Elne had been one of the first towns to be attacked when the Arabs crossed the Pyrenees in 719, and when the counts of Roussillon achieved independence, Perpignan became the capital of the county, with Elne remaining the Episcopal city.

The high altar of the present cathedral of Sainte-Eulalie-et-Sainte-Julie was consecrated in 1069.

Its Romanesque cloister was built in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries.

The conflict with France the Papacy over Aragon’s possession of Sicily quickly becomes a kind of civil war, as Peter's brother, King James II of Majorca, joins the French.

James has also inherited the County of Roussillon and thus stands between the dominions of the French and Aragonese monarchs.

Peter had opposed James' inheritance as a younger son and reaps the consequence of such rivalry in the crusade.

The first French armies under Philip and Charles enter Roussillon in 1284.

They include sixteen thousand cavalry, seventeen thousand crossbowmen, and one hundred thousand infantry, along with one hundred ships in south French ports.

Though they have James' support, the local populace rises against them.

The city of Elne is valiantly defended by the so-called Bâtard de Roussillon (Bastard of Roussillon), the illegitimate son of Nuño Sánchez, late count of Roussillon (1212–1242).

Eventually he is overcome and the cathedral is burnt, despite the presence of papal legates, while the population is massacred, all save the Bâtard.

He succeeds in negotiating his surrender and accompanies the advancing royal forces as a prisoner.