Montclus
MONTCLUS
MONTCLUS (Heb. מונטקלוס ,מונטקלוש ,הר סגור), former town and fortress at the foot of the Pyrenees, in Aragon, western Spain. Jews apparently lived in the fortress of Montclus and the adjacent area from the beginning of the 11th century. The annual tax paid by the community in the 13th century was reduced by the king from 800 to 500 solidos in 1271, increased to 707 solidos and 3½ denarii in Jaca coin in 1304, and again reduced to 450 solidos in 1315. In 1298 James ii ordered an investigation on the rate of interest charged by Jews on loans.
The Montclus community helped to rehabilitate Jews expelled from France in 1306. In 1307 the king authorized the community to absorb four families, including those of the physician Maestre Boninfante and Vitalis de Boulogne. However, between the end of June and the beginning of July 1320, the community was annihilated in the *Pastoureaux (Shepherds) massacres. On July 22, James ii ordered that assistance should be given to the survivors, but that Jewish children who had been forcibly baptized were to remain in Christian households. In 1321 the king freed the remnant of the community from paying taxes and ordered that the walls of the fortress should be rebuilt, but by 1323 the Jews of Montclus had to pay taxes like the other Jews of the kingdom to finance the royal expedition to Sardinia. His successor, Alfonso iv, in 1335 freed the community from paying taxes, as did Pedro iv in 1341–42. Nevertheless, when disorders broke out in 1333, the commander of the fortress, Garcia Bardaxi, did nothing to prevent the rioters from massacring the Jews and was pardoned.
With the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Montclus began to decline. In the 17th century it was completely abandoned.
bibliography:
Baer, Studien, 149; Baer, Urkunden, 1 (1929), index; Baer, Spain, 1 (1961), 42; 2 (1966), 15; S. ibn Verga, Shevet Yehudah, A. Shochat (ed.), (1947), 25; Miret y Sans, in: rej, 53 (1907), 255ff.; Cardoner and Vendre, in: Sefarad, 7 (1947), 311, 328; Ashtor, Korot, 2 (1966), 153.
[Haim Beinart]