Society, Administration And Identities In Latin Greece 121
From the beginning of the Catalan domination, this company acknowl-
edged the Aragonese crown of Sicily as sovereign. Within this framework, the
Sicilian duke appointed the vicar general, the chief executive of the duchy, as
well as the chief military official, the marshal of Athens and Neopatras. The
Catalans governed the city of Athens, under the duke’s vicar general, as a cor-
poration and the political system was an amalgamation of municipal and feu-
dal institutions. Thebes was the capital of the duchy until its occupation by the
Navarrese in 1379. Within the duchy, the five municipalities, of Thebes, Athens,
Livadia, Siderocastron and Neopatras, were governed by their own veguers or
captains and were defended by their local military commandants (castellani),
all of them holding a three-year term of office. The veguers and the captains
were assisted by a staff of judges, notaries and councillors.
The councils of municipal corporations (universitates) were composed of
Catalans as well as Greeks and chose their attorneys, who represented them
before the duke and who, in their name, presented their petitions. The land,
which initially belonged to the Company in a form of communal ownership,
was later divided up into fiefs among its members, resulting in the weakening
of its communal organisation. Though feudal institutions continued to exist,
the duchy was no longer governed under the Assizes of Romania but under the
Customs of Barcelona.
During the second half of the 14th century, in recognition of their services,
Aragonese citizenship was granted to certain eminent Greeks, such as the
notary Demetrios Rendi, while protection and tax exemptions were accorded
to Greeks and Albanians who wished to settle on lands of the Catalan duchy.
Similar policies were implemented by the Acciaiuoli, the members of
the Florentine banking family who, thanks to their links with the Angevins,
managed in the 14th century to acquire public offices and territories in the
Principality of Achaea. Their dominion over the Duchy of Athens was founded
by Nerio Acciaiuoli in 1389 and, with the exception of a brief interlude of
Venetian dominion (1395–1402), continued uninterrupted until the Turkish
takeover in 1456 (though Athens had become a tributary of the despot of
Morea in 1444). During this period, the Acciaiuoli acknowledged the privi-
leges of Athens and the system of municipal organisation steadily expanded
while feudal institutions declined. At the same time, the duchy became a cen-
tre of Greek studies and the Greek language was in use in official documents,
224, and “Catalan Society in Greece in the Fourteenth Century,” in Essays to the Memory of
Basil Laourdas, ed. Louisa Laourdas (Thessalonica, 1975), 241–84, both repr. in Kenneth M.
Setton, Athens in the Middle Ages (London, 1975), iv and v.