Ethnicity of Medieval Epirus

8/4/2019 Ethnicity of Medieval Epirus

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The Ethnic Composition of Medieval Epirus

As Albanians attracted the curiosity of many individuals in Europe in the early 1800 s, theirhistory also was scrutinized. Without exception, Albanians were seen as descendents of Epiriots(southern Albanains) and Illyrians (northern Albanians). Greeks to south, who had freedthemselves from the Turks in 1821, substantially due to the Albanian effort, were looking toacquire an identity. Their nationalist circles took it upon themselves to have dreams of a largeGreece that would encompass, what they thought, all Hellenic Greece, and Epirus was considerpart of it. This line of thought never ceased being a part of nationalist Greek view of what wasand is Greek. These nationalist Greeks are after to reincarnate the Byzantine concept of Romans ( ) under the name Greeks that would encompass all peoples that in theirmind were Hellenic in the past.

Greek nationalists found a co-sponsor of their views, the philhellene N. L. Hammond in his

work, Epirus , 1967, in which he saw Epirus as having been Greek from the start. Greeknationalist claims are always accompanied by lengthy quotes of his work. But, the fact is thatthese claims contradict historical evidence. It is important to note that none of the antiquityauthors has affirmed that the people that populated Epirus in antiquity were Greek, or that thePelasgians and the Greeks were the same people.

Hammond has never dealt logically with the information provided by antiquity authors or forthat matter information relating to the period that followed. He has not provided convincingsupport for his assumptions and many times his comment are contradictory. For example hereis a comment about Kurgan culture that was prevalent in Epirus. He indicates that proto-indo-european population inhabiting Epirus at the end III millennium could have been Illyrian orGreek; then he adds that in the far north, the Kurgan leaders spoke an early version of Illyrianand in Epirus, he indicates that their language was most likely Greek. He does not explain whythe population of the same culture would speak different languages, or explain why thepopulation of Epirus would speak Greek and at the same time maintain cultural aspects of thepeople immediately to the north.

His strategy was not to leave room for any tendency to identify the population of Epirus asIllyrian. Here is another blind effort to differentiate between Illyrians:

There were Illyrian Amantini in Pamonia and Greek Amantes in North Epirus, Illyria Autariataein Illyria and Greek Autariatae in Epirus, Illyrian Dassaratii n the Dalmation coast and Dassaretebetween Macedonia and Epirus, and Illyrian Perrhaebi in Illyris and Greek Perrhaebi in northernThessaly... 1


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He urges against the temptation of considering the Epiriotic tribes as being Illyrian, and all thisbecause according to his erroneous assumption, the tribes in Epirus spoke Greek and have noconnection with the Illyrian population to the north. To make his point more convincing, hestates that the Albanians make the claim (Who are they to do this!). The truth is that the

Albanians have just repeated what non-Albanian historians have maintained.His basic assumption, which is at variance with the historical data, is that according to him, thePelasgians are ancestors of the Greeks, thus saw the Greeks as having evolved prior to the indo-European settlements. According to him, in line with this theory, the Greek language spread inEpirus as of Middle Helladic period.

To see how Hammond sidesteps important source that contradict his basic assumption aboutthe Pelasgians, a people thought to have populated Epirus and to have existed prior to theformation of Greek ethnicity, let s quote Herodotus:

What language however the Pelasgians used to speak I am not able with certainty to say thePelasgians used to speak a barbarian language.

One thing was clear to Heroditus, the Pelasgean language was different from the Greeklanguage of his time.

When it comes to the question of the language of the population of Epirus, here is what R. A.Crossland indicated,

The phonetic characteristics of some place-names in central and northern Greece have been

thought to prove that Illyrians or closely related peoples were settled there before the Greeklanguage was introduced. 2

And more specifically to the importance Hammond attaches to koinon, R. A. Crossland says,

even the fact that inscriptions of a koinon of Molossian tribes, for example, were written inGreek c.370 B.C. does not prove that Greek was their original native language. Politicalarrangements would still have been made by the dominant minorities. One may note theperiod of bilingualism in the hellenization of central Sicily. 3

The limited use of the language in inscriptions in Epirus, especially for the upper strata of thesociety, does not imply that the practice involved the whole population but shows only theprocess of the cultural assimilation of a given upper stratum of society, especially of the urbanpopulation of Southern Illyria. Due to the political and social realities in Albanian territories, thesame phenomenon was observed even during the recent past. Use of written Albanian has onlya recent history.


