Albania under the Byzantine Empire
In 395, the Roman Empire was permanently divided and the area that now constitutes modern Albania became part of the Byzantine Empire.
Antiquity
After the region fell to the Romans in 168 BC, it became part of the province of
Barbarian invasions
In the first decades under Byzantine rule (until 461), Epirus nova suffered the devastation of raids by
Middle Ages
Church split
Since the 1st and 2nd century, Christianity had become the established religion in most of the eastern Roman Empire, supplanting pagan polytheism. But, though the country was in the fold of Byzantium, Christians in the region remained under the jurisdiction of the
Byzantine rule and conflicts with Western powers
Later, in the early 9th century, the Byzantine government established the theme of Dyrrhachium, based in the city of the same name and covering most of the coast, while the interior was left under Slavic and later Bulgarian control. Full Byzantine control over modern Albania was established only after the Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria in the early 11th century.
In his History written in 1079–1080, Byzantine historian
After the
The new administrative system of the themes, or military provinces created by the Byzantine Empire, contributed to the eventual rise of feudalism in Albania, as peasant soldiers who served military lords became serfs on their landed estates. Among the leading families of the Albanian feudal nobility were the Thopias, Balshas, Shpatas, Muzakas, Aranitis, Dukagjins, and Kastriotis. The first three of these rose to become rulers of principalities that were practically independent of Byzantium.[4]
In 1258, the Sicilians took possession of the island of
References
- ^ Raymond Zickel and Walter R. Iwaskiw, editors. (1994). ""The Barbarian Invasions and the Middle Ages," Albania: A Country Study". countrystudies.us/albania/index.htm. Retrieved 9 April 2008.
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has generic name (help) - ^ Pritsak, Omeljan (1991). "Albanians". Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. 1. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 52-53.
- ISBN 978-0-8108-5846-6It was supposed that those Albanoi from 1042 were Normans from Sicily, called by an archaic name (the Albanoi were an independent tribe from Southern Italy). The following instance is indisputable. It comes from the same Attaliates, who wrote that the Albanians (Arbanitai) were involved in the 1078 rebellion of... p. 25
- ^ "Albania | History, Geography, Customs, & Traditions".
- Library of Congress Country Study of Albania