View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert THE JEWS OF PROVINTZIA, THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE STUDIES CARRIED OUT IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE (AIX SCHOOL AND NGJ MONTPELLIER), 1960-2010 DANIÈLE IANCU-AGOU NOUVELLE GALLIA JUDAICA/CNRS FRANCE Date of receipt: 15th of February, 2010 Final date of acceptance: 7th of October, 2010 ABSTRACT The medieval history of the Jews of southern France has improved considerably. Since 1945 its development has become evident throughout the southern territory, stimulated by the existence of sources in Hebrew (from within the communities) and Latin (from outside). In those privileged places where a true profane and philosophical basis of Jewish science developed, the rich documentation has permitted the growth of basic works founded on the study of notary sources (R. W. Emery); but also the Occitan-Catalan Hebrew sources have conserved a rich documentation (Ch. Touati, Y. T. Assis, etc.). Emphasis has been placed on the “Aix School” of G. Duby, productive in the 1970s, when J. Shatzmiller started his initial research. The former County of Provence, where Jewish minorities were tolerated until 1501, lends itself commendably to the study of Jewish daily life through the examination of notary books. The county of Venaissin has its share in this historiographical panorama, as the various works on Gersonides have demonstrated. KEY WORDS Historiography, Jews, Southern France, second half twentieth -early twenty-first centuries. CAPITALIA VERBA Rerum conscriptio, Iudaei, Gallia meridionalis, Vigesimi saeculi dimidia pars altera, Vnius supra viginti saeculi initium. IMAGO TEMPORIS. MEDIUM AEVUM, V (2011): 87-99. ISSN 1888-3931 87 Imago 5.indb 87 02/10/2012 13:11:06 88 DANIÈLE IANCU-AGOU There was a good reason why Professor Sabaté i Curull of the University of Lleida asked me to try to make an assessment of the studies into the history of the Jews in the South of France carried out over more than half a century. After an initial essay going back to 1981,1 and a recent assessment from 2006 limited to learned Jewish journals in French,2 an update was by no means superfluous. This one emphasises book production in the South of France, particularly that based on notarial sources. 1. Assessments 1.1 Roussillon-Cerdagne The ultimate initial pioneering study was that by Richard Emery, published in New York in 1959: The Jews of Perpignan in the Thirteenth Century: An Economic Study Based on Notarial Records. His approach remains a model for the use of notarial records, providing great clarification and inspiration: Jewish money-lending, doctors and lawyers, Jewish widows and so on. The wide range of results on all these topics (particularly concerning activities related to money) from the study of notaries which have broadly gained a following are due to him.3 This considerable contribution from Richard Emery updated the old but valuable articles by Pierre Vidal that appeared in 1887-1888 in the Revue des études juives,4 and which the late Eduard Feliu committed himself to republishing in 1987 and in 19925 with a preface, notes at the end of the volume and an updated bibliography. A laudable initiative whose merit was to dust off, make accessible and update some 1. Iancu-Agou, Danièle. Les Juifs en Provence (1475-1501). De l’insertion à l’expulsion. Marseille: Provence Historical Institute, 1981: 11-16. 2. Iancu-Agou, Danièle. “Un siècle d’investigations sur les juifs du Midi médiéval dans les revues savantes juives d’expression française”, Les Revues scientifiques d’études juives: passé et avenir. A l’occasion du 120e anniversaire de la Revue des études juives, Simon Claude Mimouni, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger eds. Paris- Louvain-Dudley: Peeters, 2006: 83-92. 3. See: Emery, Richard Wilder. “Documents Concerning Jewish Scholars in Perpignan in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries”. Michael, 4 (1976): 27-48; Emery, Richard Wilder. “Jewish Physicians in Medieval Perpignan”. Michael, 12 (1991): 113-134; Emery, Richard Wilder. “Le prêt d’argent juif en Languedoc et Roussillon”, Juifs et judaïsme en Languedoc, XIIIe-début XIVe siècle, Marie-Humbert Vicaire, Bernhard Blumenkranz, eds. Toulouse: Privat, 1977: 85-96; Emery, Richard Wilder. “Les Juifs en Conflent et en Vallespir (1250-1415)”, Conflent, Vallespir et Montagnes catalanes, Actes du LIe Congrès de la Fédération historique du Languedoc méditerranéen et du Roussillon (Prades et Villefranche-de-Conflent, 1978). Montpellier: Historical Federation of the Mediterranean Languedoc and Roussillon, 1980: 85-91; Emery, Richard Wilder. “Les veuves juives de Perpignan (1137-1416)”. Provence Historique, 37, fasc. 150 (1987): 559-569. 4. Vidal, Pierre. “Les Juifs des anciens Comtés de Roussillon et de Cerdagne”. Revue des études juives, 15 (1887): 19-55; Vidal, Pierre. « Les Juifs des anciens Comtés de Roussillon et de Cerdagne ». Revue des études juives, 16 (1888): 1-23, 170-203; 2nd edition and catalan translation: Vidal, Pierre. “Els Jueus dels antics comtats de Rossello i Cerdanya”. Calls, 2 (1987): 27-112. 