The Courtade document

 

1659. Mazarin negotiated the “Treaty of the Pyrenees”. The French monarchy finally fulfilled a dream of Charlemagne: to extend the French border to the Pyrenees.
The French Provence of Roussillon is now controlled by Louis XIV. The counties Roussillon-Vallespir and Conflent-Capcir are given to the king of France, while the majority of the Catalan territories are returned to Spain. The royal administrative services of France make a census of the properties and goods, giving the conclusion of their census to the judicial authorities, as well as the general administration and the treasury of the French crown.
Several royal notaries are despatched and/or tasked with the inventory of the new goods. The royal notary ordered to work on the territories of the Ràzes and the old Languedoc (including Durban, Feuillat, Treilles, Gléon and Caves) works on the material created by another royal notary: Bernard Courtade. He already had all the required material available for many places now subject to the census. Amongst these are listed the properties of the village of Perillos itself, but not its Pyrenean annexes of their distant heirs.
The “Courtade document” lists all the ground directly attached to this stronghold and the owners of the rights to which the belongings are registered. The work of Courtade did not concern judicial rights, nor tax or administrative affairs. It is furthermore evident that the essential documents concerning property or family acts were of no concern to this census, but were solely focused on what we today would call “cadastral acts”.
Nowadays, it is very difficult to get copies of original peerage books, heraldic and family documents of the families that made their history in the old country of the Catalan Roussillon. These originals did not so much get lost, as they were put in safety in Spanish Catalonia before the annexation to France. Many still remain there and can be consulted. The bits of family archives of the old Catalan sectors of Opoul, Perillos, Vingrau and Rivesalte (to quote only those) are in the hands of their descendants living in the area of Sabadell (province of Barcelona)… the sector where the last priest of Perillos before the French Revolution went into exile: Bigou.

Of major interest to us is one reference in the Courtade register. On one of its pages, it mentions in a small paragraph a ground that contains a piece of land which, administratively, is untouchable, non-transmissible, on which it is forbidden to cut or collect wood, stones or remove anything else from it. Even the lords of Perillos are subject to this law. Furthermore, the land cannot be sold. It is a closed enclave, without access, within the grounds of the lords of Perillos. They have to guard it, but are not allowed to manage it. It does not belong them and in no manner are they to intervene or make use of it.
Such an administrative imposition might astonish. However, a similar situation existed in Lyon, (Quay Pierre Scize), where such a piece of land belonged to nobody, could not be bought or sold, whereas the city had the task to maintain it. The notes of Courtade have a laconic note regarding this piece of land, when he mentions that an ancient, important tomb is located there, which cannot be disturbed.
It is intriguing that once the lands were joined to the French throne, the French authorities decided to uphold this law. The place was left untouched under the same conditions as those instilled upon it by the Catalan throne.
However, at the time of the French Revolution, the situation changed radically. The existing grounds were scattered, sold and stripped. But one person seems to have maintained his interest. It was this piece which is included in the sector depicted in the model ordered by Bérenger Saunière.

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