cen- tury ; there is also a 17-vol. "Catalogo de los documentos de los registros," begun by the archivist JeroniAlterachs y Avillaro and continued by others which abstracts some 112 registers covering the dates 1252 to 1327.