1. See the comprehensive A Mediterranean Emporium: The Catalan Kingdom of Majorca (Cambridge, 1994) by David Abulafia as well as his “The Problem of the Kingdom of Majorca,” Mediterranean Historical Review 5 (1990): 150–168 and 6 (1991): 35–61, and his “A Settled Frontier: The Catalan Kingdom of Majorca,” Journal of Medieval History 18 (1992): 319–333. See too J. N. Hillgarth, “Majorca 1229–1550: The Economic and Social Background,” in his Readers and Books in Majorca 1229–1550 (Paris, 1991), vol. 1, chap. 1. See also Larry Simon, “Society and Religion in the Kingdom of Majorca, 1229–c. 1300,” based on his doctoral dissertation (UCLA, 1989), currently being prepared for publication, esp. chap. 2, “Wills as Documents, and the Testator Population,” with an appendix of transcribed wills. The standard multiauthor history is Historia de Mallorca, ed. Josep Mascaró Pasarius, 10 vols. (Palma de Mallorca, 1978), esp. articles there by Alvaro Santamaría Aránez in vol. 3. Santamaría Aránez also has an extensive bibliographical-thematic monograph, “Mallorca en el siglo XIV,” Anuario de estudios medievales 7 (1970–1971): 164–238, as well as a volume of some 650 pages exploring all the problematics, themes, and bibliography of this odd kingdom: Ejecutoria del reino de Mallorca, 1230–1343 (Palma de Mallorca, 1990). See also Pablo Cateura Bennasser, Sociedad, jerarquía, y poder en la Mallorca medieval (Palma de Mallorca, 1984), and the wide-ranging fiscal-commercial study by Antoni Riera Melis, La Corona de Aragón y el reino de Mallorca en el primer cuarto del siglo XIV, 1 vol. to date (Madrid, 1986), including background chapters.

2. On the kingdom’s Jews, see David Abulafia, A Mediterranean Emporium, chap. 5; his “A Settled Frontier: The Catalan Kingdom of Majorca”; and his “From Privilege to Persecution: Crown, Church, and Synagogue in the City of Majorca, 1229–1343,” in Church and City 1000–1500: Essays in Honor of Christopher Brooke, ed. David Abulafia et al. (Cambridge, 1992), 111–126. Simon, “Society and Religion,” chap. 6, has a comparative study of Majorca’s Muslims and Jews. Richard W. Emery, The Jews of Perpignan in the Thirteenth Century: An Economic Study Based on Notarial Records (New York, 1959), includes some 150 documents transcribed. Josep Mascaró Pasarius has a book-length general study “Judíos i descendientes de judíos conversos de Mallorca” in his Historia de Mallorca, 10:44–180. The celebrated codex of Jewish privileges for Majorca is transcribed by Fidel Fita and Gabriel Llabrés, “Privilegios de los hebreos mallorquines en el códice Pueyo,” Boletín de la Real academia de la historia 36 (1900): 13–35, 121–148, 185–209, 273–306, 369–402, 458–494. Valuable for its documents also is Antonio Pons, Los judíos del reino de Mallorca durante los siglos XIII y XIV, 2 vols. (Palma de Mallorca, [1958–1960] 1984). For the Jews of Cerdanya and Puigcerdá, see below, this chap., n. 18. My doctoral student Rebecca Lynn Winer is finishing her dissertation at UCLA “Women, Commerce, and Family in Perpignan 1250–1325” from extensive archival researches, including a chapter on the experience of Jewish women and their roles and autonomy in Perpignan society; new Jewish Latinate testaments will be recovered and analyzed there. Philip Daileader, Jr., has in hand an archival dissertation under Thomas Bisson at Harvard University, “Community, Government, and Power in Medieval Perpignan 1162–1397,” with a chapter “The Jews of Perpignan.”

3. Abulafia, “From Privilege to Persecution,” 118.

4. Fita and Llabrés, “Privilegios,” pp. 133–134, doc. 25 (21 July 1319): “ad civitatem et regnum Majoricarum concurrunt passim judei et judee alienigeni vagabundi…[et] ponunt discordias et inimicitias inter judeos nostros dicte aljame.”

