Roger de Flor

Roger de Flor was a Sicilian-born adventurer, sailor and mercenary commander whose career connected the crusader Mediterranean, Angevin-Aragonese warfare and the Byzantine Empire. He served with the Knights Templar in the eastern Mediterranean and helped evacuate refugees when Acre fell in 1291, but accusations concerning money and property ended his Templar association. He later entered the service of Frederick III of Sicily and became an important naval commander during the War of the Sicilian Vespers.

After peace reduced employment for experienced soldiers in Sicily, Roger organised the Catalan Company, largely composed of Almogavar veterans, and entered Byzantine service in 1303 to fight Turkish forces in Anatolia. His battlefield successes brought extraordinary rewards, including the titles of megas doux and later Caesar, but also alarmed Byzantine elites. In 1305 he was murdered at Adrianople during a banquet associated with the co-emperor Michael IX Palaiologos. The killing triggered the brutal campaigns remembered as the Catalan Vengeance across Byzantine territories.

In Peter Darman’s The White Dragon, the break between the Catalan Company and Byzantium became irreversible after the murder of its commander Roger de Flor in 1305. Roger de Flor is treated fictionally in Peter Darman’s The Black Sheep.