Albania under the Byzantine Empire

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Byzantine Albania
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In 395, the Roman Empire was permanently divided and the area that now constitutes modern Albania became part of the Byzantine Empire.

Antiquity

Map of the Balkans in the 6th century AD illustrating the Roman provinces, major settlements and roads.

After the region fell to the Romans in 168 BC, it became part of the province of

Epirus vetus and the northern parts belonged to Praevalitana
.

Barbarian invasions

In the first decades under Byzantine rule (until 461), Epirus nova suffered the devastation of raids by

Balkan Peninsula and extended their domain to the lowlands of what is now central Albania. In general, the invaders destroyed or weakened Roman and Byzantine cultural centers in the lands that would become Albania.[1]

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

Pope of Rome until 732. In that year the iconoclast Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian, angered by archbishops of the region because they had supported Rome in the Iconoclastic Controversy, detached the church of the province from the Roman pope and placed it under the patriarch of Constantinople. When the Christian church split in 1054 between the East and Rome, the region of southern Albania retained its ties to Constantinople while the north reverted to the jurisdiction of Rome.[citation needed
] This split marked the first significant religious fragmentation of the country.

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

Arbanon became an autonomous principality
ruled by its own hereditary princes.

After the

Serbian influence began to be strongly felt at this time, as well as those of Venice and later of the Kingdom of Sicily
, as both powers tried to gain control of coastal Albania for their purposes.

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

Stephen Dushan
.

References

  1. ^ 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. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  2. ^ Pritsak, Omeljan (1991). "Albanians". Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. 1. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 52-53.
  3. It 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
  4. ^ "Albania | History, Geography, Customs, & Traditions".