Mythological Origins of Epirus

[Artemidoros]

Sandwich said:

I have a barrage of questions:
I am particularily interested by what was happening in Thresprotia and the rest of South Epirus during the 13th-15th century. I have documents from the early 16th Century that talk about the arrival of Albanian settlers to the region in the late 15th century, with whom local landlords had to ‘come to an accomodation’. But Hammond et al indicate a pattern of Albanian incursions going back to the 13th Century. I have also heard of land grants to Albanians by the Serb kings during their domination of Epirus.

I think Hammond is right. The Albanians started moving south as soon as conditions allowed. The weakening of the Byzantine empire, the fragmentation and civil wars and a general confusion and lack of central authority. The movement south continued during the Ottoman conquest but in a different form I think. The newcomers were more like refugees rather than invaders. I believe local feuds made many move south to avoid other clans, who had converted to Islam and acquired more power.
Then there were officers of the new administration or people who were given timars. Of course these last ones were mostly Muslim.
If you have not guessed it yet, I am only speculating.

The confusion between linguistic and ethnic use of the term Albanian seems to bedevil this area of study.
So:
1) What sort of fusion took place in the 11th-13th Century between Tosk-Speakers and Greek –speakers in the Himara area of what is now Southern Albania?

2) How widespread was the use of Albanian language, either as bi-lingualism or as mother-tongue, in rural South Epirus before the 16th Century?

3) Would an ethnic Greek from Thesprotia have been described as an Arvanite by Greeks in Ioannina if he spoke Albanian, because Albanian had over a few generations become a dominant language in Thresprotia by about 1560?

4) All these people would be Orthodox, presumably? Or would there have been a Catholic element if Ghegs were involved?

The situation is so complicated that each answer would take a detailed study
Judging from toponyms I can not say whether Albanian was dominant in the whole Thesprotia at any point but does seem to be the case inland. The coastal zone has always been Greek speaking.
With reference to the Catholics I would say there must have been a number of Catholics but I don't think they had very strong convictions. Being a Catholic had certain political advantages in the Durres area but disadvantages in Epirus. They switched to Orthodoxy almost as soon as they arrived.

This is the first time I have heard of Vlachs being involved in this picture. I had always imagined a pattern of agricultural settlment, rather than pastoral, and by what were originally warriors of some Albanian lords - is this a role that fits the Vlachs?

No, the Vlachs were already there. In Epirus I mean. Different areas as a rule.

[labi]

Later additions might have involved Muslim Albanians who were hired by the Turks but I do not know of any examples of them settling anywhere in Greece.

ill provide a link that states muslim albs settled in peleponous.

There are two kinds of Arvanites: those of Albanian and Vlach Albanian descent. People like Melina Mercouri are descended from Albanian settlers (in fact, her ancestors were from the area of Pilouri near Himara.) Those from Koritsa are mostly descended from Vlach Albanians.

nice..... from himara and albanian.

i got a question about this so called vlaho-arvanities.
who exactly are these? korca vlahs didnt move to the region until 17th century. most vlach moved north around that time and later. fill me in please.

however there are plenty of examples of mixed albanian-vlah tribes so it is possible. malakasi who sieged ionnina plenty of tomes in the 14 century were clearly albanian than and known as such. but today they are vlach. maybe since they were the only albanian tribe around the pindos were vlach dominated.

The word Tsamis come from the ancient river Thyamis (Kalamas). At least that is what Babiniotis says. If we accept it as correct I can see three possibilities.
1) The Tsams have appropriated the name of the original inhabitants of the area.
2) The are indigenous Thesprotoi who converted to Islam and then adopted the language of the ruling elite, which in Epirus was effectively Albanian not Turkish.
3) They are descendants of an Illyrian tribe that have "always" lived there.

possible but unliekly. hammond puts another theory on the word tsamis. he sais it amy be derived from the turkish word plain or field(something in this nature dont remember exactly) since most of chameria was lowland valley. however artemidoros we have albanians in kosovo who call themselves kosovars. kosovo is clearly slavic toponym doenst mean these people are slavs now does it. yeah sure some kosovars may be albinized serbs but who is to say serbs havent serbinised albanians. it happens. the point is the toponym cant reveal us their origins. the tsams used to be tribal. their culture is similar to labs so they are most likely the same invaders as labs but who decided to migrate furhter south.