5. Republication with preface and editor’s notes by Eduard Feliu, and updated bibliography: Vidal, Pierre. Les juifs des anciens comtés de Roussillon et de Cerdagne. Perpignan: Mare Nostrum, 1992. IMAGO TEMPORIS. MEDIUM AEVUM, V (2011): 87-99. ISSN 1888-3931 Imago 5.indb 88 02/10/2012 13:11:08 THE JEWS OF PROVINTZIA, THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE STUDIES 89 works that should not be ignored, by a Perpignan librarian from the end of the 19th century, on the establishment of the Jews in the two Counties; the founding of the Call in Perpignan; the political, financial and legal organisation of thealjama; the situation in the reign of James I of Aragon, under his son James, King of Majorca (who received the Balearic Islands and the lordship of Montpellier and the two Counties in question, Roussillon and Cerdagne) and his successors, until their eviction in 1493 in the wake of their expulsion from Spain. In this republication, the important part (p. 74-93) relating to men of letters (doctors and rabbis) and the circulation of manuscripts should be remembered. As Eduard Feliu wrote, this “study, rigorously written and based on knowledge of the relevant documents, remains a classic”. The history of the Jews in the city of Perpignan was also the subject of a good colloquium in the summer of 2000, whose papers were compiled and published in 20036 in the Perpignan-Archives-Histoire collection. The question of the medieval mikveh in the old convent at Minimes was naturally on the agenda (six papers on “Territories” and “Pilgrimages”) by Lucien Bayrou, Georges Mallet, Romain Maréchal, Sílvia Planas, Olivier Bru, and Lisabelle Pagniez; and also the condition of the Jews under the kings of Majorca, the small but influential stratum of doctors and learned men and, finally, the process that ended the Perpignan community begun by the Disputation of Tortosa by Pierre-Vincent Claverie, Danièle Iancu-Agou, Marise Choukroun, Florence Touati-Wachsstock; inseparable from the issue of the conversos and xuetes by Renada-Laura Portet, beeing all there among the important matters dealt with. This colloquium offered a snapshot of the knowledge that the publication of a more recent congress (autumn 2007) reinforced and updated, the 3rd Congress for the study of the Jews in Catalan-speaking territories, also held in Perpignan and jointly in Barcelona.7 In the meantime (2004), the thesis by Claude Denjean on Puigcerdà, seen through the prism of the Christian notaries of Cerdagne, appeared.8 His sober, comparative approach has made clear the close connections the Jewish community was able to weave with those of the Crown of Aragon, and also with those of the Languedoc and Provençal Midi. Puigcerdà, a small new town in the County of Cerdagne, the centre of cloth and leather production, where the archive documents shed light on socio-economic relationships in the decades just before and after 1300 and provide a picture of matters linked to credit (forms of advance, interest, place of Jewish lending in the world of craftsmen and farmers in Cerdagne). Some studies written here and there on this territory that belongs at once to Perpignan and to Catalonia should not be omitted: the article on the Perpignan 6. Perpignan. L’Histoire des Juifs dans la ville (XIIe-XXe siècles): recueil des communications du colloque (Perpignan, 19-21 juin 2000). Perpignan: Archives Communales de Perpignan, 2003, p. 271. 7. Barcelona-Perpignan, 15-18 October 2007. The proceedings of the congress will appear in 2012. 8. Denjean, Claude. Juifs et chrétiens. De Perpignan à Puigcerda. XIIIe-XIVe siècles. Canet-en-Roussillon: Editions Trabucaire, 2004. IMAGO TEMPORIS. MEDIUM AEVUM, V (2011): 87-99. ISSN 1888-3931 Imago 5.indb 89 02/10/2012 13:11:09 90 DANIÈLE IANCU-AGOU collecta of 1412 by Joseph Shatzmiller,9 my one on inventoried books in Girona following the Disputation of Tortosa, 1414-1415),10 or the superb contribution on the route of the Jews of Roussillon11 by Martine Berthelot, who also wrote some fine bibliographical studies: “Pour une histoire des juifs en Catalogne du Nord: réalités, perspectives de recherche et références bibliographiques”,12 and, more recently, in the Revue des études juives: “Réflexions sur les études juives contemporaines en Espagne”.13 The substantial journal Tamid of the Catalan Society for Hebrew Studies, founded by Eduard Feliu should also be mentioned, with a number of studies dealing with Perpignan, and with the period when that Mediterranean city, the gateway to the mountains, facing Canigou, and with its Catalan tradition, was the capital of the Kingdom of Majorca. We should, for example, mention Tamid 1 (1997) with its bibliography of the history of the Jews of the Crown of Catalonia-Aragon and Provence, 1985-1994,14 followed, in the next issue of “Addicions i modificacions”, particularly a useful bibliography of inventories, wills, lists and reports of medieval Hebrew books,15 a set of works that is easy to consult and which has been, and will continue to be, of great service to researchers.