5. Ibid., pp. 199–200, doc. 46 (11 February 1328): “et cum judei dicte aljame mercantiliter vivant pro parte majore,” the king allows that any Christian or Jew in debt “to any Jew or Jewess” there “by any mercantile contract or by partnership [comanda] or otherwise than by an interest loan [contractus usurarius]” may be arrested at the request of the Jewish creditor.

6. Arch. Hist. Nac., Clero Secular y Regular, Dominicanos: Palma, carp. 89 (6 July 1288, in 13 June 1292), transcribed below in appendix, doc. 31. This parchment version was doubtless generated from a notarial original, its paper codex now lost.

7. Shlomo D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1967–1993), 3:317. Omar for ‘Umar is not Omer, a new Hebrew name today in Israel.

8. Emery, Jews of Perpignan, 11, 102 (quotes). There were Jews here from at least 1160. Emery’s notarial documents are from Perpignan’s Archives Départementales des Pyrénées-Orientales, séries E, fonds des notaires, regs. 1–17.

9. Emery, Jews of Perpignan, 99, 106–107 (quotes); see also p. 14.

10. Ibid., 106–107.

11. Ibid., pp. 134–135, doc. 4 (27 February 1273): “Bonisachus Fagim judeus etc…dimitto jure institutionis et nomine hereditatis sue de dictis bonis meis Bonedomine filie mee M.DCCC.LXX. V. sol. Bar. de qua etc. et dono dicte filee mee in curatorem et gubernatorem Juceffum de Crassa…item dimitto Regine filie mee jure institutionis…et totum quod sibi dedi tempore nuptiarum suarum cum viro suo…item volo et mando quod Bonafilia uxor mea habeat et reciperet suam dotem sicut continetur in instrumentis nuptialibus judaycis…instituo mihi heredes universales Vitalem Bonissac et Fagim Bonissac filios meos.” On (Sa) Grassa see also pp. 18, 27n., 30, 147, 155, and 163–164. The name Bonisac as Bon Isaac, as well as Vidal and Mossé, have been noted in my introduction. On Bonadona see chap. 3, n. 22. Irene Garbell, “The Pronunciation of Hebrew in Medieval Spain,” Homenaje a Millás-Vallicrosa, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1954–1956), 1:662, 682. Simon Seror, Les noms des juifsde France au moyen âge (Paris, 1989), 235, 274.

12. Emery, Jews of Perpignan, p. 167, doc. 98 (10 October 1283). Gaugs is a Provençalism in Catalan.

13. Ibid., pp. 138–139, doc. 19 (9 August 1273): “quendam librum meum in quo sunt scripti [V libri] legis Moysi quem penes se habet”; “omnes libros meos quod penes me habeo”; “teneatur providere dicte Massipe filee mee in comestione et potu et indumentis et calciamentis usque quod dicta filia mea virum accipiat”; “solvatur Argote uxori mee tota dos sua prout in instrumento ebraico nuptiali facto inter me et ipsam”; “uxori mee Argote omnia indumenta sua et pannos meos omnes et totam bascolam meam que est in domo mea exceptis vasis vinariis et tina mea”; “dimitto helemosine obalorum judeorum infirma[n]cium VI sol. III den. Bar.” I have made “generos meos” simply “in-laws”; the classical usage as son-in-law had by now become brother-in-law, father-in-law, or sometimes relative. Argota’s name may relate to Catalan agut, feminine aguda, “animated” or “lively.” The name Profait is a puzzle. Seror lumps it with Perfet (see above, chap. 3, n. 45) as meaning “(moral) profit,” not a plausible joining. If Perfet is Catalan for “complete” and translates Hebrew shalom, and profiat/porfiat means “tenacious,” there is still also room for conjecturing Catalan profit (for “profit”) for Profait as in note 45, chap. 3, above. On the “coronat” diner de tern in this document, see my introduction, above, under “Moneys.”

