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)