Juan Fernández de Heredia

In 1376, Heredia conducted the fleet bearing Pope Gregory XI back to Rome, presaging the end of the Avignon Papacy.

The next year, on September 24, Gregory formally appointed Heredia grand master, following the death of Robert of Juilly on July 27.

Heredia immediately set about to take Arta but was captured by Gjin Bua Shpata, lord of Aetolia and Acarnania, and sold to the Ottoman Turks.

He was quickly ransomed, for he was in Glarentsa on 20 May 1379, though during his absence, his commandant, Gaucher of La Bastide, hired the Navarrese Company of mercenaries and brought them to the Principality of Achaea for eight months.

Heredia ignored the powerful company and instead dealt directly with Marie of Blois, who claimed the principality on behalf of her son Louis II of Naples.

The Navarrese, under Juan de Urtubia, attacked Thebes, the capital of the duchy, and Heredia, though friendly with the king, was warned in a letter to stop abetting his enemies (10 September 1380).

In April 1383, the Roman Pope Urban VI appointed Riccardo Caracciolo, prior of Capua, anti-master in opposition to Heredia.

Heredia as portrayed in his Grant Cronica d'Espanya .
Juan Fernández de Heredia: Grant Cronica d'Espanya , 1385-1396.
Monument to Heredia, preserving the memory of his tombstone, destroyed during the Spanish Civil War .