This book is concerned with the ‘international’ standing of the Majorcan kingdom, its outside relations, both commercial and political. In much a study, the Jews must have a special place. Family and business links with mainland Spain, southern France and the Maghrib, close supervision of their affairs by the monarchy, a shared destiny with the Jewries elsewhere in the lands of the Crown of Aragon – in Barcelona, Sicily, eventually Sardinia – all make the history of the Jews in the kingdom of Majorca highly relevant to the wider argument of this book. It is not, then, surprising that the Jews of Mallorca have attracted widespread attention from historians both of the island itself and of the Spanish Jews, while those of the mainland territories, especially Perpignan, have been examined in the wider context of southern French Jewry in the late thirteenth century, a time of growing menace from the French if not to the same degree the Majorcan crown. Interest in the Jews of Mallorca has been further stimulated by the distinct survival of their descendants as a shunned caste for centuries after their mass conversion in 1435. Claims have, indeed, been made for the survival of shadowy Jewish beliefs among the inhabitants of Ibiza and Formentera until the twentieth century.