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Bartolomeo Ghisi, the Grand Constable, and he had this book in his cas-
tle of Thebes.48The scribe goes on to state, crucially, that this is not an exact copy of his source,
but rather an abbreviated version. Thus, the manuscript which has survived is
itself a copy (quite feasibly at more than one remove) of an imperfect abbrevi-
ated version of a longer original.
That this original was at the castle of St-Omer-les-Thebes in the possession
of Bartolomeo Ghisi means that it was in existence at some point between
c.1326 to c.1332.49 This is not far from the likely date of origin of the Chronicle as
a whole, and the Thebes text may well thus itself have been the earliest written
version of the Chronicle of the Morea. One can only speculate on its nature—
in prose or in verse, in French or in Greek, or even in some other language?
More usefully, using the internal evidence of the text, it can be said that the
abbreviated version was completed sometime between 1341 and 1346. Given
the pro-Angevin stance of this extant Book of the Conquest, it is very likely that
this abbreviated version was prepared in the principality itself from a single
written source for the then regent, Catherine de Valois.50
Finally, there are the various Greek versions: five extant manuscripts of the
Greek Chronicle, which can be divided into two families.51 Again, it makes
some sense to work back in time. Three manuscripts belong to the Paris
family—an earliest version known as P dating from the early 16th century and
two later copies of P, dating from the 16th or 17th centuries. Although P itself is
of late date, it derives closely from a version datable to around 1400. The other
two manuscripts, known as H and T, are also clearly related. The Turin manu-
script T dates from the 16th century but derives from the Copenhagen version
H, which dates from the late 14th century. On internal evidence, H derives from
a manuscript written between 1338 and 1356.
48 “C’est la livre de la conquest de Constantinope et de l’empire de Romanie, et dou pay
de la princée de la Morée, qui fu trouvé en un livre qui fu jadis del noble baron messire
Bartholomée Guys, le grant connestable, lequel livre il avoit en son chastel d’Estives.”
49 Jacoby, “Considérations,” pp. 137–39; Rodrigues, French Chronique, pp. 61–62.
50 Jacoby, “Considérations,” pp. 134–50.
51 The five Greek manuscripts are (1) Paris family: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France,
grec 2898 (P) and grec 2753, and Bern, Burgerbibliothek gr. 5009; and (2) Copenhagen,
Royal Library, Fabricius 57 (H); and Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria B.ii.i (lxvi)
(T). Schmitt, The Chronicle of Morea (see above, n. 3) is a parallel edition of H and P with
notes on divergences in T; Harold E. Lurier, trans., Crusaders as Conquerors: The Chronicle
of Morea (New York, 1964) is an English translation of H supported by P.