Antoine le Flamenc, whose ancestors had settled in the Holy Land, is
several times mentioned during the first decade of the fourteenth
century. The _Livre de la Conqueste_[96] states that Guy II, Duke of
Athens, appointed him his “bailie and lieutenant” in Thessaly in 1303,
and describes him as _un des plus sages hommes de Romanie_ and _le plus
sage dou duchame_. The same passage alludes also to Jean le Flamenc,
his son, as receiving a post in Thessaly. Doubtless their experience of
the Wallachs, who then, as now, wandered as winter approached from the
Thessalian to the Bœotian Karditza, would specially commend these two
distinguished men for such duties. Two years later we find Antoine as
one of the witnesses of a deed[97] regarding the property of the Duchess
of Athens, just come of age at Thebes, in her father’s land of Hainault.
On April 2nd, 1309, both Antoine and Jean were present at the engagement
of the then widowed Duchess with Charles of Taranto at Thebes[98].
On the 23rd of a certain month (? September) of 1308, a Venetian
document[99] alludes to the intention of _Fiammengo Antonio_, together
with Guy II, Rocaforte, and Bonifacio da Verona, to _tentar l’impresa di
Negroponte_—in other words, to make an attempt upon that Venetian colony.
On August 11th, 1309, another Venetian letter, this time addressed to
_Egregio militi Antonio Fiammengo_, informs us that he had rented the
property of Pietro Correr, an absent canon of Thebes, and bids him not to
consign the rents to any but the rightful person. A second letter of the
same day, addressed to the bailie and councillors of Negroponte, mentions
him again in connection with this affair[100]. Finally, the list of Greek
dignitaries, with whom the Republic was in correspondence, originally
drawn up before the battle of the Kephissos and then corrected in 1313,
mentions _Ser Antonius Flamengo miles_[101]. As his name is not followed
by the word _decessit_ or _mortuus_, added to those who had fallen in the
battle, he was one of the very few survivors.
To these certain facts Hopf[102] added the assumption, based on no
evidence, that he was the “Frank settled in the East,” whom Isabella,
Marchioness of Boudonitza, married, and who, in 1286, disputed the
succession to that castle with her cousin.
As Buchon’s books are rare, I append his transcript of the inscription: