Kastrioti (kephale)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Kastriot of Kanina is a figure who is mentioned in 1368 in a letter of
Alexander Komnenos Asen Alexander Komnenos Asen ( el, Αλέξανδρος Κομνηνός Ασέν; bg, Александър Комнин Асен) was the son of Despot John Komnenos Asen and nephew of Emperor Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and Empress Helena of Serbia ...
, ruler of the
Principality of Valona The Principality of Valona and Kanina, also known as the Despotate of Valona and Kanina or simply the Principality of Valona (1346–1417) was a medieval principality in Albania, roughly encompassing the territories of the modern counties of Vlor ...
to the Republic of Ragusa in relation to the Ragusan citizenship which Asen had acquired. Kastriot must have been an aristocrat in Kanina and is listed as one of the figures which formed Asen's court. The likeness of his name to that of the Kastrioti family, an Albanian noble family which is first mentioned in archival material a few decades later has been a subject of debate. In contemporary historiography, Kastriot of Kanina is considered unrelated to the Kastrioti family.


History

Alexander Komnenos Asen was possibly the son of
John Komnenos Asen John Komnenos Asen ( bg, Йоан Комнин Асен, Yoan Komnin Asen; gr, Ίωάννης Κομνηνός Ἀσάνης, Iōannēs Komnēnos Asanēs; sr, Јован Комнин Асен, Jovan Komnin Asen) was the ruler of the Principali ...
and succeeded him after 1363. He styled himself as "lord of Kanina and Valona" (''Kaninae et Aulonae dominus'', in Latin) and probably died in 1371 in the Battle of Maritsa. He maintained extensive diplomatic relations with the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Ragusa as his predecessor. The letter which mentions Kastriot of Kanina was sent by Alexander Komnenos Asen to the Ragusan senate on September 2, 1368. In the letter he thanked the senate for granting him Ragusan citizenship and listed the members of his court as figures who were witnesses to his citizenship oath. Those listed included the two
voivodes Voivode (, also spelled ''voievod'', ''voevod'', ''voivoda'', ''vojvoda'' or ''wojewoda'') is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central Europe, Central, Southeastern Europe, Southeastern and Eastern Europe since the Early Middle ...
(military commanders), Prodan and Mikleush, Branilo kephale of Valona, Kastriot of Kanina, Rajče, master of court (dvorodzica), Ujedja, Asen's cup-bearer, logothete Gjurica, the two judges, Stamati and Abrad and other figures. The same multiethnic court must have been in place in the time of John Komnenos Asen.


In historiography

The document is the only to mention a Kastriot of Kanina. It was found and translated by
Karl Hopf Karl Hopf may refer to: * Karl Hopf (historian) Karl Hopf (Hamm, Westphalia, February 19, 1832 – Wiesbaden, August 23, 1873) or Carl Hermann Friedrich Johann Hopf was a historian and an expert in Medieval Greece, both Byzantine and Frankish. ...
. His translations contained several mistakes that led him to conclusions which were later corrected. Hopf misidentified Alexander Komnenos Asen as ruler in Valona with an Alexander Giorić. This mistake was noted and corrected early on by
Konstantin Jireček Konstantin Josef Jireček (24 July 1854 10 January 1918) was an Austro-Hungarian Czech historian, politician, diplomat, and Slavist. He was the founder of Bohemian Balkanology (or Balkan Studies) and Byzantine studies, and wrote extensively o ...
. Another mistake by Hopf is the mistranslation of Branilo, kephale of Valona and Kastriot of Kanina. Hopf overlooked the letter "i" ("and") and translated these two names as the single name, Branilo Kastriot, which led him to mistakenly assume that this figure was a progenitor of the Kastrioti. While the idea of a figure named Branilo Kastriot was abandoned, the theory that a Kastriot who governed Kanina in 1368 was an ancestor of the Kastrioti was still put forward by a number of authors mostly in the early 20th century.
Heinrich Kretschmayr Heinrich Kretschmayr (1870–1939) was an Austrian archivist and historian who specialized in the history of Venice. His principal work is the ''The History of Venice'' (German: ''Geschichte von Venedig'') in three volumes - a monumental surv ...
argued that this Kastriot may have been in fact
Pal Kastrioti Pal or Gjergj Kastrioti was an Albanians, Albanian medieval ruler in the latter part of the 14th century in northern Albania. Not much is known about his life. He is mentioned in only two historical sources which describe his rule as extending in ...
(died ca. 1400), John Fine considered it "probable" that this Kastriot was an ancestor of
Gjon Kastrioti Gjon Kastrioti (1375/80 – 4 May 1437), was a member of the Albanian nobility, from the House of Kastrioti, and the father of future Albanian leader Gjergj Kastrioti (better known as Skanderbeg). He governed the territory between the Cape of ...
and
Aleks Buda Aleks Buda (7 September 1910 – 7 July 1993) was an Albanian historian. After completion of his education in Italy and Austria, he returned to Albania. Although his education was in literature, he made a career as a historian during the socialist ...
tried to bridge the geographical discrepancy between the Kastriot of Kanina who lived in southern Albania and the Kastrioti who were active in north-central Albania by arguing that after the fall of the Balšić, they returned to their ancestral lands in the
Dibër valley Dibër may refer to: *Dibër Valley, known today as the "Two Dibers", a tribal-highland region of northern Albania with the administrative and commercial center in Debar that was split between Albania and Yugoslavia, present North Macedonia Alban ...
. In contemporary historiography, the figure recorded as Kastriot of Kanina in 1368 is considered to be unrelated to the Kastrioti family. The Kastrioti remained absent from archival records in comparison to other noble families until their first historical appearance at the end of the 14th century.


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kastriot of Kanina 14th-century deaths House of Kastrioti 14th-century rulers in Europe