THE V\'ESTERN MEDITERRA.NEAN KINGDOMS 1200-1500the Catalans became inextricably involved in the complex
political rivalries between the Frankish warlords, some of
whom were favourable to the house of Anjou; the Catalans
themselves switched their loyalty back and forth, as well as
suffering bitter internal rivalries in which Muntaner was a
major actor. The confusion was settled, after a fashion, when
the Company slaughtered the Frankish duke of Athens in
battle in 1311. James II observed what was going on in Greece
without ever seeking to take responsibility. The Genoese were
worried at Catalan successes and asked him to intervene;
the king, somewhat ingenuously, replied that 'the Aragonese
and Catalans who are in Romania [the Byzantine Empire]
did not go there at his own wish, command or counsel, and
so he cannot very well recall them'.~~ The Catalan Duchy of
Athens was able to survive in Attica and Thebes until the
1380s, administered by a regent or vicar-general who repres-
ented the higher authority not of the king of Aragon but
(perhaps unsurprisingly) of the Aragonese king of Sicily,
from 1312 to 1379; several governors, including an illegitim-
ate son of King Frederick III, were members of the Sicilian
royal house, though the actual title of duke tended to be
held by legitimate princes of Sicily. Within the duchy, order
was maintained by a policy of excluding the native popula-
tion from government (although Greeks became increasingly
valuable in the civil service); it was assemblies of Catalans,
anxious always to maintain their distinct identity, who man-
aged local affairs, and met together occasionally in parlia-
ments. The devolution of power was modelled on Catalan
ideals, and the elitist democracy of the Catalan Corts had to
all intents been imported on to Athenian soil. Catalanisation
of the church proceeded slowly. There was a large, virtually
unbridgeable, gulf between Catalans and Greeks.~H
The result of the Catalan conquest of Athens was that
proxy wars between supporters of the Angevins of Naples and
the Aragonese of Sicily continued to break out in southern
Greece throughout much of the fourteenth century. In
1312 there was concern in Naples and Paris at the future
of Frankish fiefs in areas such as Argos, dangerously close
to the Catalan conquests. Aragonese princes such as Ferran
- Cited by Hillgarth, Problem, p. 44.
- Setton, Catalan Duchy, for social relationships.