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Still with some, the language of inscriptions bears significance, and trying to reconcile thisreality come up with a north/south line that divided the Illyrian and Greek speakingpopulations. For example Pierre Cabanes has shown that, linguistically, Greek was spken insouthern Epirus and Illyrian in the north and that there must have been an area of

bilingualism.4But chances are that there was no such line. The old reality in which the native Illyrianpopulation and Greek colonies was generally still in existence, although fringe areas might haveadapted Hellenic cultural elements over the centuries. The assumption that the colonists madeup the bulk of the Greek population is supported by respective dialects that were used in theinscriptions.

The Italian historian/archeologist M. Mustilli saw Illyrian traces in onomastics and toponyms.He concluded that Illyrians and Greeks continued to cohabitate in Epirus up to the twentieth

century (mb-his writing, 1941), but he indicated that the Greeks always constituted a minority.5

Strabo s observation concerning the extension of Macedonia, at about the beginning of thenew era, and that in the area extending from Macedonia to Kerkyra some of the population wasbilingual. On this M. Nilsson wrote:

If there were people amongst the epiriots who spoke two languages, one of the languagesmust have been Greek which they used in subscriptions, and the other was the local tongue .6

This would indicate that the autochthonous population had preserved its language as of thebeginning of the new era. It is interesting to note an element of continuity that today sAlbanians have maintained. Linguists, particularly, E. Cabej, have pointed out that the ancientnames of important cities and rivers have passed without interruption to the Albanians. Theseare geographic names from Antiquity the evolution of which into their present forms can beexplained by the rules of the Albanian language. Peripherial locations, such as Tivar (Antibaris),Nis (Naissus), Shkup (Scupi), Stip (Astibos), Oher (Lychnis), Arta (Arachthos), and Cami(Thyamis),7 the territories which southern Illyrians inhabited testify to the survival of theautochthonous population.

Past the antiquity authors and their comments about the South Illyrians, historical sources

continue to give evidence of a culture that was different from that of Greek. At the onset of theMiddle Ages, Illyrian areas were still under an administrative division that reflected the threeancient Illyrian states (Ardian, Dardan, and Epiriot states). During the reign of Justinian, thedivision was: Old Epirus, with Nicopolis as its center, New Epirus which Included Prevalitania,with Durres as its center, and Dardania. Most likely the basis of the division was the Illyrianethnic character of the areas. For what other reason New Epirus, accepted to have beenethnically Illyrian, was designated as Epirus? And then include another Illyrian region,


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Prevalitania, under the same New Epirus designation. One cannot escape the conclusion thatNew Epirus was considered an extension of Old Epirus on the basis of their Illyrian ethnicity.

The common ethnicity of the area is also induced from other sources. At about the middle of the 6 th century, Procopius of Caesarea gives us the names of 168 fortified centers, the majority

of which were previously unknown, scattered over the four Southern Illyrian provinces. Veryfew of them are names of Latin or Greek origin. Linguists consider these names to be partly of Illyrian etymology, and partly of unexplained origin. This is a valuable material that wouldconfirm the Illyrian ethnic composition of the population of these provinces at the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages.7

Albanian archeologists have also focused on the subject relating to this period. Discoveries havereinforced the view that Old Epirus, New Epirus, Pralivatia and Dardania were populated by thesame ethnic group of people. A common culture is traced in products of various handicrafts, in

ceramics (including building ceramics), in the art of building, in architectural forms and mosaics,and even in circulation of money indicates a unity of material culture in these territories duringthe 5 th and 6 th centuries. This unity shows that populations of Old Epirus, New Epirus, Pralivatiaand Dardania belonged to one ethnicity, and related in the same manner to the influences of,first, the Roman and, later, the Byzantine culture.8

The increase in archaeological discoveries has also strengthened the view that autochthonouspopulation survived the upheavals that plagued the area. Analysis of twenty eight large andsmall cemeteries and numerous other finds, throughout the territory of today s Albania, has ledAlbanian archaeologists to through light on the early Albanian Middle Ages, particularly VII-VIIIand a later period, IX-XI centuries. Referred to as the Koman culture, the findings bespeak for asingle local culture and population throughout Albania. The continued use of Illyrian tumuli forburial during the middle ages, identical tomb architecture, similarity in burial rites, andaccompanying inventory testify for an established and compact culture.

