Europe · High and late Middle Ages
Catalan Company
drawn on the map 1314–1362
A band of Aragonese/Catalan mercenaries (Almogavars), formed after the War of the Sicilian Vespers, led by the former Templar Roger de Flor. Hired by Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II (1303) against the Turks in Anatolia, the Company won victories but quarreled with Byzantium; after Roger de Flor's assassination (1305) it took revenge in the "Catalan Vengeance," ravaging Thrace and Macedonia.
- Shown on the map
- 1314–1362
- Peak area
- 10k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
A band of Aragonese/Catalan mercenaries (Almogavars), formed after the War of the Sicilian Vespers, led by the former Templar Roger de Flor. Hired by Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II (1303) against the Turks in Anatolia, the Company won victories but quarreled with Byzantium; after Roger de Flor's assassination (1305) it took revenge in the "Catalan Vengeance," ravaging Thrace and Macedonia. Moving into Greece, it was hired by Walter of Brienne, then destroyed him at Halmyros (1311) and seized the Duchy of Athens, which it ruled under the Crown of Aragon (the Sicilian branch) until 1388. The Company is a striking example of a stateless armed corporation that acquired and governed a state; its exploits were chronicled by its participant Ramon Muntaner.
Common questions
- What was Catalan Company?
- A band of Aragonese/Catalan mercenaries (Almogavars), formed after the War of the Sicilian Vespers, led by the former Templar Roger de Flor. Hired by Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II (1303) against the Turks in Anatolia, the Company won victories but quarreled with Byzantium; after Roger de Flor's assassination (1305) it took revenge in the "Catalan Vengeance," ravaging Thrace and Macedonia.
- When is Catalan Company shown on the map?
- The border data draws Catalan Company 1314–1362. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
- How large was Catalan Company?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Catalan Company covered about 10,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia and the scholarship of Donald Queller, Thomas Madden and Jonathan Harris on the Fourth Crusade, whose post-conspiracy reading of 1204 this document follows. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Catalan Company en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Company
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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