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The Catalan Company or the Great Catalan Company was a company of mercenaries led by Roger de Flor in the early 14th century and hired by the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos to combat the increasing power of the Anatolian beyliks. It was formed by almogavar veterans of the War of the Sicilian Vespers, who had remained unemployed after the signing in 1302 of the Peace of Caltabellotta between the Crown of Aragon and the French dynasty of the Angevins.
The Duchy of Athens was one of the Crusader states set up in Greece after the conquest of the Byzantine Empire during the Fourth Crusade as part of the process known as Frankokratia, encompassing the regions of Attica and Boeotia, and surviving until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.
Walter V of Brienne was Duke of Athens from 1308 until his death. Being the only son of Hugh of Brienne and Isabella de la Roche, Walter was the heir to large estates in France, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Peloponnese. He was held in custody in the Sicilian castle of Augusta between 1287 and 1296 or 1297 to secure the payment of his father's ransom to the Aragonese admiral Roger of Lauria. When his father died fighting against Lauria in 1296, Walter inherited the County of Brienne in France, and the counties of Lecce and Conversano in southern Italy. He was released, but he was captured during a Neapolitan invasion of Sicily in 1299. His second captivity lasted until the Treaty of Caltabellotta in 1302.
During the late Middle Ages, the two cities of Argos and Nauplia formed a lordship within the Frankish-ruled Morea in southern Greece.
The Battle of Halmyros, known by earlier scholars as the Battle of the Cephissus or Battle of Orchomenos, was fought on 15 March 1311, between the forces of the Frankish Duchy of Athens and its vassals under Walter of Brienne against the mercenaries of the Catalan Company, resulting in a decisive victory for the mercenaries.
The Duchy of Neopatras was a principality in southern Thessaly, established in 1319. Officially part of the Kingdom of Sicily, itself part of the Crown of Aragon, the duchy was governed in conjunction with the neighbouring Duchy of Athens, it enjoyed a large degree of self-government. From the mid-14th century, the duchies entered a period of decline: most of the Thessalian possessions were lost to the Serbian Empire, internal dissensions arose, along with the menace of Turkish piracy in the Aegean and the onset of Ottoman expansion in the Balkans. Enfeebled, the Catalan possessions were taken over by the Florentine adventurer Nerio I Acciaioli in 1385–1390. The title of Duke of Neopatras was held by the heir of the King of Sicily.
Nerio I Acciaioli or Acciajuoli was the actual ruler of the Duchy of Athens from 1385. Born to a family of Florentine bankers, he became the principal agent of his influential kinsman, Niccolò Acciaioli, in Frankish Greece in 1360. He purchased large domains in the Principality of Achaea and administered them independently of the absent princes. He hired mercenaries and conquered Megara, a strategically important fortress in the Duchy of Athens, in 1374 or 1375. His troops again invaded the duchy in 1385. The Catalans who remained loyal to King Peter IV of Aragon could only keep the Acropolis of Athens, but they were also forced into surrender in 1388.
Roger Deslaur or Desllor, a knight from Roussillon in the service of Walter V of Brienne, Duke of Athens, was one of the few men to survive the bloody Battle of Halmyros on 15 March 1311. Captured by the Catalan Company, he accepted the post of rector and marshal of the Company after Boniface of Verona declined it.
Berenguer Estanyol d'Empúries was the vicar general of the Duchy of Athens for four years from 1312 to 1316. He was sent there by Frederick II of Sicily to rule on behalf of his five-year-old son Manfred, who was installed as per the request of the Catalan Company.
Don Alfonso Fadrique was the eldest and illegitimate son of Frederick II of Sicily. He served as vicar general of the Duchy of Athens from 1317 to 1330.
Antonio I Acciaioli, also known as Anthony I Acciaioli or Antonio I Acciajuoli, was Duke of Athens from 1403.
Louis Fadrique a Catalan nobleman who was Count of Salona, as well as lord of various other towns in Central Greece from ca. 1365 until his death in 1382. In 1375–1381 he also served as the vicar-general of the twin duchy of Athens and Neopatras.
Juan de Urtubia was a Navarrese royal squire who led first a contingent of fifty men-at-arms on an expedition to recover the Kingdom of Albania (1376–1377) and later a large army against Thebes and Boeotia, which he conquered in 1379.
Boniface of Verona was a Lombard Crusader lord in Frankish Greece during the late 13th and early 14th century. A third son from a junior branch of his family, he sold his castle to equip himself as a knight, became a protégé of Guy II de la Roche, Duke of Athens, expelled the Byzantines from Euboea in 1296, and advanced to become one of the most powerful lords of Frankish Greece. Following Guy II's death, he served as regent for the Duchy of Athens in 1308–09, and was captured by the Catalan Company in the Battle of Halmyros in March 1311. The Catalans held Boniface in high regard, and offered to make him their leader. Boniface refused, but retained close relations with them, sharing their hostility towards the Republic of Venice and its own interests in Euboea. Boniface died in late 1317 or early 1318, leaving his son-in-law, the Catalan vicar-general Alfonso Fadrique, as the heir of his domains.
Boniface Fadrique was a Catalan nobleman active in Central Greece as lord of Karystos from 1359 until 1365 and then as Count of Salona and owner of various other fiefs in the Duchy of Athens from 1366 until his defeat in a conflict with his nephew Louis Fadrique in the late 1370s.
James Fadrique was a Catalan nobleman who became Count of Salona, as well as Lord of various other towns in Central Greece from ca. 1355 until his death in 1366.
Bernat de Rocafort was the third leader of the Catalan Company, from 1307 until 1309.
The Battle of Megara occurred in 1359 between an alliance of the Christian states of southern Greece, and of a Turkish raiding fleet. The battle was a victory for the allies.
Maria of Enghien, also known as Marie of Enghien or d'Enghien, was the Lady of Argos and Nauplia in Frankish Greece from 1376 or 1377 to 1388. Because she was a minor when she inherited the lordship from her father, Guy of Enghien, his brother, Louis of Enghien, was appointed to be her guardian. Louis gave Maria in marriage to a Venetian patrician, Pietro Cornaro, in 1377. Maria moved to Venice, but she was involved in the administration of her lordship. After her husband died, she sold the lordship to the Republic of Venice for a regular income in 1388.
Pietro Cornaro, also known as Peter Cornaro or Corner, was Lord of Argos and Nauplia in Frankish Greece from 1377.
References
- 1 2 Setton 1975, p. 198.
- ↑ Setton 1975, pp. 201–202, 204.
- ↑ Setton 1975, pp. 201–204.
- ↑ Setton 1975, p. 205.