By the end of the 13th century most of the old Imperial guard units had been relegated to ceremonial or palace duties. The 14th century ‘De Officiis’ (Book of Offices) of Pseudo-Codinus, for instance, records that the Vardariotes preceded the Emperor with staves and whips during processions. Other units it lists were the Kortinarioi, who erected the Emperor’s tent; the bow-armed Mourtatoi; the Tzakones, oarsmen in the Emperor’s personal galley; the Paramonai, divided into two allaghia, one of cavalry and one of infantry; and the English ‘Varangian Guard’. According to Pseudo-Codinus the Varangians were responsible for guarding the Emperor’s office and chief reception chambers in the Blachernae palace, where they stood around his throne during receptions. They also accompanied him when he attended church in state. Outside of these palace duties, however, the once elite Varangians no longer performed any military function, and the extent of their decline is apparent from the fact that whereas their commander had originally walked immediately behind the Emperor in procession, by the 14th century he had fallen to fiftieth in precedence. Sources other than Pseudo-Codinus also make occasional references to the Varangians: Cantacuzene wrote that ‘the so-called Varangians with their axes’ were present at the coronation of Andronikos III in 1316; they are mentioned again in 1328 and 1330, and in 1341 Cantacuzene established a palace guard of 500 men plus ‘as many axe-bearing barbarians as were then in service’ to protect John V. Axe-bearing soldiers ‘of British race’ are referred to by Byzantine envoys in Rome as late as 1404, and it is certainly possible that the English men-at-arms referred to in 1402 were similarly Varangians, which would seem to indicate that they were used in defence of the city even if they no longer served in field-armies.
By the mid-14th century, however, the Varangians had declined in importance to a point where it seems to have become necessary to recruit another foreign guard unit to inherit at least some of their guard duties. This unit was comprised of Catalans and Aragonese, whom the Byzantines generally called Katelanoi. Catalans are first recorded in Byzantine employ as early as 1279, during the campaign leading up to the Battle of Negroponte, and of course in 1302 Andronikos II had employed considerable numbers in the form of Roger de Flor’s Grand Company (see pages 26-28), and even after the murder of de Flor and attempted dissolution of the Company in 1305 one element, under Jimenez d’Aren6s, re-entered Byzantine service
Following open hostility between rival factions of the survivors in 1307. We know nothing about their subsequent career, and it is not until 1351 that Catalans again enter the limelight. In that year the Catalans, as allies of Venice, found themselves fighting on the side of the Byzantines against the Genoese, and February of the next year saw a naval battle in the Bosphorus in which the Byzantine fleet of 68-70 galleys included 25 that were Aragonese. After the departure of the fleet, more than 300 Catalans stayed on as mercenaries according to Cantacuzene, while Nikephoros Gregoras reports that Cantacuzene armed and organised 500 Catalans as a personal bodyguard because he did not trust his own people. Their leader was a certain Juan Peralta, who significantly had been in Cantacuzene’s service since 1342, which would indicate that Catalans had continued to appear in Byzantine armies throughout the first half of the 14th century. In 1352 Cantacuzene’s Catalan troops, along with Suleiman Pasha’s Turks, took part in the relief (and looting) of Adrianople, besieged by John V. Thereafter their numbers seemingly declined, Gregoras reporting that the number of Catalan guardsmen in the palace in 1354 was only about 100, these garrisoning the Golden Gate fortress, Blachernae and other palace districts. After defending the Golden Gate against John V, this shortlived guard unit seems to have been dismissed at the end of the civil war that same year.
The very last group of foreign soldiers to perform guard functions within the Empire appears to have been comprised of Cretans, who probably rose to this position early in the 15th century. Doukas, writing of 1422, when they were guarding the Gate of Blachernae, records that: ‘The Cretans were the most faithful subjects of the Empire, distinguished by their sacred zeal for protecting the holy churches and their relics, and for the dignity of the Emperor and the prestige of the City.’ It is noteworthy that Sphrantzes travelled to Mistra on a Cretan ship in 1444, and in 1452 Venice specifically gave the Emperor permission to recruit Cretan soldiers and sailors (a privilege denied to others, including even the Hospitallers of Rhodes), and there were 3 shiploads of Cretan soldiers at the final siege of Constantinople the next year, one of which showed such tenacity in its defence of the towers of Basileios, Leon and Alexios on the sea-wall near the Porta Horaea (on the Golden Horn) that they earnt the respect of the Ottomans, who according to Pseudo-Sphrantzes allowed them to depart unmolested with their arms and property. A Cretan account records all 3 ships to have returned safely to Crete under their commanders Sgouros, Hyalinas and Philommatos (significantly all Greek rather than Italian names, which indicates that these were Greek natives of Crete rather than Venetian colonists). Sgouros and Philommatos are probably Barbaro’s ‘Guro de Candia’ and ‘Antonio Filamati de Candia’; however, he records the third Cretan commander as ‘Zuan Venier de Candia’. Philommatos was probably the Antonio mistakenly recorded by Pseudo-Sphrantzes as commanding the squadron at the boom (see naval section below). Barbaro records Venier, Filamati and another Cretan to have escaped with their ships after the fall of the city, but also lists Venier among the dead. The third escapee was probably Antonios Hyalinas, who had commanded the vessel on which Sphrantzes travelled in 1444, since such a man is apparently reported two years later in 1455; it was probably his ship and crew that were allowed to depart after their stubborn defence of the sea-wall.
In addition to such foreigners a small native Byzantine guard may have survived until the very last days of the Empire. During the siege of 1453 Leonard of Chios mentions that the Emperor fought alongside ‘picked Greek troops’, Doukas refers to how Giustiniani fought at the head of his own men ‘and the palace troops’, and Kritovoulos says that Constantine made his last stand with a ‘Roman bodyguard’. All these references are admittedly vague, and if they denote anything more than a few close retainers can probably be taken to indicate a vestige of the Paramonai.
World History
