Neopatras, Duchy of

The revolutionary movement in the shrinking domains of the empire is most memorable and lasting in Thessalonica, where a faction known as the Zealots has seized power in a coup d'état and governs the city as an almost independent commune until 1350.

The junior emperor John V will rule in Thessalonica after 1351.

Fine frescoes decorate the vaults of the Church of Pantanasa, constructed in 1365 Mistra.

The frescoes in the Peribleptos Monastery Church, dating between 1348 and 1380, are a very rare surviving late Byzantine cycle, crucial for the understanding of Byzantine art.

Manuel Kantakouzenos had been recognized eventually as governor of Morea by the new regime in Constantinople.

Following the abdication of his father John Kantakouzenos, who is now the monk Josaph, the rest of his family had joined Manuel in the Morea.

Some of Manuel's enemies circulated a rumor that his older brother, the former Emperor Matthew Kantakouzenos, was plotting to replace him as governor, but when he was persuaded the rumor was false, the two worked together in the administration of the province.

For the larger portion of his reign, Manuel maintains peaceful relations with his Latin (Western European)neighbors and secures a long period of prosperity for the area.

Greco-Latin cooperation includes an alliance in the 1360  to contain the raids of Murad I into Moreas.

The Aragonese version of the Chronicle of the Morea states that, in alliance with Gautier de Lor, the Venetians, and the Hospitallers, he scored a naval victory over a Turkish fleet off Megara, setting fire to thirty-five of the enemy ships; the survivors then fled to Roger de Llúria, the Aragonese vicar-general at Thebes.

The fleet is stopped from June 20 to 22 at Chalcis, where Amadeus pays four gold perperi to two minstrels of Roger de Llúria, vicar-general of the Duchy of Athens, who had come bringing their master's greetings and stayed to entertain for the evening.

At Chalcis many leave the crusade to go to Cyprus and fight under King Peter I, who seems to promise more opportunities for fighting real infidels (and less fighting schismatic brothers in the faith).

The returning crusaders make stops at Methoni (Modon) and Glarentza (Clarencia), arriving at Corfu on 10 July.

A week later they stopped at Dubrovnik and on July 29 they land in Venice.

News of their victories has preceded them.

Amadeus remains at the palace of the Carraresi in Venice for five weeks: paying off debts, making gifts of thanksgiving to churches, taking out more loans (8,872 ducats from Bartholomeo Michaelis and 10,346 from Federigo Cornaro).

He then makes a brief visit to Treviso on August 23–26 for some festivities, the meaning of which is unclear.

Amadeus, in order to discharge his vows, is required to take the ambassadors of John V to Rome.

He goes by land up to Pavia, where he arrives on September 18 to await his baggage coming up by the waters of the Po and his treasury coming down from Savoy to finance his final pilgrimage to Rome.

He sets out on September 25 for Pisa, thence to Viterbo, where he meets Pope Urban and presents the embassy from Constantiople.

He continues with the Papal entourage to Rome, where Pope Urban solemnly enters the city on October 12, the first pope in Rome since 1305.

Amadeus remains at Rome about two weeks before returning to Chambéry by Christmas via Perugia and Florence (early November), through Pavia (mid-November), Parma, Borgo San Donnino and Castel San Giovanni.

Throughout his journey from Venice to Rome to Savoy, the count is everywhere honored as a triumphant crusader.

Amadeus had left the city of Emona in the hands of his bastard son, the elder Antoine, with a small garrison.

According to the chroniclers of Savoy, Jehan Servion and Jean d'Oronville Cabaret, the inhabitants deceived the Savoyards with acts of kindness before leading them into an ambush, where Antoine was captured.

Antoine is supposed to have languished in a Buglarian prison until his death.

Although this account is not corroborated by earlier sources, it is certain that Emona was lost to the Bulgars and that the elder Antoine does not appear in his father's treasury accounts any time after the crusade.

Gallipoli will not be lost to Christendom by any action of the Turks.

After three years of civil war between John V and his son, Andronikos IV, it will be handed over to them by the latter as payment for their support.

Thus it will be occupied after ten years of Christian occupation in the winter of 1376–77 by Sultan Murad I.

The Navarrese and Gascon mercenaries, placing themselves under the command of Peter IV of Aragon early in 1377, had been reformed as four companies, commanded by four captains: the Gascon Mahiot of Coquerel and Pedro de la Saga and the Navarrese Juan de Urtubia and Guarro.

Internecine squabbles among the Latin lords of the Peloponnese weaken resistance to pressure from the Greeks, especially from the 1370s onward.

The Navarrese enter the Morea in the spring or early summer of 1378, some coming at the invitation of Gaucher of La Bastide, the Hospitaller prior of Toulouse and commandant in the Principality of Achaea and others probably at the bequest of the Florentine adventurer Nerio Acciaioli.

Gaucher hires Mahiot and the remnant of the company for eight months during the captivity of the Grand Master Juan Fernández de Heredia.

Meanwhile, …

…Juan de Urtubia is in Corinth with a following of more than one hundred soldiers.

The Catalan Grand Company, under the protection of the the late Aragonese king Frederick of Sicily, has dominated the region of central Greece.

This changes in 1379, when Urtubia with a large force invades Boeotia and sacks Thebes with the assistance of the archbishop of the city, Simon Atumano.

At this point, the Navarrese Company takes on a different character.

Some men who had served under Urtubia …

…are with Mahiot in the Morea again.

The Company organizes itself as a viceregal power in Achaea under three captains: Mahiot, Pedro Bordo de San Superano, and Berard de Varvassa.

The way is open central Greece in 1388, with Catalan power weakened by the Navarrese Company, for the Florentine Acciajuoli, lords of Corinth, to …