The Landscape of Medieval Greece 351
church of St Mark’s, as can be seen in the plan of Zorzi Corner (Figure 10.7).67
In addition to housing the bells that sounded the beginning and end of the
work day, the flag of the Republic flowing on top of it indicated that the
Venetian government was in control of this valuable public good that dis-
played time, and thus also had power over all activities in the market place.
Due to the topography of the western Peloponnese and the interests of the
Villehardouin, who were primarily focused on the exploitation of the fertile
plains of the Peloponnese in the area of Elis and Lacedaemon different urban
choices were made for the establishment of the capital of the Principality of
Achaea in the early 13th century.68 The important Byzantine port city of Patras
was given in 1205 as a barony to William d’Aleman and seems to have been of
little interest to the Frankish Prince Geoffrey Villehardouin who focused his
energies on the establishment of fortified castles that dominated his feudal
holdings and lands.69 Villehardouin targeted his control in a triangulated area
defined by Andravida, Chlemoutsi and Glarenza, a harbour that became a sig-
nificant centre in 1255 with direct connections to the Western Mediterranean.
Demetrios Athanasoulis explains the new foundations of the Villehardouin as
an implantation of the new French metropolitan model of the castle-palace
so as to broadcast French royal power in its rule over the Morea and to pro-
tect the plain, the coast and the capital city, Andravida. The most impressive
castle built in this period is the castle of Chlemoutsi, which according to the
Chronicle of the Morea was constructed by Geoffrey I Villehardouin in 1220–23
(Figure 10.8) although the information is not very clearly stated.70 It rivals
the most advanced military architecture in the crusader states with the larg-
est audience hall in Frankish Greece including the first phase of the palace of
Mistra.71 Built in the concentric fashion of the crusader castles of Belvoir and
Crak des Chevaliers in the Holy Land, it also displays features of the military
architecture of Philip Augustus perhaps because it tried to combine metropoli-
tan features with those of isolated castles in the crusader states.72 Chlemoutsi
67 Following his election, the new duke was ordered to buy the clock in Venice and set it
up in the area of the piazza for the use of the community. Freddy Thiriet, Délibérations
des assemblées vénitiennes concernant la Romanie: 1160–1463, 2 vols. (Paris, 1966–71), 2:242,
no. 1644, and Gerola, Monumenti veneti, 3:72.
68 Peter Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, pp. 245–51.
69 Antoine Bon, La Morée Franque, pp. 106–07.
70 P. Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, p. 246 and Athanasoulis, “The Triangle of Power,” p. 127.
71 Athanasoulis, “The Triangle of Power,” pp. 111–51, 127–41. On crusader castles see Hugh
Kennedy, Crusader Castles (Cambridge, 1994) and Denys Pringle, Secular Buildings in the
Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
72 Athanasoulis, “The Triangle of Power,” p. 139.