Catalan Company crushes Franks at Halmyros

March 1311

A band of Catalan mercenaries who had drifted east after the War of the Sicilian Vespers ambushed the chivalry of the Duchy of Athens in a Thessalian marsh, luring the Frankish knights into flooded fields where their heavy horses foundered. The Frankish duke and most of his knights perished. The Catalans simply took over Athens and ran it for seventy years.