Qualla: Battle of Halmyros https://qualla.com/battle-of-halmyros en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/n/battle-of-halmyros-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Battle of Halmyros https://qualla.com/battle-of-halmyros Battle of Halmyros: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-halmyros/ Photo credit Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Walter of Brienne wrote his will at Lamia on 10 March 1311. Five days later he was dead, and so were most of the men whose names appeared as witnesses on the document. The Catalan Company of mercenaries had been hired to fight Walter's wars in Thessaly, conquered the region for him, and then refused to leave when he refused to pay them. The Duke of Athens decided to expel them by force. He had numerical superiority, the finest heavy cavalry in southern Greece, and a thousand years of feudal certainty that mounted knights crushed footmen. None of it mattered when the field of battle was a swamp.

Read more: Battle of Halmyros on Qualla

Image: Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/n/battle-of-halmyros-wp/swbn-battle-of-halmyros-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Halmyros: Mercenaries Without a War https://qualla.com/battle-of-halmyros/ Photo credit Robin Rönnlund, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Catalan Company was the residue of an older Mediterranean problem. They had fought as professional infantry for the Crown of Aragon during the War of the Sicilian Vespers, and when that war ended in 1302 they hired themselves out to the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II to figh...

Read more: Battle of Halmyros on Qualla

Image: Robin Rönnlund | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/n/battle-of-halmyros-wp/swbn-battle-of-halmyros-mercenaries-without-a-war.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Halmyros: Five Hundred Catalans Walk Out https://qualla.com/battle-of-halmyros/ Photo credit Robin Rönnlund, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walter selected 200 of the best Catalan horsemen and 300 of their elite Almogavar infantry to keep in his service, paying them up to date and granting them land. The remaining 6,000-plus he ordered out of his territory empty-handed. The Catalans offered to settle peacefully if th...

Read more: Battle of Halmyros on Qualla

Image: Robin Rönnlund | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/n/battle-of-halmyros-wp/swbn-battle-of-halmyros-five-hundred-catalans-walk-out.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Halmyros: The Charge into the Mud https://qualla.com/battle-of-halmyros/ Photo credit Robin Rönnlund, CC BY-SA 4.0. The chronicle accounts of the battle differ widely - the Florentine Giovanni Villani, the Catalan Ramon Muntaner, the Byzantine Nikephoros Gregoras, and the various versions of the Chronicle of the Morea give numbers that modern historians consider exaggerated and sometimes ficti...

Read more: Battle of Halmyros on Qualla

Image: Robin Rönnlund | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/n/battle-of-halmyros-wp/swbn-battle-of-halmyros-the-charge-into-the-mud.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Halmyros: The Catalan Duchy https://qualla.com/battle-of-halmyros/ Photo credit Robin Rönnlund, CC BY-SA 4.0. What followed was perhaps the strangest political reorganization in medieval Greek history. The Catalan Company, leaderless after refusing the offer to be led by their captives, took over the Duchy of Athens by inheritance and conquest combined. They asked Boniface of Verona, one...

Read more: Battle of Halmyros on Qualla

Image: Robin Rönnlund | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/n/battle-of-halmyros-wp/swbn-battle-of-halmyros-the-catalan-duchy.mp3 0:06 5 full