[Artemisia]

Epirus was really the melting pot of Greece. There were Greeks, Albanians, Slavs, and Vlachs in quite large numbers. The Slavs were probably smaller in number than the other three groups but there are plenty of Slavic place-names in Epirus (of course, a Slavic place name does not necessarily mean that the town was settled by Slavs; this area was under Serbian and Bulgarian rule for a long time and they could have changed the names as they pleased.) The Albanians probably moved south due to pressure from Slavic settlers. There were no Albanians in Epirus (meaning Epirus Vetus) before 1100-1200. The Vlachs probably moved in about this time, if not later. The thing about Epirus is that each group has its own identity and groups are clustered in "ethnic" villages. Thesprotia had many Albanian villages but there were also many Greek ones. The region of Dropolis had many Greek villages but bordering it were Albanian villages and to the east Vlach villages. Here's a tentative "ethnic" makeup of Epirus from Nicopolis to Himara as it was in the 20th century:
Arta: Greeks, Albanian-Vlachs
Preveza: Greeks, Albanians
Thesprotia region: Greeks, Albanians
Ioannina: Greeks, Vlachs, Jews, few Albanians
Dodona region: Greeks
Delvinaki region: mostly Greeks
Konispoli: Albanians
Dropolis: Greeks
Saranda: Greeks, Albanians
Himara: Greeks, Albanians
Koritsa: Vlachs, some Albanians
Gjirokastra (Argirokastro): Albanians, some Greeks


The name Tsams does indeed come from the river Thyamis of Thesprotia. The Tsams are from Albania and were Islamized. There's probably a considerable Turkish element to them as well.

[labi]

The movement south continued during the Ottoman conquest but in a different form I think. The newcomers were more like refugees rather than invaders. I believe local feuds made many move south to avoid other clans, who had converted to Islam and acquired more power.
Then there were officers of the new administration or people who were given timars. Of course these last ones were mostly Muslim.
If you have not guessed it yet, I am only speculating.

oher historians claim the opposite. after the ottomans came and after things calmed down by 1500 its the greeks and vlach tha began to move up north again.
hammond shows that chams lost land during 1500-1800s. meaning albanian loosen foothold on epirus.

Judging from toponyms I can not say whether Albanian was dominant in the whole Thesprotia at any point but does seem to be the case inland.

albanian were the late comers so they most likely kept the toponyms they found. south albania is mostly slavic toponyms. doesnt mean anthing to me. since albanians used to be semi-nomadic most likely they didnt built many settlements, only temporary. thats why like the vlach our foot tracks have been lost and we dont know the original location of all the albanians. how we appeared out of nowhere just like the vlach. i am curious about your inland comment. what do you mean are there any alb-toponyms there? or are you refering to the lack of greek toponyms in that area. i know that ionnina area is flooded with slavic toponyms, so if thats what you meant no albanian connection there. just old slavic tribes that dominated once.

[labi]

Koritsa: Vlachs, some Albanians

what?? edith duhram passed through it in 1904. she reported albanian majority. imcurious of this data. it includes only greek epirus and albanian epirus where theres minority. why cant it say laberia-pure albanian. permeti-mostly albanian. ;D

and the link i promised...
pub18.ezboard.com/fbalkansfrm37.showMessage?topicID=44.topic

somewhere in there it meantiones muslim albanians settling in peleponous.

oh and the last guy who comments on the thread by the name of xhenilatis=sonofzeus.

[AWAR]

BTW. I just wanted to mention that there is a probability that the use of the name Vlach in history doesn't necessarily need to be connected with a Vlach ethnicity.

For example, the Serbs used to refer to any sheep herders as 'Vlachs'.

Muslims from Bosnia refer to all Orthodox peoples as Vlachs. Especially Serbs.

[Sandwich]

Vlach is itself an interesting word. It seems to be a derivative from the same Germanic word cognate to welsch in German and Welsh in English, both meaning Roman, whether the Romans be Latin-speaking or Celtic-speaking. Vlach itself is Slavic (taking that form in Czech) and could mean Italian or Romanian, though the same word, with appropriate case endings, turns up in mediaeval Latin (Blachi) and Greek (Blakhoi, pronounced Vlakhi), only applied to the Romance speakers of the Balkans

www.friesian.com/decdenc2.htm

Roman=Welsh would imply the remnant of the Romano-British civilization seeking refuge in the mountains presumably.