Data from Southern Albania, the tombs of Prodan and Rehova (Kolonja region), Piskove andRepcke (Permet region), Dukat, Patos and some scattered graves in the region of Skrapar werealso reflective of this with culture. . Of importance in the formation of this culture are newcharacteristics reflecting early medieval reality. According to N. Bodinaku, the two

variants/cultures, that is the northern and the southern, are composite parts of the sameculture but also reflective of regional specifics.9

It was this reality that made possible the emergence of Arbrer (Arvanites/Arbanites) whichsome histories attempt to identify with the spread of the Albanian s, thus followingStandmuller s vision that the Albanians spread from their Arber enclave in northern Albania, asif the Arbers were the sole survivors of a more ancient population. But available date indicates


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that the general spread of the ethnic name Arber (it has to be made clear, the spread of thename and not of any particular tribe-mb) is linked, frst of all, with the intensification of therelations and exchanges between regions inhabited by the same Albanian population . 10

Hammond s point of view has impacted on views of some credulous historians. It is interesting

to view the work of Brendan Osswald, The Et hn ic Com positi on of Med i eval Epirus , 2005. Hereare some erroneous assumption, or should I say borrowings directly from Greek nationalisttexts:

We can reasonably accept that the majority of the population of Epirus ca. 500 A.D. was Greekor at least Hellenized. 11

To reach such an unsubstantiated assumption, which is in contradiction to the available data,and go on and discuss the ethnicity of Medieval Epirus, is unprofessional and plainly wrong. Thereality is that this assumption can t be proven, and as we indicated above, the language of subtitles can t be used as an indicator of the ethnicity of the population of the area. As weindicated above, Strabo s citation proved that the non-Greek population had survived manycenturies of assimilation. In the absence of convincing data to the contrary, it is logical toassume that this population escaped assimilation for many more centuries after.

Osswald starts his essay by describing the reality of Byzantine period. He says,

the universalist (at least until 1204) Byzantine Empire had a feeling of cultural, more thanracial, superiority4. Everyone, through adoption of the Orthodox Christian faith, could becomecivilized, and belong to the , a term which means strict o sen su the i nhab it ed land ,and which in reality denotes the ci v i l ized land Being the l i ng ua f r an ca , the language of theadministration and of the elite, Greek was not really a way to distinguish ethnicity, since largeparts of the barbarian populations had learnt Greek. This is why the Byzantine sources, before1204, rarely mention the Greek people as Greek, preferring, as for all the subjects of theByzantine Empire, the word Romans ( ). The word Greeks ( ) meant theancient pagan Greeks and only rarely did it refer to the Greeks of the medieval period 12

The population of Epirus that Strabo described above did not disappear,. The archeologicalfinds, as indicated above, show that they had preserved their identity. Byzantine writers

included this population with the rest of Byzantine peoples under Romans . Nothing elsewould be conceivable for an obedient people. But this situation changed the day the Albaniansbegan to assert themselves politically. In this context one can undertand Michael Attaleiates(11 th century) reference to the Albanians as a people:

the people who had once been our allies and who possessed the same rights as citizens and thesame religion, i.e. the Albanians and the Latins, who live in the Italian regions of our Empire


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beyond Western Rome, quite suddenly became enemies when Michael Dokenianos insanelydirected his command against their leaders... 13

When Osswald says although their (Albanian mb) original territory is still not preciselyknown, we can be certain that there existed no large Albanian population in Epirus: their

heartland in the 11 th and 12th centuries was the small territory of Arbanon54, between theRivers Devolli and Shkumbi , it is a blind effort to change historical facts. The reality is thatthere were expansions to this territory which were the result Albanians wielding poweroutside of the authority of Constantinople than the territorial limits of territories the Albanianspeaking population occupied. The population was identified as Arbanites only when itemerged outside of Byzantine control, not due to the migration of Albanains.

By the XIII, learned circles of began to focus also on language as a criteria to identify peoples,and as a result, the H ellene s, the Greek-speaking 15 Byzantine Orthodox element began to be

identified separately from Romaio. This concept allowed to destinguish the Orthodox Albaniansas belonging to a different language speaking community. But he still, being that they were byreligiously Orthodox, they were still not lumped under the same identity as the CatholicAlbanians. But the distinction began to disintegrate. For example, when the Byzantine writer of the XIV century, G. Pachymeres uses in on occasion the name Albanite 16 an on another Illyrian 17 was used to describe the inhabitants of New Epirus. Later on, the name Epiriotes came to beused for the Albanians. On occasion, instead of the name Epiriotes the name Macedonian wasused to identify the Albanians, and with this, Macedonia became the second name for Albania(Macedoniam sive Albaniam) 14

