Fra Moriale

Giovanni Moriale d'Albarno (actually Jean Montréal du Bar), Fra Moriale (also Morreale), (* in Narbonne ; † August 29, 1354 in Rome ) was a military leader in Italy in the 14th century. Fra Monreale was a prior and troop leader of the Johanniter and became one of the most successful mercenary leaders in the middle of the 14th century.

He entered the service of Charles of Durazzo , took part in the unrest in Naples after the murder of Queen Joan I of Naples ' husband , Andrew of Hungary (1345), and later joined Louis I of Hungary . To this end, he allied himself with the leaders of the Magna societas , Werner von Urslingen and Konrad von Landau , initially in the sack of the northern parts of Apulia; together they had 10,000 men and in 1349 defeated the numerically far inferior knights of Ludwig of Taranto .

Fra Monreale “demanded and received 150,000 gold florins from Venice for a campaign against Milan . In a single year, 1353, he pressed Rimini 50,000, Florence 25,000 and Pisa and Siena 16,000 gold florins. ” (Tuchman, p. 159). When Fra Monreale went to Rome to collect arrears, Cola di Rienzi had him tried and executed on August 29, 1354.

literature

• Elvira Vittozzi:  MORIALE, Giovanni, detto fra Moriale. In: Raffaele Romanelli (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 76:  Montauti – Morlaiter. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2012.
• Franca Allegrezza: Moriale, Fra (Morreale, Monreale) . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 6, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-7608-8906-9 , column 840 f. Sufficient sources, but poor in the references .
• Michael Mallett : Mercenaries and their Masters. Warfare in Renaissance Italy , Bodley Head, London, 1974, pp. 33-35, 46, 203, 263 ISBN 0-370-10502-8
• Barbara Tuchman : The Distant Mirror. The dramatic 14th century. Düsseldorf 1980 [11. 1992 edition], p. 159.