Crusades and Crusaders in Medieval Greece 27
forget that the registers record only a fraction of the documents drawn up and
issued by the papacy, because most of them were never entered there but also
because some of the registers have not survived. Alongside the papal registers,
there is a variety of documentary and literary sources which provide informa-
tion on the context, impact and response to these crusades. These sources are
dispersed in space and time, from Italy to England and from Spain to Hungary,
for at some point or other most of Europe was involved: some European states
had vested interests in Romania; some were the recipients of requests for men
and funds; others were the original homelands of the settlers in the East. Most
sources cover only part of the two-and-a-half centuries under examination.
An exception is the archives of Venice, a state which was a major player in
the affairs of Frankish Greece throughout this period.8 The coverage offered by
the Genoese archives and notarial documents is much more fragmented, but
undoubtedly important for the history of the area.9 Of interest are, naturally,
the surviving local (Byzantine and Latin) documentary sources;10 as well as the
archives of those powers that at some point took a direct interest in the affairs
of Romania with particular crusading connotations, such as the Angevins from
the second half of the 13th century, or the Hospitallers, from their conquest
of Rhodes in the 1300s until their expulsion by the Ottomans in 1522.11 With
8 See e.g. Freddy Thiriet, ed., Délibérations des assemblées Vénitiennes concernant la
Romanie: 1160–1463, 2 vols. (Paris, 1966–71); idem, Régestes des délibérations du sénat de
Venise concernant la Romanie: 1329–1463, 3 vols. (Paris, 1958–61); Georg M. Thomas, ed.,
Diplomatarium Veneto-Levantinum, sive acta et Diplomata res Venetas Graecas atque
Levantis Illustrantia, 2 vols. (Venice, 1880–99; repr. 1966).
9 As regards Genoese presence in the East, indispensable are the numerous contributions
of Michel Balard, where references can be found to the dispersed editions of Genoese
archival materials. An authoritative overview in Michel Balard, La Romanie génoise (XIIe–
début du xve siècle), 2 vols. (Rome, 1978); see also the extensive list of sources and bibliog-
raphy in idem, Les Latins en Orient (xe–xve siècle) (Paris, 2006), pp. xi–lxxviii, esp. lxvi–lxx.
10 Byzantine imperial documents listed in Franz Dölger and Peter Wirth, eds., Regesten der
Kaiserurkunden des oströmischen Reiches, 5 vols. (Munich, 1924–95); a helpful catalogue
of the acts of the Latin Emperors by Benjamin Hendrickx, “Régestes des empereurs Latins
de Constantinople (1204–1261/1273),” Byzantina 14 (1988), 7–221.
11 The Angevin archive in Naples was sadly destroyed during the Second World War; how-
ever, there is a major ongoing effort to reconstruct its contents: Riccardo Filangieri
et al., eds., I registri della cancelleria Angioina, 49 vols. (Naples, 1950–) [in progress]. The
National Archives of Malta contain a wealth of information for the Hospitallers. See, for
example, Zacharias Tsirpanlis, ed., Ανέκδοτα έγγραφα για τη Ρόδο και τις Νότιες Σποράδες από το
αρχείο των Ιωαννιτών Ιπποτών, 1 (1421–1453): εισαγωγή, διπλωματική έκδοση, σχόλια [Unpublished
Documents Concerning Rhodes and the Southern Sporades from the Archive of the Knights
Hospitaller, 1 (1421–1453): Introduction, Diplomatic Edition, Commentary] (Rhodes, 1995);