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Thread: French historian on Kosovo

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    Quote Originally Posted by SuperDorian View Post
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    John VI Cantacuzene didn't meet Albanians in central Macedonia, it was in modern S. Albania and Ohrid. Here's Robert Elsie's translation:

    While the emperor was spending about eight days in Achrida (Ohrid), the Albanian nomads living in the region of Deabolis (Devoll) appeared before him, as well as those from Koloneia (Kolonja) and those from the vicinity of Ohrid (1). They paid homage to the emperor and willingly offered him their services. Those who lived farther away on the borders of the Byzantine Empire were commanded by letters from the emperor to hasten to Thessalonika in order to pay homage, which they did a short time later.

    While the emperor was staying in Thessaly (2), the unruly Albanians living in the Thessalian mountains appeared before him who, according to their tribal leaders, are called Malakasians, Buians and Mesarites and whose numbers reach 12,000. They paid homage to the emperor and promised to serve him, for they were afraid of being annihilated by the Byzantines at the onset of winter, living as they do, not in towns, but in the mountains and in inaccessible regions. Since they must abandon these regions in the winter due to the cold and snow, which falls in incredible amounts in such vicinities, they believed that they would easily fall prey to them.

    A short time thereafter, it was reported by the governors of the western parts of the empire that the Albanians nomads from Balagrada (Berat) and Kanina (3), who are quick to rise to arms and are restless by nature, had violated the treaties with the emperor, attacking and pillaging the towns there in a savage manner. They had ventured to do the same thing earlier when a good number of the rabble banded together and pillaged the towns until the emperor despatched an army against them, forcing them to settle down and not to cause any further injustice to the inhabitants of the towns of the west. But when summer came, as soon as the emperor's army had been disbanded and the soldiers sent back home, they were no longer to be kept under control, and ravaged the towns there with their pillaging and open incursions. Now, many of them had banded together and wreaked great destruction upon Berat, Kanina, Kleisura (Këlcyra) and a fortress called Skreparion (Skrapar). After repeated attacks, they also took Timoros (Tomor), a fortress in the west of the country not far from Berat and entrenched themselves in it. For these reasons, the emperor resolved to lead a campaign against them (4). Since the Dux John (5), ruler of Acarnania, was already dead at this time, the emperor hurried to reach the west for he hoped to bring Acarnania under his control. During preparations, he thought it a good idea to bring in an auxiliary force of Turkish infantrymen from Ionia to put down the Albanians. Since the latter live in high and inaccessible mountain regions with numerous secret paths and hideouts, they cannot be overcome by horsemen, in particular since they take to the mountain peaks in the summer where, in view of the natural environment, even infantrymen have no easy task because the defendants can shoot at them from above. As such, he sent an emissary to Umur and requested an auxiliary force of infantrymen. Umur received the emperor's representatives with pleasure since he regarded it as an honour to do something for him, and sent the troops to Thessalonika right away. Soon thereafter, the emperor arrived there himself with his Byzantine forces, took the Turkish allies with him and marched through Thessaly against the Albanians. Ravaging their land, he advanced right through to Epidamnos (Durrës) and many Albanians were slain. When they received word of the advance of the emperor, assuming his army consisted of Byzantine cavalry alone, they took to the mountains and to their inaccessible regions, believing in this manner to have escaped annihilation. They were nonetheless attacked by light-armed Turkish forces and archers, who operate admirably in inaccessible regions, and were easily overcome, not only because they were unarmed, but also because they were thrown into a panic by the unexpected attack of the barbarians. Many Albanians were killed or taken prisoner. Those who managed to escape, left behind their wives, children and possessions, and took refuge in remote regions. The Turks enslaved their wives and children, although other members of their tribes, who maintained good relations with the emperor, managed to ransom some of them from the Turks. The emperor himself also allowed many of them to be ransomed when their relatives came to him and begged for their release. Indeed, he would have let even more of them, or indeed all of them, be ransomed, had their relatives approached him in time while the Turks were still under his command. Since, however, the petitioners came to him after the departure of the Turks, he could only ransom a portion of the prisoners. Most of them were sent to the east as slaves. The Byzantines themselves do not enslave people. They are not allowed to, unless they are barbarians who refuse to believe in the redemption of Christ, our Saviour.
    So as can be several large tribes of Albanians remained nomadic herders and were pushing into Thessaloniki..

    Also Noel Malcolm mentions this

    From the details of the monastic estates given in the chrysobulls, further information can be gleaned about these Vlachs and Albanians. The earliest reference is in one of Nemanja's charters giving property to Hilandar, the Serbian monastery on Mount Athos: 170 Vlachs are mentioned, probably located in villages round Prizren. When Dečanski founded his monastery of Decani in 1330, he referred to ‘villages and katuns of Vlachs and Albanians’ in the area of the white Drin: a katun (alb.:katund) was a shepherding settlement. And Dusan’s chrysobull of 1348 for the Monastery of the Holy Archangels in Prizren mentions a total of nine Albanian katuns
    Katuns were settlements of roughly 300 people, and were usually located in the bottom of valleys. Shepherding peoples would hunker down there in the winter while leaving the Katuns during the summer for their flock to graze in the mountains. Besides this, my assumption about the state of Albanians in general in the 14th century is that besides the regions around Kruja (where the Progoni principality existed) Albanians formed a migratory minority. There was a large population of various peoples across what is now modern Albania because the boundaries of what a nation-state is never existed back then. Modernity has brainwashed Balkanites into thinking that their lands were always historically pure, no there were communities of different groups across areas for centuries. Under Byzantium, various tribes and nations existed in interlocked communities that lived in relative peace.

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