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The Lombards and Venetians in Euboia, 1303–1340

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

John B. Bury
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Extract

§ 33. Disputes between Venetians and Lombards.—In 1303 a subject of dissension arose between the Republic and the Lombard barons. It was probably about this time that Beatrice da Verona, who shared the Third of her father Giberto with her mother Maria, contracted a second marriage with John de Noyers, Lord of Maisy. Thus John became on his marriage lord of one Sixth, and as the Sixth of his mother-in-law Maria would revert on her death to Beatrice, he was prospectively lord of one Third. Moreover he was practically master for the present of the Sixth in the north of the island which had belonged to Beatrice's first husband Grapozzo, and was administered by her as guardian of her son Pietro. Hence John de Noyers was in a position to make his influence felt in Euboia; and being a man of energy he asserted himself. He assumed an independent attitude towards Venice.

A demand was made by the Lombard podestà in 1303 on a Venetian citizen named Meo, who resided in Lombard territory, to pay taxes. For twenty years he had been a resident in the island and never been called on to pay them before. The requisition is very plausibly ascribed by Hopf to the suggestion of John de Noyers.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 8 , November 1887 , pp. 194 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1887

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References

page 197 note 1 For example (p. 6) he speaks of ‘los secretos de heroísino maravilloso que encierra la conquista del Oriente por nuestras armas, no menos digna de admiración, bajo muchos conceptos que las immortales expediciones de las Cruzadas.’ With less extravagance he compares the company (p. 7) to Xenophon's Ten Thousand. Characteristic of his point of view is the mode in which he introduces an extract from the violently anti-Catalan essay of Theodulos He writes, ‘Y casi delito imperdonable de lesa nacionalidad sería darla à conocer, si por una parte no la devirtuara su estilo enfático y declamatorio,’ &c.

page 197 note 2 Bk. x. Cap. 50. But we may readily accept the words of Moncada in the Proemio to his celebrated history: ‘las quales [fuerzas] fueron tan formidables que causaron temor y asombro à los mayores príncipes de Asia y Europa, perdición y total ruina á muchas naciones y provincias y admiración á todo el mondo.’

page 198 note 1 Muntaner (Buchon's version): Jean Tari et Marc Miyot.

page 200 note 1 An old wall fell in the citadel of Chalkis in 1840 and an immense number of arms was found behind it. Buchon put forward the theory that these were the arms of the knights slain in this battle, suggesting that they were collected and heaped up as a monument by Bonifacio da Verona. Of this there is of course no proof, and it seems improbable, as the Catalans would have hardly granted all the valuable arms to Bonifacio, even though he was their friend.

page 203 note 1 Moncada, p. 63 (ed. G. Rosell, 1852), ‘Tenia esta señora la tercera parte de la isla de Negroponte y trece castillos en la tíerra firme del ducado de Aténas. El infante don Alonso tuvo en ella muchos hijos, y ella vino á ser una de las mujeres mas señaladas de su tiempo, aunque Zurita no siente en esto con Muntaner á quien yo sego.’

page 204 note 1 The Jews were very loyal to Venice in the war and were released from the duty of 5 per cent. on exported wares.

page 206 note 1 The castle of the barons of Karystos may be seen in Buchon's Atlas (pl. xv.).

page 206 note 2 When Bonifacio disinherited Tommaso he procured him an appanage in the island. It must have been in Central Euboia and belonged to John de Noyers.

page 210 note 1 Compare G. Villani, x. 150: ‘Etiamdio i detti Turchi con loro legni armati corrono per mare e presono e rubarono più isole dell' Arcipelago … E poi continuamente ogni anno feciono loro armate quando di 500 o di 800 legni tra grossi e sottili e correvano tutte l'isole d'Arcipelago rubandole e consumandole e menandone li huomini e femine per ischiavi e molti ancora nc fecero tributarii.’

page 210 note 2 G. Villani, x. 190, notices this expedition. At the end of August, 1331, ‘il duca d'Atene, cioè conte di Brenna, si parti di Branditio e passò in Romania,’ with 800 French cavalry and 500 Tuscan infantry. In open battle he would have regained his land, but ‘quelli della compagnia maestre volmente si tennero alla guardia delle fortezze e non vollonouscire a battaglia’; so that the expedition came to nought.

page 211 note 1 These misfortunes are mentioned by two Italian contemporaries, G. Villani and L. Monaldeschi. The latter writes (Muratori, S.R.I. xii. p. 534): ‘Nel detto anno [1332] li Turchi messere al Mare 280 navi e andarono a Constantinopoli contro l'Imperatore dei Greci; ma fu ajutato l'Imperatore da' Venetiani e Genovesi; così lassomo la grande impresa e fecero gran guadagno, che pigliorono più di mille Greci, fecero tributarj li Negropontesi.’ Villani (x. 224) says that in May and June 1332 the Turks manned 380 vessels with more than 40,000 men and attacked Constantinople. Desisting from this enterprise, as the emperor was strongly supported, they ‘guastarono più isole d'Arcipelago e menaronne in servaggio più di 10 mila Greci e quelli di Negroponte per paura di loro si fecero tributarj, onde venne in Ponente grande clamore al Papa e al Re di Francia e ad altre Signori di Christiani; per la qual cosa s'ordinò per loro che l'anno appresso si facesse armata sopra Turchi e così si fece.’

page 211 note 2 The impression made by the Catalans on the Greeks of Euboia has survived to the present day in a proverb, (E. Stamatiades, οἱ Καταλάνοι ἐν τῇ Ἀνατώλῃ, 1869, quoted by Rubió y Lluch, op. cit.). Similarly in Thrace, the scene of many Catalan cruelties, a curse came into use, In Akarnania the name Catalan is the equivalent of a brutal villain.