Demitre

Demitre was an Albanian count in the Catalan dominions in late-14th-century Thessaly, during the Frankokratia.

Mentioned as de Mitre and lo comte Mitra (a corruption of Dimitri/Demetrius^[1]) in contemporary sources, he was an Albanian chieftain based in southeastern Thessaly (Albanians had migrated to Thessaly from about 1320).^[2] He could rally 1,500 cavalrymen and was entitled to bear the royal banner of Aragon as a born vassal of Peter IV.^[3] Among the eighteen Catalan vassals of the area in 1380-1 he ranks second below the Count of Salona and above the Margrave of Bodonitsa.^[2] In a document of April 1381, he is listed among those greeted by Peter IV for their services against the Navarrese Company in 1379.^[2]

Sources

1. the name was originally interpreted as "count of Demetrias" by the publisher of the medieval documents, Antoni Rubió i Lluch
2. Setton, Kenneth Meyer (1975). Athens in the Middle Ages. Variorum Reprints. p. 246. ISBN 9780902089846. Retrieved 14 October 2012.
3. Setton, Kenneth Meyer (1969). A History of the Crusades: The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, edited by H. W. Hazard. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 187. ISBN 9780299066703. Retrieved 14 October 2012.