Thenceforth, as is natural, the archives of Palermo contain far more
frequent allusions to the duchies of Athens and Neopatras, whose
inhabitants petition their royal duke for redress of grievances and
for the appointment of suitable officials. But it is evident from the
tenour of these documents that the Catalan state was rapidly declining.
In addition to the Turkish peril and the menaces of the Venetians of
Negroponte, the once united soldiers of fortune were divided into
factions, which paralysed the central authority, and were aggravated
by the prolonged absence of the vicar-general in Sicily. One party
wished to place the duchies under the protection of Genoa, the natural
enemy of Venice, while two bitter rivals, Roger de Lluria and Pedro
de Pou, or Petrus de Puteo, the chief justice, an unjust judge and a
grasping and ambitious official, both claimed the title of vicar of
the absent vicar-general. Pou’s tyranny became so odious to Catalans
and Greeks alike that the former rose against him and slew him and his
chief adherents. The experiment of allowing the vicar-general as well
as the duke to remain an absentee had thus proved to be a failure;
Lluria, as the strongest man on the spot, was rewarded with the office
of vicar-general as the sole means of keeping the duchies intact. So
vulnerable did the Catalan state appear that the representatives of
Walter of Brienne, the Baron of Argos and the Count of Conversano,
renewed the attempt of their predecessor and, if we may believe the
Aragonese _Chronicle of the Morea_, actually occupied for a time the city
of Athens.