14. Ibid., pp. 149–151, doc. 49 (10 February 1277): “[si] voluerit venire apud Perpinianum morari una cum dictis heredibus meis et cum eis habitare”; “in tota vita sua tantum totum mansum meum in quo inhabito qui est in podio ville Perpiniani in callo judeorum”; “uxori mee omnes pannos meos et archas et vasa vinaria et alia utencilia domus mee…[et] instrumenta et alia que sint in dictis archis”; “dimitto amore Dei in remissione pecc[at]orum meorum DCXXV sol. Bar. coronatos…quolibet anno in festo quod judayce vocatur cabanes”; “amore Dei operi pontis Thetis Perpiniani”; “et ordino quod nec aliqua dictarum filiarum mearum nec etiam alia persona nisi tamen dicta uxor mea transcriptum sive translatum huius presentis testamenti mei possit habere nec sibi detur nec dicti heredes mei teneantur sibi dare.” A number of persons involved here can also be traced in nontestamentary business in Emery’s text and documents; his quote on Samiel is on pp.103–104. Perpignan got its first stone bridge, the Pont de Nostra Dona, in 1195; the legacy here may be for its maintenance (operi) or for a new construction. The Scal toponym for one witness may be any of four Occitan places or L’Escala on the Ampurian coast (cf. Seror, Noms des juifs, 249–250). The transcription Scal, as Seror found for another of this name in Emery, may be Soal, for which I suggest the biblical names Shual (“fox”) and Shoval (“way”) or a Catalan toponym like Escala. Kolatch’s tracing of Meirona to Aramaic (“sheep”) or Hebrew (“troops”) is unnecessary in the Catalan context as above. On the equivalence of Asher and Asser in medieval Spain, see Garbell,“ Pronunciation of Hebrew,” 666. The will of Benvenist is above in chap. 1, n. 26.

15. Emery, Jews of Perpignan, pp. 187–188, doc. 137 (24 September 1286): “manumissores meos scilicet Profaytum Davini de Capitestagno et Durandum de Malgorio habitatorem de Biterris”; “quasdam domos meos contiguas que sunt in civitate Narbone in fusteyria…et de eis semper quolibet anno in perpetuum doceri faciant infantes judeos pauperes de schientia ebraica quoscumque voluerint tam de Biterris quam de villa Perpiniani quam aliunde et specialiter de genero meo et dicti mariti mei…[et] emantur libri judaici”; “duos libros meos judaicos in quibus continentur V libri legis Moysi” (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy); “Blanche filie Abrae de Magalas ad opus sui maritamenti XX sol. Melg.”; “in omnibus vero aliis bonis meis quecumque sint et unacumque [= ubicumque] instituo mihi heredem universalem dominum Deum amore cuius solvetis…amore Dei ad pauperes judeas maritandas.” The manuscript’s spelling of the names involved is Sara, Davinus de Capitestagno, Profaytus Davini, Durandus de Malgorio de Biterris, Mayrius, Juceffus, Cresques, Salamonus, Sima, Saverdia, Magalas, Mosse, Opidus (Latin for Opol in Roussillon). Sancho’s toponym must be Vilallonga de la Salanca on the Tet river near Castellrosselló. The witnesses’ occupations include ganterius (Catalan guanter) and bracerius (Catalan bracer). The toponym Cabestany is Capestang, west of Béziers in Occitania. For the names Cresques, Jucef, Mossé, and Salamó see above, my introduction; Profet is discussed above in this chap., n. 13, Bonsenyor in chap. 3, n. 21, and Daví in chap. 3, n. 19.