[AWAR]

Welsch meant foreigner. The Welsh themselves called their land Cymru.

Slavs call Germans 'Nemci' which would translate to 'mutes'.

There are hundreds of similar examples from history. The strong newcomers invent a name for the previous inhabitants, usually one of the 'us vs. them' variety.

[labi]

vllej or vllah in albanian=vlach.
vlla in albanian=brother,

AWAR, you are knew to this issue(thats what im think, dont know if tis true). i know about the vlach you mention and im pretty sure they were not serbs. the idea that vlach in serbia refers to any one who is a shepherd is what the serbian academy claims. im not saying youre spreading propaganda, im just think thats all you know about vlach since the subject never intersted you.

he vlach that live in northern albania-montenegrin highlands-hercegovania were surely not serbs. they had a language of their own and a tribal system similar to that of the albanians. since most lived under a serbian state, they became orthodox. they became the frontier men for the turkish-austrian border hired by both sides to protect the border-land. they became serbinised since they belonged to the serbian church and mixing with serbians. i think montenegro ows its tribal structure (which is similar to the ghegs) to these vlach. some vlach fled the turks some served them. those that fled went into monengrin hgilands and old montengro mixing with the slavic refuges from the plains of zetan and they too became serbinised.

the biggest nahije of old montenegro is katunska. albanian and vlach word for village.

[AWAR]

labi said:

vllej or vllah in albanian=vlach.
vlla in albanian=brother,

AWAR, you are knew to this issue(thats what im think, dont know if tis true). i know about the vlach you mention and im pretty sure they were not serbs. the idea that vlach in serbia refers to any one who is a shepherd is what the serbian academy claims. im not saying youre spreading propaganda, im just think thats all you know about vlach since the subject never intersted you.

Give the 'serbian academy' argument a rest, please. Do you really think that Serbs only know what's dictated to them by the 'serbian academy' that's stupid.

I know from first-hand experience that older people still refer to shepherds as 'Vlahs', it's a fact, I don't claim to know exactly why is it like that.

he vlach that live in northern albania-montenegrin highlands-hercegovania were surely not serbs. they had a language of their own and a tribal system similar to that of the albanians. since most lived under a serbian state, they became orthodox.

they became the frontier men for the turkish-austrian border hired by both sides to protect the border-land. they became serbinised since they belonged to the serbian church and mixing with serbians. i think montenegro ows its tribal structure (which is similar to the ghegs) to these vlach. some vlach fled the turks some served them. those that fled went into monengrin hgilands and old montengro mixing with the slavic refuges from the plains of zetan and they too became serbinised.

So, now you start with your propaganda:

1. Krajina Serbs are "serbicized Vlachs"
2. Montenegro "copied" it's structure from Vlachs.
3. Montenegrins are Albanians/Vlachs who became Serbicized

the biggest nahije of old montenegro is katunska. albanian and vlach word for village.

Wow! Did you know that Katun means village in Montenegrin Serbian language too! Wow!

Also, did you know that the word "electron" is Greek in origin. I guess this makes anyone who uses electricity a Greek!

;D

C'mon, people. I just offered some additional info to your discussion, no need to start with Albanian vs. Serbian propaganda immediately... sheesh...

[labi]

if you say so. i just offered my opinion. no way in hell do i think vlach- just simply means shpeherd when
1)they have their own language
2)their own life-style/culture and society

this is insane. maybe since slavs are not shepherds may have widened the meaning to anyone who is involved in shpherding. but albanians dont call any shepherd vlach.
there is the word coban(turkish) and bari(pure albanian, bar=grass).

albanian communist propaganda tryed to claim that vlach were just shepherds thats all, not different form the rest of albanians, just guys whose occupation was grazing cattle. yeah how nice. however the goal was to assimilate the vlach and create homogenous albania. i find serbians trying to do the same, but here the vlach have long been assimilated. here its trying to show that serbs are pure. sicne the vlach are gone all whats left is the term vlach for anyone who is a shpeherd and katun for village. im sorry but slavs=farmer society. its in the ottoman days when you took refuge in the mountains that you adopted their life styles and assimilated them. you dont like my opinion oh well.

[Sandwich]

Welsch meant foreigner. The Welsh themselves called their land Cymru

Yes they do call their country Cymru, you can't help knowing that in Britain, there's a political party by the name. It means friend, apparently, although not to the English.

