How Mercenaries Beat Empires

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The Kings and Generals animated historical documentary series on medieval history continues with a coverage of the Catalan Company. Mercenaries are supposed to fight for coin, not carve out kingdoms—but the Great Catalan Company did both. Born from Aragonese and Sicilian veterans of the War of the Sicilian Vespers, these fearsome light infantrymen—the Almogavars—sailed east into a shattered Mediterranean shaped by the Fourth Crusade, Latin principalities, and Turkic beyliks gnawing at Byzantine Anatolia. Hired by Emperor Andronikos II after the disaster at Bapheus, Roger de Flor’s company arrives in Constantinople, clashes violently with Genoese rivals, and is rushed into Asia Minor. There the Catalans win battles, lift sieges, and terrorize the countryside with shock tactics, sparks on steel, and brutal plunder that turns their “allies” into enemies. In 1305 a palace plot kills Roger at Adrianople—triggering a bloody Catalan vengeance from Gallipoli across Thrace and Macedonia. Leadership feuds follow, but the company’s luck returns in Greece: after being shortchanged, they destroy the Duke of Athens at Halmyros (1311) and seize Athens and Thebes. The video traces their rule, pragmatic alliances with Venice and even former Turkic foes, and their slow decline as Florentine and Navarrese adventurers dismantle Catalan power. By the end, you’ll see why “Catalan” became an insult in parts of Greece—and why Barcelona, Palermo, and Athens share a hidden medieval story.

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Script: Christos Nicolaou