St. Nicola di Pergario Abbey, Sicily, March 1304
The abbey belonged to the Basilian order and was close to baron land.This could be a potentially lethal combination. Honorius IV had proclaimed the Basilian archimandrite deposed, it went of course without saying that he had not recognized any of the Basilian bishops installed by Alexandros, and had stripped the Basilian church of all its holdings. That Honorius proclamation was completely ignored within the despotate had been a polite description, covering more extreme reactions. The same should had been normally expected over hostile papal declarations in the rest of Sicily. But in this case the Sicilian barons thought otherwise. If the Basilians had been stripped of their holdings, it mean that said holdings were up for grabs. What after all could a bunch of Greek monks do about it? And thus the barons near St Nicola had gone on the warpath, or the chicken thievery path if someone was less charitable, raiding and pillaging the abbey's land. Furious complaints had flown from Syracuse to Palermo. Admonitions had flown from Palermo to the barons, Frederick was pious and did not want to alienate the despot, and promptly ignored, the barons knew the king depended on them. And thus one more raiding party came to visit the abbey. A single raider would come back to report the fate the Cretans who had ambushed them had dealt to the rest. Not every baron would understand the lesson from its first iteration. Some would go complain to Palermo in turn when the stradioti did not just limit themselves to beating back the raids but returned them with interest. But it would be learned sooner rather than later. Asia Minor and Crete had been a rather harsher school than Sicily in the petty warfare business after all...
Hagia Sophia, April 6th, 1304
Ioannis Doukas Vatatzes was prominent behind Andronicus II and Michael IX in the Easter mass. The young despot had not been in a hurry to return to Sicily in the middle of winter but had promised his hosts he would be sailing back after celebrating Easter in Constantinople. Preparations were in full swing and if Michael IX in particular could not wait for Vatatzes to be gone in order to begin his campaign against the Bulgarians, as his father wanted Michael's army in Constantinople till Vatatzes left he did not show it in public or even to Vatatzes in person. How much Ioannis was fooled by this was anyone's guess, but when his fleet finally sailed of at the end of the month it was on friendly terms with the imperial family.
Cyzicus, May 1304
Roger de Flor at the head of an army of 7,000 men begun his campaign to relieve the siege of Philadelpheia. Roger would successfully relieve Philadelpheia and advance east before falling back to the city but his abuse of the people on his own side, including beheading the commander of the fortress of Kula and stabbing with a sword one of his fellow generals would gain him few allies...
Chios, June 1304
Ioannis Vatatzes had sailed out from Constantinople in the end of April. His fleet, reinforced by a number of hired merchant galleys had not been particularly fast as it treaded south and made a stop to support Ephesus which had come under Turkish attack. It was at Ephesus that Ioannis had received the news that
Benedetto Zaccaria was attacking Chios. For whom the old Genoese was working for, was somewhat fuzzy on paper, he had been made admiral by Philip IV of France two years earlier, but all to clear in practice, he was out to grab territory for himself. But if Chios, one of the richest islands in the Aegean was to fall to a Genoese adventurer why not fall to an ambitious young despot instead? And thus the Sicilians instead of sailing west had sailed north again. Zaccaria's small fleet, taken by surprise had been dispersed and the Chians had thrown open their gates for Vatatzes who had followed his takeover of Chios by seizing the nearly deserted island of Kos and Samos settling Asia Minor refugees on both. Back in Constantinople Andronicus unable to do anything without a fleet and with bigger troubles close to home, where Michael IX had been defeated by Theodore Svetoslav of Bulgaria had pretended to accept Ioannis excuses granting Ioannis Chios as a fief for two years. Soon the two years would be made ten years...
Andravida, Principality of Achaea, July 1304
The news of Charles II making the principality of Achaea the dowry of his youngest daughter had not been taken well by princess Isabella and her third husband Philip of Savoy. Thus Philip had come with a plan. If he defeated the Greeks of Mystra and recovered their territory, the barons of the principality would come firmly on his side and make his position on the throne unassailable, hopefully even Charles would change his mind at news of his success after all he couldn't be very happy about giving the principality to Vatatzes. But warring against the imperial army in Mystra needed money. So taxation within the principality had sharply gone up to finance Philip's campaign to be. When the barons had balked at this Philip had been forced to call a parliament in Andravida.Of course said parliament did nothing to assuage the Greek peasantry which crushed by taxes and baronial demands kept grumbling...
Syracuse, August 1304
Ioannis Vatatzes was finally back to his hometown, while born in Constantinople he had been raised in Syracuse. The grilling he had received from his father and uncle, and his grandmother for that matter, was probably to be expected. But both Alexandros and Philanthropenos didn't have any reason to be unhappy with him. They had unburdened themselves from their bothersome mercenary problem, let Andronicus deal with the Catalans now and secured his title of despot. The settlers brought back to Sicily were a nice boon, loyal people with skills that could be useful particularly in the aftermath of two decades of war. And his action in Chios while perhaps rash had been a nice and totally unexpected boon. The little domain carved out in the Aegean had revenues of 120,000 hyperpyra a year, sufficient to keep two dozen war galleys in operation...
Syracuse, December 25th, 1304
Robert of Anjou was back in Syracuse, this time as a guest accompanying his sister on behalf of his father. The marriage of the 24 year old Ioannis Doukas Vatatzes and Maria of Anjou, 10 years his junior would take place in Christmas eve...
