3 74 Kalopissi-Verti
with the glorious moments of the crusaders in the Holy Land.14 Saint Omer’s
palace was demolished by the Catalans in 1332.
Especially interesting is the church of St. George at Karditsa (ancient
Akraiphnion) in Boeotia which marks the transition from the period of the
Frankish Duchy of Athens to the establishment of Catalan rule in southern
Greece.15 According to the inscription, the Flemish knight Anthony le Flamenc,
landlord of Karditsa and one of the participants and very few survivors of the
battle of Halmyros (1311),16 in which the Catalans routed the Franks, erected a
church, according to the inscription, in the name of St. George, a saint vener-
ated by Byzantines, Franks, and Catalans alike. Archaeological investigation
has shown that the church had already existed, which means that the Frankish
knight did not found the church but evidently supported financially its sub-
stantial renovation. Donations of Latin landlords to Orthodox churches and
monasteries were not unknown in Latin- or Venetian-held regions. In fact, they
were quite common in Venetian Crete, as recorded in the Κατάστιχο εκκλησιών
14 On paintings of episodes of the crusades in churches in France and Italy, see Paul
Deschamps, “Combats de cavalerie et épisodes des Croisades dans les peintures murales
du xiie et du xiiie siècle,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 13 (1947), 454–74; Gaetano Curzi,
La pittura dei Templari (Milan, 2002).
15 William Miller, “The Frankish Inscription at Karditza,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 29 (1909),
198–201; idem, “Ἡ φραγκική επιγραφή της εν Βοιωτία Καρδίτσης” [“The Frankish Inscription
at Karditza in Boeotia”], Νέος Ελληνομνήμων 20 (1926), 377–80; Johannes Koder and
Friedrich Hild, Hellas und Thessalia (Vienna, 1976), p. 182. On the church, Charis Koilakou,
Αρχαιολογικόν Δελτίον 42 (1987) Β1, Χρονικά, pp. 116–17; Hieronymos (Liapis), Metropolitan
of Thebes and Livadia, Χριστιανική Βοιωτία [Christian Boeotia] (Livadia, 2005), 1:424–29.
Kalopissi-Verti, “Relations between East and West,” p. 28, fig. 14.
16 Although le Flamenc is not among the two knights that the chronicler Muntaner men-
tions as having survived the battle of Halmyros, it is concluded from other sources that
he was still alive in 1313; William Miller, Essays on the Latin Orient, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam,
1964), pp. 132–34; Kenneth M. Setton, Catalan Domination of Athens 1311–1388, revised
ed. (London, 1975), p. 11; Peter Lock, The Franks in the Aegean 1204–1500 (London, 1995),
p. 122. According to Raymond-Joseph Loenertz, “Hosios Lukas de Stiris dans quelques
documents latins (1210–1309),” Thesaurismata 11 (1974), 32–33, 35, le Flamenc did not
take part in the battle due to illness or injury. On the place of the battle, David Jacoby,
“Catalans, Turcs et Vénitiens en Romanie (1305–1332): Un nouveau témoignage de Marino
Sanudo Torsello,” Studi Medievali 15 series 3 (1974), 223–30, repr. in idem, Recherches sur la
Méditerranée orientale du xiie au xve siècle: Peuples, sociétés, économies (London, 1979), V.