When Osswald states that For various reasons, some elements of the Albanian population,which was probably sedentary initially, then began, in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, toemigrate The Albanians arrived in Epirus from the north, but also from Thessaly 15

These conclusions are in line with N. L. Hammond thinking also and others who have seen theAlbanains as an expanding people and not a people that has gone through a contractionprocess throughout history, which all evidence supports. A people that spread from a smallarea far to the north, far to the east, and far to the south, not only In Epirus, but in the whole of Greece. One would ask is this expansion physically possible? How could the small Arbanite area

provide such a mass of people! In reality, these historians take the acceptance of Arbanite/Albanian identity by the people of various tribes of same ethnicity as indication of Albanian ethnic expansion. The ethnic unification and consolidation of the Albanians aspeople, as an historical-cultural phenomenon, found its expression, also in the generalextension of the name Arber to all inhabitants of this territory. This phenomenon had nothingto do with invasions, but with the creation of the universal socio-economic and culturalcommunity comprising the historic territories of the Albanians 16


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One can see the fallacy of such an assumption. Albanian settlements in Greece (that is the areasouth east of Epirus) are well known. The problem with references to these settlements is thatthey explain the origin of people as coming from north of Epirus. It is a well known fact that thelanguage of the people that partook in settlements, as well as the people that inhabited Epirus

spoke a southern Albanian dialect (the dialect that is spoken in Epirus). Linguists have indicatedthat dialectical division in the Albanian language occurred before 900 A. D. On the basis of this,the logical assumption to be made is that the origin of the population that emigrated to Greecewas Epirus and not the area north of Epirus. But this is exactly what proponents of northernorigin of Arbanites don t want to hear. They are stuck to the Greek nationalist point of viewabout Epirus, that Epirus was always inhabited by Greeks and that the Albanian settlers inGreece can t have originated in Epirus. Any change from this point of view would reveal thehistoric truth that during the Middle Ages, just as before, Epirus was populated by a non-Greekpopulation which Middle Age sources identify it to be of same ethnicity as the people to thenorth, that is Albanian.

Osswald could not ignore some interesting information about Epirus:

- Anonymo us Panegy ric of E m pe r ors Man uel and John VIII Paleologo s, clearly describes thecities of Arta and Ioannina as peopled by Greeks, while the Albanians occupy the rest of Epirus.17

-there appears in this region a clear preponderance of Vlach toponyms in the north and east,close to Thessaly, while Albanian toponyms are present in the west and south. It must be notedthat the two zones are not mutually exclusive26. Unfortunately, it is impossible to put a date on

these toponyms..., 18

I would agree that it is impossible to date the Albanian toponyms in Epirus. It should alsofollow that one can t put a date to the supposed Albanian migrations to Epirus. There is noevidence to support that. But there is much that speaks in support of the assumption thatEpirus during the Middle Ages, just as in classical times was inhabited by the same populationwhich in antiquity was referred to as barbarian and every evidence indicates to reflect Illyrianattributes, and after centuries of wars, occupations, foreign settlements and cultural influences,it preserved its Albanian identity.

As mentioned above, the cities of Arta and Ioannina were indicated to have been as populatedby Greeks. Both towns have positions in the fringes of Epirus. Arta is mentioned with this namein 1082 and served as an important Byzantine center. Iannina was founded by the ByzantineEmperor Justinian in the 6th century AD, and flourished following the Fourth Crusade.

Osswald is fairly factual when referring to the Greek migrations to Epirus. Here is what heindicates about Iannina:


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the fall of Constantinople to the Franks on 13 April 1204 and the subsequent creation of thestate of Epirus by Michael I Komnenos Angelos Doukas (1205-ca.1215) made it a destination fora lot of Greeks who wished to escape Latin rule So our sources mention this influx of refugees,coming from Constantinople. Demetrios Chomatenos, archbishop of Ohrid, says that half at

least of the refugees from Constantinople found asylum in Epirus... Theodoros Chamaretos, aGreek lord in the Peloponnese, fled to Epirus, and wrote to the father of his wife that she couldcome and join him, since Epirus was full of countless refugees from the Peloponnese, many of them persons of rank and wealth, and the lady would certainly find herself among friends andcompatriots 48. This influx of Greek refugees continued throughout the century: even after1261 and the restoration of Constantinople by the Emperor of Nicaea, Michael VIII Palaeologos,Epirus and Thessaly welcomed political or religious refugees fleeing from the Byzantine court

The most noble of the refugees, coming from Constantinople or from other places, seem tohave found a place in Ioannina, where the castle49 was created specially for them by Michael

I50. This city, quoted by John Apokaukos as a , that is a small city , became a newNoah s Ark for the refugees.

