Albania in the Middle Ages
After a war against the Byzantine empire led the kingdom occasionally decrease in size until the Angevins eventually lost their rule in Albania and led the territory ruled by several different Albanian chieftains until the mid 14th century which for a short period of time were conquered by the short-lived empire of Serbia.
In 1432-36 local Albanian chieftains dissatisfied with losing their pre-Ottoman privileges organized a revolt in southern Albania.
In 1444, Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg was proclaimed as the leader of the regional Albanian chieftains and nobles united against the Ottoman Empire in the League of Lezhë disestablished in 1479.
Despite his military valor he was not able to do more than to hold his own possessions within the very small area in the North Albania where almost all his victories against the Ottomans took place.
It consists of settlements usually built below hillforts along the Lezhë (Praevalitana)-Dardania and Via Egnatia road networks which connected the Adriatic coastline with the central Balkan Roman provinces.
The population of Komani-Kruja represents a local, western Balkan people which was linked to the Roman Justinianic military system of forts.
The development of Komani-Kruja is significant for the study of the transition between the classical antiquity population of Albania to the medieval Albanians who were attested in historical records in the 11th century.
Participation in trade networks of the eastern Mediterranean via sea routes seems to have been very limited even in nearby coastal territory in this era.
Beginning in the first decades of Byzantine rule (until 461), the region suffered devastating raids by Visigoths, Huns, and Ostrogoths.
In later Byzantine usage, the terms Arbanitai and Albanoi, with a range of variants, were used interchangeably, while sometimes the same groups were also called by the classicising name Illyrians.
[10][11] In the first decades under Byzantine rule (until 461), Epirus nova suffered the devastation of raids by Visigoths, Huns, and Ostrogoths.
[13] The area, known as Kutmichevitsa, became an important Bulgarian cultural center in the 10th century with many thriving towns such as Devol, Glavinitsa (Ballsh) and Belgrad (Berat).
In 1204, after Western crusaders sacked Constantinople, Venice won nominal control over Albania and the Epirus region of northern Greece and took possession of Durrës.
A prince from the overthrown Byzantine ruling family, Michael Comnenus, made alliances with Albanian chiefs and drove the Venetians from lands that now make up southern Albania and northern Greece, and in 1204 he set up an independent principality, the Despotate of Epirus, with Ioannina in northwest Greece) as its capital.
In 1272 the king of Naples, Charles I of Anjou, occupied Durrës and formed an Albanian kingdom that would last for a century.
Throughout its existence, the principality was an autonomous dependency of its neighbouring powers, first Byzantium and, after the Fourth Crusade, Epirus, while it also maintained close relations with Serbia.
[14] Arbanon extended over the modern districts of central Albania, with the capital at Kruja,[15] and it did not have direct access to the sea.
The kingdom extended from Durazzo (modern Durrës) south along the coast to Cape Linguetta, with vaguely defined borders in the interior.
The Sicilian Vespers further weakened the position of Charles, and the Kingdom was soon reduced by the Epirotes to a small area around Durrës.
After the fall of the Principality of Arber in territories captured by the Despotate of Epirus, the Kingdom of Albania was established by Charles of Anjou.
Charles signed a treaty with them and was proclaimed King of Albania "by common consent of the bishops, counts, barons, soldiers and citizens" promising to protect them and to honor the privileges they had from Byzantine Empire.
This alarmed the Byzantine Emperor, Michael VIII Palaiologos, who began sending letters to local Albanian nobles, trying to convince them to stop their support for Charles of Anjou and to switch sides.
During its existence Catholicism saw rapid spread among the population which affected the society as well as the architecture of the Kingdom.A Western type of feudalism was introduced and it replaced the Byzantine Pronoia.
Naturally, it required a collective budget for covering the military expenditures; each family contributed their mite to the common funds of the League.
Threatened by Ottoman advances in their homeland, Hungary, and later Naples and Venice, their former enemies, provided the financial backbone and support for Skanderbeg's army.
On 14 May 1450, an Ottoman army, larger than any previous force encountered by Skanderbeg or his men, stormed and overwhelmed the castle of the city of Krujë.
In June 1446, Mehmed II, known as "the conqueror", led an army of 150,000 soldiers back to Krujë, but failed to capture the castle.
Foreign commerce flourished to such an extent that leading Albanian merchants had their own agencies in Venice, Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia), and Thessalonica (now Thessaloniki, Greece).