16. Emery, Jews of Perpignan, pp. 189–191, doc. 139 (8 November 1322): “duo milia sol. Bar. ad opus eius maritamenti…et quod interim heres meus subscriptus provideat et sibi providere teneatur intus domum suam de bonis suis in victu vestitu et aliis suis necessariis bene et decenter”; “filie mee omnes vestes sui corporis et omnes vestes que fuerunt dicte uxoris mee cum earum ornamentis, preparamentis, et jocalia sua et ligamenta ubicumque sint”; “falcidia ac trabelliamea locum non habeat in premissis”; “volo et mando totam predictam hereditatem et bona eiusdem integraliter et sine diminutione aliqua devenire ac reverti illustrissimo domino regi Majorice et suis”; “ymo ipsum legatum in eo casu volo fore cassum et nullum ac irritum…volo rationem et veritatem eis reddi et dici et in hoc testamento inseri ad eternam rey memoriam, videlicet quod omnia legata, lucra, et emolumenta per dictum patrem meum eis facta habuerint et receperint tam illustrissimus dominus rex Majorice quam illustris dominus rex Franchie in indempnationibus quas habere voluerunt a judeis in eorum dominationibus comorantibus”; “hospitium meum quo inhabito situm in callo.” The manuscript name-forms in sequence are Asser Mosse Davi, Cohen, Bononis (both nominative and genitive, feminine), Astruchus, Bonusdominus, Samielis, Mayrona, Duran, Bonjuses Profayt, Vitalis Mayr, Mosse Bonafos, and the Christian witnesses. On willing money to the king in Jewish wills, see pp. 57, 61, and 92; Norman Roth cites a legacy at Arévalo near Avila of 2,000 dinars “for the needs of the kingdom or the bishop,” together with the gift of her houses to become a synogogue (“Bishops and Jews in the Middle Ages,” Catholic Historical Review 70 [1994]: 14). Emery’s text and documents add nontestamentary information on a few of the Perpignan principals (see the index); on burgensis see his p. 53. On the tension and background involving the kings of Majorca and France at this time, see Alvaro Santamaría Aránez, “Tensión corona de Aragón-corona de Mallorca (1318–1326),” En la España medieval 3 (1982): 423–495. The names Astruc, Jacob, Mossé, Samiel, and Vidal are touched on above in the introduction; Maymona, Meirona, Belan, and Asher were treated earlier in this chapter. For Bonafós see chap. 3, n. 33; for Bonjueu and variants see n. 31 there; for Daví n. 19; and for Profet as perhaps “profit” n. 45 (cf. above, this chap., n. 13).

17. Emery, Jews of Perpignan, p. 149, doc. 48 (10 January 1277). See also p. 156, doc. 66 (8 January 1279): testamentary guardians had invested in loans; pp. 162–163, doc. 88 (1 September 1283): one testamentary guardian “non laudat” an arrangement; pp. 163–164, doc. 90 (5 September 1283): guardian approves a sale; pp. 169–170, doc. 107 (19 November 1283); p. 175, doc. 118 (17–26 March 1284); and pp. 175–176, doc. 119 (28 March 1284); among others here on executors or guardians.