But you’re quite right, the general view does seem to be, as I’d seen on the web, that Welsh means stranger – via Old English, Germanic and ultimately, Latin. The last bit is weird though.


QUOTE:

The ancient Germans used to call the neighboring Celtic peoples by the name Walha. This practice survived, for instance, in the modern English names of Wales (from the Old English Wealh) for the country which in the native language of its inhabitants is called Cymru (pronounced ['kmru]). The term Walha is most probably derived from the name of a Celtic tribe, living in the south-eastern regions of Gaul (modern France) and referred by the Romans as Volcae.

As the Celts on the European continent were gradually Romanized (between 2nd c. BC and 2nd c. AD) the Germans began using the term Walha to denote also the Romans and Romance-speaking peoples in general. Till modern times the German-speaking inhabitants of Switzerland call their French-, Italian- and Rheto-Romance-speaking compatriots Welschen. The Romance-speaking population in the Low Countries (concentrated mainly in the eastern regions of the modern state of Belgium) accepted the term Walha as its own ethnic name under the form Wallons (in English Walloons).

Early in the Middle Ages the Slavs in Eastern Europe borrowed from the Germans the name Walha (possibly from its Old High German variant Walah) as a designation for the Romance-speaking peoples under the forms Vlakhi / Vlasi (in South-Slavic languages), Volokhi (in East-Slavic languages) or Wlochy (in Polish). Thus the term Wlochy (pronounced ['vlxi]) is still in use in modern Polish as a designation of Italy. In South-Eastern Europe the Romance speakers have survived the barbarian invasions by fleeing to the mountains, where they became specialized in nomadic pastoralism. For this reason the Byzantine Greeks, who in their turn had borrowed the term Blachoi (pronounced ['vlaxi]) from the Slavic Vlakhi, often tended to use it when referring to the pastoralists in general. The term acquired some derogatory connotations as the pastoralists denied completely the political order and law, often practiced robbery and when engaged as mercenaries in the regular Byzantine army proved to be very treacherous (see the Anna Comnena account in Alexiad, Kekaumenos et al.). During the Ottoman rule in Bosnia (1459-1878) the Muslims refered in a derogatory manner to the Orthodox Serbs as Vlasi.

The Romance-speaking pastoralists on the Balkan peninsula were in permanent movement and beginning sometimes in the 10th or 11th c. they have gradually migrated northwards, from the Balkan mountain across the Danube, in the Carpathian region, concentrating first in Transylvania, especially in the region of Fagaras (Fagarash). The Hungarians who by then dominated this province, referred to them as Oláh (note that the Hungarian word for Italian is Olasz). In 1290 the Oláh military leader Radu Negru crossed the Carpathians, avoiding the Hungarian pressure, and penetrated the Lower Danube region. In the territory between the Carpathians and the Danube there was established an independent principality which in the Western Latin texts was called Wallachia (in Middle Bulgarian Vlashko); the Ottoman Turks, who led many wars against and effectively dominated the principality till the mid 19th c., called it Iflak.

www.orbilat.com/General_Survey/Terms--Wallachians_Walloons_Welschen_etc.html


Well, that's one view. But further research into the extraordinary story of these Volcae seems like a good idea, if anybody has the expertise.

They seem to have been mercenaries for Carthage, participating in the "Truceless War" mercenary revolt, then for Rome in Cisalpine Gaul. They settled - variously, one assumes, although not according to Strabo - in Galatia, with Ancyra as their capital (Cicero, Strabo) and stayed loyal to the Romans in the Mithridatic wars; also in the Black Forest area (Caesar) and Aquitaine/ Toulouse (Strabo).