Iannina and Arta, located on the fringes of historic Epirus, were established religious,administrative, and commercial centers and would explain why they would be attractive forrefugees from the east. The flow from the east would also explain why the Greek element inthese centers has been relatively stronger historically, as opposed to the rest of Epirus. It isinteresting to note that as these Greek refugees were flooding to Epirus, native people fromEpirus were leaving and ended up settling whole territories in Greece (during the same general

period when according to some Albanians settlements to had occurred).Historians that theorize about Epirus on the bases of wrong, or unproven, assumptions doinjustice to history. Their agenda is to change history and that, long term, is not going to besuccessful. Evidence, from the earliest times indicates that Epirus was not ethnically Greek. Itsautochthonous, non-Greek population survived, as Mustilli indicated, up to the twentiethcentury.

1The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 79, 1989.

2.(CAH III, 842)

3Ibid., p. 840.

4Malkin, Irad, The return of Odysseus: Colonization and Ethnicity, 1998, p.143

5 D. Mustilli, Gl i Il iri nell Epir o n Le t e rr e albane si r eden t e Il C i ame ri a , Roma, 1941, p.138

6 M. Nilsson, Studien zur Geschichte d altem Apeiros und 1909, p 137.


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7Prtoblems of the formation of the Albanian people..., Frasheri, Kristo, 1983, p. 158

8Ibid., Anamali, Skender, pp. 72-73

9Budinaku, N., Iliria, 1983, p. 247

10Prtoblems of the formation of the Albanian people..., Buda, Alex,1967, p. 189

11Osswald, Brandon, The Ethnic Composition of Medieval Epirus (web abstract), p. 2

12Ibid., p. 2

13Elsie, Robert @albanianhistory.net

14M. Shufflay, Die Kirchenzustande im vorturkischen Albanien, in Illyr. Alb. Forschunen , p. 190

15 Osswald, Brandon, p. 8

16Prtoblems of the formation of the Albanian people...,Buda, Alex, 1983, p. 29

17Osswald, Brandon, p. 10

18Ibid, p. 5

7Ibid, p. 167

8Budinaku, N., Iliria, 1983, p. 247

10Prtoblems of the formation of the Albanian people...,Buda, Alex, 1983, p. 29

4Ibid., p. 21

1The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 79, 1989.

3Osswald, Brandon, The Ethnic Composition of Medieval Epirus, p.


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The Ethnic Composition of Medieval Epirus 133

When it comes ethnic composition of Epirus, much is learned from Ottoman defters which listed thenames of taxpayers. In particular, F. Duka, an Albanian historian, researching Ottoman archives foundinformation relating to the regions of of Ajdonat (Paramithia ) and Mazrak (Mazarak, Mazrek). Theseareas were included in the jurisdiction of Ioannina sanjak. Administratively they formed twohomonymous kazas, which were included in the composition of the new sanjak of Delvin around themiddle of the 16th century (1550-1551). The ottoman state made a detailed registration of 1551 in

sanjak of Delvin. Over 30 years later sanjak of Delvin underwent a new registration, which is reflectedin the Ottoman detailed register of 1583 (hicri year 991).

Me interes t veant sht edhe shqyrtim i antroponimis s vendbanimeve t ktyre dy njsiveadministrative t amris. Duhet theksuar se ajo sht e njjt pr nga karakteri me at t viseve ttjerashqiptare. Kt pohim e mbshtet para s gjithash fakti se popullsia e ksaj treve mbart emrakarakteristik shqiptar si Gjin, Gjon, Lek, Pal, Ded, Gjik, Gjok etj.

Nga ana tjetr, antroponimia ortodokse e popullsis ame sht e pranishme n variantin shqiptar tsaj. Madje n shum raste shum element t ksaj antroponime jan t shprehura n trajtat e saj tkrishtera t Shqipris veriore dhe qendrore. Kshtu p.sh. rndom hasen emra t till si N ik a (n vend tN ik o), Laz r (n vend t Llaza r ), K ond (n vend t K ondo ), etj.

Ethnicity of Medieval Epirus

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