The Versions

Abstract This is the Book of the Conquest of Constantinople, the Empire of Romania, and the Land of the Principality of Morea that was found in a book formerly belonging to the noble baron, Sir Bartolomeo Ghisi, the Grand Constable; which book he had in his castle of Thebes.’ These words, which form the title of the sole manuscript of the French version of the Chronicle of Morea (Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, 15702), have been characterized as containing the ‘only real information’ available to us regarding the early history of the Chronicle. The ‘castle of Thebes’ (‘chastel d’Estives’) referred to should be identified with the Frankish castle of Saint-Omer-les-Thèbes, an especially important stronghold situated within the Duchy of Athens, and one that changed hands on a number of occasions. These transfers of ownership of Saint-Omer-les-Thèbes, together with the dates when they occurred, are of significance in determining the precise period by which a text of the Chronicle had come into being. Probably built by a close kinsman of the Dukes of Athens, Nicolas II de Saint-Omer, using the fabulous wealth derived from his first wife, Marie d’Antioche, the castle had been the seat of the Saint-Omer family until the Catalan Company’s destructive arrival on the scene in the early fourteenth century. This Company, a powerful group of mercenaries hired by the Duke of Athens, Gautier V de Brienne, in order to protect his interests, had quickly grown dissatisfied with the conditions of its employment, and consequently, in 1311, rebelled and took up arms, not only killing the Duke himself and many of his vassals in a battle fought at the mouth of the Almyros river, but seizing the lands of the vanquished for its own.