Sources : Cicéron (Pro Fonteio 12), César (BG. VI, 24), Strabon (G. IV, 1 et 13), Pline (HN. III, 33), Ptolémée (G. II, 10), Kruta (71-72, 250-251, 253, 262, 265, 268, 275, 302-304, 306-307, 309-310, 323, 338, 343, 349, 376, 763, 865).
from www.cgb.fr/monnaies/vso/v18/gb/sommairegb7cd9.html?sommaire=Celtic%20coinage&nbfic=2582

Caesar said of them:
“And there was formerly a time when the Gauls excelled the Germans in prowess, and waged war on them offensively, and, on account of the great number of their people and the insufficiency of their land, sent colonies over the Rhine. Accordingly, the Volcae Tectosages, seized on those parts of Germany which are the most fruitful [and lie] around the Hercynian forest, (which, I perceive, was known by report to Eratosthenes and some other Greeks, and which they call Orcynia), and settled there. Which nation to this time retains its position in those settlements, and has a very high character for justice and military merit; now also they continue in the same scarcity, indigence, hardihood, as the Germans, and use the same food and dress; but their proximity to the Province and knowledge of commodities from countries beyond the sea supplies to the Gauls many things tending to luxury as well as civilization. Accustomed by degrees to be overmatched and worsted in many engagements, they do not even compare themselves to the Germans in prowess.”<br>
For Strabo on the settlement in Aquitaine see section 12 of : www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/4A*.html

It did occur to me that perhaps people have got this the wrong way round - could these Volcae actually BE the ancestors of the Vlach? No, probably not.

[Artemidoros]

labi said:

oher historians claim the opposite. after the ottomans came and after things calmed down by 1500 its the greeks and vlach tha began to move up north again.
hammond shows that chams lost land during 1500-1800s. meaning albanian loosen foothold on epirus.

I can accept that in the case of the Vlachs. Any Greek expansion north or inland would have been minimal, some traders and maybe a few shepherds. The general trend for over a thousand years is that Greeks abandon mountainous and inaccessible areas and move closer to the coast. Others go to the sea or abroad. Mountainous areas were taken over by Vlachs, who did not have much choice, or Albanians who were prepared to work harder. Since the results of their work would not have been very satisfactory, they were prepared to moonlight as mercenaries or use arms in order to make a living and give up agriculture altogether.

albanian were the late comers so they most likely kept the toponyms they found. south albania is mostly slavic toponyms. doesnt mean anthing to me. since albanians used to be semi-nomadic most likely they didnt built many settlements, only temporary. thats why like the vlach our foot tracks have been lost and we dont know the original location of all the albanians. how we appeared out of nowhere just like the vlach. i am curious about your inland comment. what do you mean are there any alb-toponyms there? or are you refering to the lack of greek toponyms in that area. i know that ionnina area is flooded with slavic toponyms, so if thats what you meant no albanian connection there. just old slavic tribes that dominated once.

I was specifically talking about the area round Souli. Most toponyms there are Albanian I believe, like Kiafa or Kougi. There are some Greek ones like Trypa and Slavic like Zalogo but most are Albanian. It is well known and documented that the Souliots were Albanian speakers predominantly. Moving from there towards Parga the toponyms are Greek and even the accent of the people changes.

[Artemidoros]

labi said:

possible but unliekly. hammond puts another theory on the word tsamis. he sais it amy be derived from the turkish word plain or field(something in this nature dont remember exactly) since most of chameria was lowland valley. however artemidoros we have albanians in kosovo who call themselves kosovars. kosovo is clearly slavic toponym doenst mean these people are slavs now does it. yeah sure some kosovars may be albinized serbs but who is to say serbs havent serbinised albanians. it happens. the point is the toponym cant reveal us their origins. the tsams used to be tribal. their culture is similar to labs so they are most likely the same invaders as labs but who decided to migrate furhter south.

Cam in Turkish is the pine tree. Camur means muddy, dirty. The three possibilities I put forward depend on the etymology I provided. I do not know if it is correct.

ill provide a link that states muslim albs settled in peleponous.

I have seen the quote in the other forum. It is about limited settlement after the bloody decade of the 1770s in properties that belonged to other people. Precisely the point I was trying to make. Many refugees came to my island but their descendants went back in 1821 to fight and reclaim their properties. They took bloody revenge on the Muslims and wiped them out of the Peloponnese. I think those Muslim Albanians would have been a prime target.

[Artemidoros]

labi said:

if you say so. i just offered my opinion. no way in hell do i think vlach- just simply means shpeherd when
1)they have their own language
2)their own life-style/culture and society

In Greek the term Vlahoi has a linguistic/ethnic meaning but it has been widened. It is used to describe pastoral populations like the Sarakatsanoi who are Greek speakers or even people from mountainous areas. It also has a derogatory meaning, a Vlakh is ignorant and uncivilised. On the islands people refer to Greeks with northern Greek accents as Vlahoi (derogatory).