Perpignan tourist information
An ancient Roman villa in the surroundings of Ruscino - an antique Ibero-Ligure town and a Latin city, called today Castell-Rossello (Château-Roussillon)- may originally have been the start of Perpignan, the oldest reference of which (ville Perpinianum) dates back however to the year 927.
Whereas the bishopric's seat, created around the year 550, was based on Elne (Helena), the Counts of Roussillon, setting in Perpinya at the turn of the 10th century, turned Perpignan into the political capital of the county, which barely consisted of coastal plain from the Alberes to the Corbieres.
All that is left of the present Pyrénées-Orientales region_Cerdagne, Capcir, Conflent, Fenouillèdes, Haut Roussillon and Vallespir_now came under the Cerdagne-Besalu family who descended from the Counts of Barcelona- the latter ones who inherited from their parents from Cerdagne-Besalu as soon as 1111 and 1117 and who acquired, through marriage, the kingdom of Aragon in 1150, had at last the county of Roussillon bequeathed to them in 1172, by the testament of the count Gerard II.
The treaty of Corbeil (1258), by which St Louis renounced all his theoretical rights-since Charlemagne-in favour of the king of Aragon, Jacques I the Conqueror, established the belonging of Perpignan and the Roussillon to the Catalan-Aragonian kingdom for the centuries to come.
The brightest period of the town of Perpignan was during 1276 and 1344 when it became the continental capital of the new "kingdom of Majorca" established by Jacques the Conqueror for his younger son, the Infant Jacques, which included beside the Baleares Islands, the Roussillon, the Cerdagne and the Montpellier Lordship.
It is in this period that the Royal castle of Perpignan was erected, in which resided successively the kings of his heterogeneous and short-lived kingdom of Majorca : Jacques I (1276-1311), Sanch (1311-1324) and Jacques II (1324-1344).The kingdom of Majorca was always exposed to the ill-will of the elder branch of the Aragon-Barcelona family and was ended through force by Pierre II the Ceremonious in 1344. During this period the city of Perpignan has nevertheless known a tremendous commercial and industrial expansion in the same way as urban Italian Republics, thanks to its political role, its consular structure and its guilds, its active population of "parayres" (drapers), dyers, tanners, embroiders, goldsmiths, workshops, painters and sculptors. Occupied by Louis XI in 1463, Perpignan which had rose up against the French in 1473, was recaptured in 1474 after a terrible siege which brought her to be given the title of "Fidelissime Ville" (Faithful Town) by the kings of Aragon. The Repression was hard but in 1493 Charles VIII eager to be given a free hand in Italy, gave back the Roussillon and the Cerdagne to the Catholic kings who, uniting by marriage the Aragon and Castille, had just realised, with the conquest of Granada, the unity of Spain.
However, the French-Spanish rivalry and the conflicts that followed were to bring about the economic decline of Perpignan, which had been endowed with powerful fortifications by Philippe II.
Following the Catalan revolt of 1640, during which Catalan people rising up against Madrid government proclaimed Louis XIII Count of Barcelona, Perpignan defended by an Italo-Castilian garrison, experienced again a memorable siege in which Louis XIII himself and the cardinal of Richelieu took part.
On september the 9th 1642, the French and their Catalan allies entered in Perpignan, welcomed with relief by a starving population mostly hostile to its Castilian masters. By the treaty of the Pyrenees signed in 1659-1660, which annexed the Roussillon and a part of the Cerdagne to France, forsaking Catalonia, ratified the failure of the Barcelonian revolt and was severely felt by the Catalans.
Vauban's gigantic works were to make of Perpignan an impregnable city but however today there is hardly anything left from the great engineer works. The necessities of Perpignan expansion caused it to demolish at the turn of the 20th century, the precinct of ramparts which enclosured the town but unfortunately this demolition was not always made in proper manner.
Since then, the new town has significantly got bigger and can boast about a series of beautiful squares and avenues shaded with plane trees, mimosas and palm trees. Nevertheless, it keeps southern colours which give it the look of a sailing resort, pleasant and lively.