Capestang

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CAPESTANG

CAPESTANG , town N. of *Narbonne in Southern France. Disputes between the archbishop and the viscount of Narbonne, who both claimed jurisdiction over the Jews and their revenues, were submitted to arbitration in 1276; in 1284 the registration of a Jew, Vital of Capestang, as a "Jew of the king" was again contested. Before the expulsion of the Jews from the kingdom of France in 1306, Jews from Capestang had acquired possessions in *Montpellier. The new community, formed after 1359, which used a "Jewish oven" belonging to the archbishop of Narbonne, came to an end with the final expulsion of the Jews from France in 1394. Fifteen scholars of Capestang signed a letter to Abba Mari b. Moses b. Joseph *Astruc of Lunel early in the 14th century during the dispute about the study of philosophy, among them the kabbalist Isaac b. Moses ha-Kohen.

bibliography:

Gross, Gal Jud, 546ff.; G. Saige, Juifs du Languedoc (1881), 128, 214, 317.

[Bernhard Blumenkranz]

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