DE MONCADA (Don Francisco).
Expedicion de los Catalanes Y Aragoneses Contra Turcos Y Griegos.
THE RARE FIRST EDITION
This first edition describing the exploits of the Catalan mercenaries under Roger de Flor in the Eastern Mediterranean during the first few years of the fourteenth century. A tumultuous account of sieges, massacres, murders, double dealing and treachery in Byzantium. At a loose end after the War of the Sicilian Vespers the Catalan horde, numbering about 4000 men was engaged, in 1303, by the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos to strengthen his forces against the Turks.
The mercenaries served faithfully but eventually became too unruly and their employers turned against their hirelings. Numerous battles were fought, the Catalans generally maintaining the whip hand, before their eventual retreat in 1310 into what is now central Greece.
