Albania under the Byzantine Empire
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In 395 AD, the Roman Empire was divided and the area that now constitutes modern Albania became part of the Byzantine Empire. The area was subject to regular invasions by various tribes, but the Illyrians resisted their advances and preserved their language and culture.
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[edit] From Illyria to Albania
Albanians derive from one of the ancient Balkan nations. Some scholars believe that they are the direct descendants of Illyrians. In the course of several centuries, under the impact of Roman, Byzantine, and Slavic cultures, the tribes of southern Illyria underwent a transformation, and a transition occurred from the old Illyrian population to a new Albanian one.
As a consequence, from the 8th to the 11th century, the name Illyria gradually gave way to the name, first mentioned in the 2nd century AD by the geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria, of the Albanoi tribe, which inhabited what is now central Albania. From a single tribe the name spread to include the rest of the country as Arbëri and, finally, Albania. The genesis of Albanian nationality apparently occurred at this time as the Albanian people became aware that they shared a common territory, name, language, and cultural heritage.
The first undisputed mention of the Albanians is found in the Alexiad of Byzantine princess Anna Comnena, who records the tribe Arbanitai in the region during the wars of her father Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118) with the Normans.[1]
[edit] Barbarian invasions
In the first decades under Byzantine rule (until 461), Illyria suffered the devastation of raids by Visigoths, Huns, and Ostrogoths. Not long after these barbarian invaders swept through the Balkans, the Slavs appeared. Between the 6th and 8th centuries they settled in Illyrian territories and proceeded to assimilate Illyrian tribes in much of what is now Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. The tribes of southern Illyria, however--including modern Albania--averted assimilation and preserved their native tongue. In the 4th century, barbarian tribes began to prey upon the Roman Empire, and the fortunes of the Illyrian-populated lands sagged. The Germanic Goths and Asiatic Huns were the first to arrive, invading in mid-century; the Avars attacked in A.D. 570; and the Slavic Serbs and Croats overran Illyrian-populated areas in the early 7th century. About fifty years later, the Bulgars conquered much of the Balkan Peninsula and extended their domain to the lowlands of what is now central Albania. Many Illyrians fled from coastal areas to the mountains, exchanging a sedentary peasant existence for the itinerant life of the herdsman. Other Illyrians intermarried with the conquerors and eventually assimilated. In general, the invaders destroyed or weakened Roman and Byzantine cultural centers in the lands that would become Albania.[1]
[edit] Church split
Since the first and second century AC, Christianity had become the established religion in Albania, supplanting pagan polytheism and eclipsing for the most part the humanistic world outlook and institutions inherited from the Greek and Roman civilizations. But, though the country was in the fold of Byzantium, Albanian Christians remained under the jurisdiction of the Roman pope until 732. In that year the iconoclast Byzantine emperor Leo III, angered by Albanian archbishops because they had supported Rome in the Iconoclastic Controversy, detached the Albanian church from the Roman pope and placed it under the patriarch of Constantinople. When the Christian church split in 1054 between the East and Rome, southern Albania retained its tie to Constantinople while northern Albania reverted to the jurisdiction of Rome. This split in the Albanian church marked the first significant religious fragmentation of the country.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Raymond Zickel and Walter R. Iwaskiw, editors. (1994). ""The Barbarian Invasions and the Middle Ages," Albania: A Country Study". [1]. http://countrystudies.us/albania/15.htm. Retrieved on 9 April 2008.
- Library of Congress Country Study of Albania