18. On Puigcerdá and Cerdanya see Pau Vila, La Cerdanya (Barcelona, [1926] 1984), centered on its human geography; and Maties Delcor, Estudis històrics sobre la Cerdanya (Barcelona, 1977). Delcor gathered the “exiguous historical references to the Jewish community of Puigcerdá” in chap. 4, “Els jueus de Puigcerdá al segle XIII,” previously published in Sefarad 26 (1966): 19–46. Emery’s Jews of Perpignan provides valuable background, though he does not treat the neighboring region, Puigcerdá’s Cerdanya. Emery transcribes five early wills, three of them quite long, in his “selected documents” appended: docs. 4 (1273), 19 (1273), 49 (1277), 137 (1286), and 139 (1322), and he includes a number of will-related documents. See also Emery’s “Les juifs en Conflent et en Vallespir, 1250–1450” (regions adjoining Cerdanya), in Conflent, Vallespir et montagnes catalanes, LI^e Congrès de la Féderation Historique du Languedoc Méditerrané et du Roussillon (Montpellier, 1980), 85–91. The article of Pere Vidal “Les juifs des anciens comtés de Roussillon et de Cerdagne,” Revue des études juives 15 (1887): 19–55, 16 (1888): 1–23, 170–203, gathered also as a book offprint (Paris, 1888), is available now as “Els jueus dels antics comtats de Rosselló i Cerdanya,” Calls 2 (1987): 26–112, with translator’s notes (see the discussion of fourteenth-century wills on pp. 35, 68–69). Despite his title, Vidal hardly refers to Puigcerdá and Cerdanya. Worse, Emery has exposed his “grave errors of transcription” (including heredi as Herod), his superficial acquaintance with the documentation, and his “entirely unbalanced” interpretations featuring “the bizarre rather than the typical” (Jews of Perpignan, 2–3). See too the guide by Sabastià Bosom i Isern, “Arxiu històric comarcal de Puigcerdà,” in Guia dels arxius històrics de Catalunya, 5 vols. to date (Barcelona, 1982–1992), 127–217, and his Catàleg de protocols de Puigcerdà (Barcelona, 1983) mentioned in my introduction, n. 1. Archaeological excavation of the early Jewish quarter (until moved around 1320) is currently going forward; see the progress report in Acta historica et archaeologica mediaevalia 14–15 (1993–1994): 386–387, and Claude Denjean et al., Els jueus i els franciscans a Puigcerdà (segles XIII–XVI) (Puigcerdá, 1994). Denjean is preparing a doctoral dissertation on the Jewish community of Puigcerdá; meanwhile, see her “Vivre sa judéité a Puigcerdà du milieu du XIIIéme siècle a la grande peste” in Mossé ben Nahman i el seu temps: Simposi commemoratiu del vuitè centenari del seu naixement 1194–1994 (Gerona, 1994), 241–256. Demographics and locations for the Jewish community are in the erudite summation of history and archaeology by Sebastià Bosom i Isern and Oriol Mercadal i Fernánez in the monumental series Catalunya romànica (Barcelona, 1944– ), 23 vols. to date, vol. 7, Cerdanya, Conflent, 218–219, with an overlay map showing walls, antiquities, and Jewish districts.

19. Delcor, Estudis sobre la Cerdanya, 77–96, with thirty-five brief documents from it transcribed on pp. 102–110. This is the only specialized Liber Iudeorum at Puigcerdá for the thirteenth century; even for the fourteenth the Jews made extensive use of the general Christian notaries, though a mixed Liber Iudeorum can be found for 1326, 1330, and 1333. See Emery’s opening chapter for the suggestions on Perpignan’s size and on its Jewish names. On pressures from the north, see William Chester Jordan, The French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last of the Capetians (Philadelphia, 1989), especially chap. 3. Emery stresses the opportunities opening, rather than French oppression, in the migration of southern French Jews (Jews of Perpignan, chap. 1).

20. Arch. Hist. Puigcerdá, protocols, Mateu d’Oliana and Guillem Hualart, Liber testamentorum, 1321–1322, fol. 17 (20 November 1321), transcribed below in appendix, doc. 42. Canceled with three vertical lines, for copy given. The wife’s name may begin with G and have abbreviatory overstroke.

21. Biblical Levi is Catalan Leví. Boniacip is clear enough in the manuscript but may be a distortion of Romance Bo(n)macip (see p. 82 above); Hebrew Asif/Asiph does not seem comfortable here. Biblical and Catalan Jacob had French Jewish forms approximating or identical to the Christian: Jaque, Jacques, Jaccas (Simon Seror, Les noms des juifs de France au moyen âge [Paris, 1989], 140–141). David’s name here is not the common Occitan variant Davin. The Covallis surname may relate to Cavaller? Catalan Felip, English Phillip, is uncommon and perhaps unprecedented as a Jewish name in these parts at this time.

22. Arch. Hist. Puigcerdá, protocols, Bernat Manresa and Joan Montaner, Liber testamentorum, 2 April 1348–31 August 1349, fol. 10 (22 July 1348), transcribed below in appendix, doc. 45. Three vertical lines cancel, suggesting that a copy was issued.

23. Carme Batlle, “Noticies sobre els jueus de la Seu d’Urgell: Els Bedoz (1336–1348),” Urgellia 10 (1990–1991): 375–406. Astruc with his wife Sarita and minor daughter Bonadoneta, included in the genealogical table in my text, appear in Batlle’s study, e.g., on pp. 376 and 400. Seror, Noms des juifs, 96–97. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:357.