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produced in the Morea itself. Finally, we shall turn to consider those romances of
western origin translated into vernacular Greek which can be associated
with the Morea: The War of Troy, Florios and Platzia-Flora and Imberios and
Margarona.3
Considerable attention will be given to the context of literary production
and also to its transmission. The multi-lingual context of the Morea favoured
oral transmission and an oral tradition was significant in the creation and
transmission of the Greek works of the 14th century. Further, this vernacular
Greek literature played an important role in the maintenance of a localised
Moreot identity.
Fu Nel Principato Tanta Cortesia E Amorevolezza
The Villehardouin brothers—Princes Geoffrey ii and William ii—were
famously flamboyant. Marino Sanudo Torsello wrote that Geoffrey “had at all
times at his court eighty knights with golden spurs who were in his pay, whom
he supplied with everything they needed”. Similarly, his younger brother
William reputedly presided over a court “superior to that of a great king; he
was always accompanied by seven hundred to one thousand knights”.4 This
seems hard to believe, but although Sanudo was writing as late as c.1330 he had
good authority for these reports, having as his direct informant his elderly rela-
tive Marco ii Sanudo, Duke of Naxos from c.1262 to 1303, who was resident at
William’s court as a young man. The experience clearly made an impression on
this young Venetian, who seems to have looked back on the principality with
3 The Chansonnier was presented in facsimile edition with commentary by Jean Beck and
Louise Beck, Corpus cantilenarum medii aevi, ser. 2, Le Chansonnier du Roi, 2 vols. (Paris, 1938).
The principal edition of the Greek version of the Chronicle remains John J. Schmitt, ed., The
Chronicle of Morea (Τo Χρονικόν του Μορέως): A History in Political Verse (London, 1904; repr.
Groningen, 1967), and of the French version Jean Longnon, ed., Livre de la Conqueste de la
Princée de l’Amorée—Chronique de Morée (1204–1305) (Paris, 1911). For the romances: Elizabeth
Jeffreys and Manolis Papathomopoulos, eds., The War of Troy (O Polemos tis Troados) (Athens,
1996); “Florios and Platzia-Flora” and “Imberios and Margarona,” in Βυζαντινά ιπποτικά
μυθιστορήματα [Byzantine Knightly Romances], ed. Emmanouel Kriaras (Athens, 1955); Kostas
Yiavas’ A Critical Edition of the Rhymed Romance Imperios and Margarona is forthcoming.
4 “Egli aveva continuamente nella corte suo 80 cavallieri a spiron d’oro a suo stipendio, oltre
che li dava le cose necessarie”, and “che la corte sua pareva maggior d’una corte d’un gran
re; sempre seguiva la sua corte da 700 in 1000 cavalli”, Marino Sanudo Torsello, Ιστορία της
Ρωμανίας: Istoria di Romania, ed. and trans. Eutychia Papadopoulou (Athens, 2000), pp. 105,
lines 15–16 and p. 107, lines 29–30.