[6] One hypothesis proposes that the term is the Italian rendering of Greek στρατιώτες, stratiotes or στρατιώται, stratiotai (soldiers), which denoted cavalrymen who owned pronoia fiefs in the late Byzantine period.

[9] According to another hypothesis, it derives from the Italian word strada ("street") which produced stradioti "wanderers" or "wayfarers", figuratively interpreted as errant cavalrymen.

[15] From the 17th century Venice recruited light cavalry no longer from the Morea, but mainly from Dalmatia and Albania,[14] and the cappelletti gradually replaced the stradiotti.

[22] As such, they had previously served Byzantine and Albanian rulers, they then entered Venetian military service during the Ottoman-Venetian wars in the 15th century.

[24] The precise definition of their ethnic identity was the subject of careful study, while modern scholarship concludes that they were Albanians and Greeks who mainly originated from the Peloponnese.

[5] Some of the officers' surnames who were of Greek origin are Palaiologos, Spandounios, Laskaris, Rhalles, Komnenos, Psendakis, Maniatis, Spyliotis, Alexopoulos, Psaris, Zacharopoulos, Klirakopoulos, and Kondomitis.

The stradioti who moved with their families to Italy in the late 15th and early 16th centuries had been born in the Peloponnese, where their ancestors immigrated in the late 14th and early 15th century, after the request of the Byzantine Despots of the Morea, Theodore I and Theodore II Palaiologos, who invited the Albanians to serve as military colonists in the Peloponnese in the attempt to resist Ottoman expansion in the Balkans.

Hellenization was possibly underway prior to service abroad, since stradioti of Albanian origin had settled in Greek lands for two generations before their emigration to Italy.

Another factor in this assimilative process was the stradioti's and their families' active involvement and affiliation with the Greek Orthodox or Uniate Church communities in the places they lived in Italy.

[28] With the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 and the breakup of the Despotate of the Morea through civil war between 1450 and 1460, Albanian and Greek stradioti increasingly found refuge and employment with the Venetians.

In addition the Venetian authorities allowed the settlement of Albanians in Napoli di Romagna (Nauplion) in the Argolis region, outside of the walls of the city.

[34] In the reports of the Venetian commander of Nauplion, Bartolomeo Minio (1479–1483) stressed that the Albanian stratioti were unreliable contrary to the Greek units which he considered loyal.

[36] Although Stratioti units settled in western Europe and finally lost contact with their homelands, they were crucial in the spread of Greek-Orthodox and Uniate communities in Venice, as well as in other Italian and Dalmatian cities.

[42] The term "carabins" was also used in France as well as in Spain denoting cavalry and infantry units similar to estradiots and argoulets (Daniel G.)(Bonaparte N.[43]).

[45] The Kingdom of Naples hired Albanians, Greeks and Serbs into the Royal Macedonian Regiment (Italian: Reggimento Real Macedone), a light infantry unit active in the 18th century.

Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba ("Gran Capitan") was sent by King Ferdinand II of Aragon ("the Catholic") to support the kingdom of Naples against the French invasion in Calabria.

[49] In the middle of the 18th century, Albanian stratioti were employed by Empress Maria Theresa during the War of the Austrian Succession against Prussian and French troops.

[61] The stradioti wore particular caps, which were very similar to those of the Albanian ethnographic region of Labëria, with conical shape and a small extension,[62] reinforced inside by several sheets of paper attached together, ensuring surprising resistance.