International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Yannis Stoyas
University of Peloponnese, Kalamata, Greece; 
[e-mail]
Following the Money in Relation to the Route Taken 
by the Catalan Company during the Years AD 1305-1310
The massacre that followed the murder of Roger de Flor at Adrianople (30 April 1305) left his 
band of mercenaries largely decimated. The 
Companyia
, however, managed to bounce back and 
started to exact its notorious “Catalan vengeance” on the Byzantine Empire. The 
Felix Francorum 
exercitus in Romani
(
a
)
e partibus com
(
m
)
orans
, as known officially from that time on, proved 
highly resilient and stayed in Thrace for two years, living off the land and wreaking havoc. Around 
the middle of 1307 the so-called Catalan Company moved westwards and settled in Kassandra, 
Chalkidike; being stationed there for another two years, it continued its marauding activities, 
targeting Mount Athos as well. In 1309 the Company was driven to Thessaly by a combination of 
factors and in the next spring it entered the service of Gautier V de Brienne, Duke of Athens. This 
led to a sequence of events culminating on 15 March 1311 in the Battle of Halmyros (or Kephissos), 
where the Catalans emerged victorious.
The focus of this essay is to trace the available numismatic evidence that can be potentially 
associated to the impact of the Catalan wanderings in the span of about five years (May 1305 – 
spring 1310). Highlighting probable cases of emergency coin hoards can be revealing for the state 
of monetary affairs in relation with major routes, or less important ones, used both for military and 
commercial purposes. The testimony of literary sources is also taken into account in order to obtain 
a more comprehensive picture. Essentially, this is an attempt to showcase, within an already existing 
route network, an intriguing case study of how a Late Medieval army caused sums of money to be 
moved along for its needs or diffused away because of its presence.

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