CATALAN GRAND COMPANY, THE. A powerful band of mercenaries noted for the part it played in the wars of the Byzantine Empire during the first half of the Fourteenth Century. It originally consisted of natives of Aragon and Catalonia, partly Christian and partly Moslem, who fought in Sicily during the wars that fol lowed the famous Sicilian Vespers, in 12S2. With the conclusion of peace in 1302, the Cata lans, numbering some 6000 men. under the leadership of Roger de Floc, entered the service of Andronicus IL. Emperor of Constantinople, and were sent against the Turkish armies which were then ravaging the Asiatic provinces of the Empire. The Catalans defeated them decisive ly, and then entered upon a course of pillage and rapine, unchecked by the remonstrances of the Emperor, who was too weak to enforce obe dience to his orders. In 130G Andronicus caused Roger to be assassinated, at Adrianople, and the greater number of the Catalans fled. A
band of 1500, however, consisting mostly of }rem:Innen, after defeating an army of 43,000 men. seized the fortress of Gallipoli, on the Hellespont, and held it for four years against the Emperor, ravaging Thrace, and levying trib ute on trade. In 1310 they abandoned Galli poli, and, marching into Greece, entered the ser vice of Gualtier de Brienne. Duke of Athens. whom. in the following year, they overthrew in a battle on the Cephissus. making themselves masters of Bceotia and Attica. The widows and daughters of the fallen Latin nobles became the wives of the Catalan officers. Subsequently the Duchy of Athens was made an appanage of .-tragon. The power of the Catalans rapidly de (dined, and disappeared before the end of the Fourteenth Century. Consult Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Chap. LXII.