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At first the Albanians came mainly from north of the river Shkumbi. Later, in 1308, Albania was a fairly wide, large region irrigated by four rivers, Ersentha (Arzen), Mathia (Mati), Scumpino (Shkumbi), and Epasa (?Apsus, now Semeni) in the anonymous Descriptio Europae Orientalis (ed. Gorka). By 1335 they were in possession also of the area between Berat and the Gulf of Valona, which contains the rich plain of Malakaster. A generation later they held most of northern Epirus and an important group or tribe among them, the Mazarakii, was settled on the western side of the upper Kalarnas. The centre of Greek resistance was loannina, which controlled its own plateau and shielded Zagori against attack by the Albanians (but not against attack by the Vlachs). As the Albanians overran Acarnania and Aetolia but for many decades were unable to capture Arta, it follows that they advanced and probably settled in south-western Epirus and crossed the Gulf of Arta at its outlet at Preveza, an Albanian word meaning a crossing (26). The main stream flowed on and reached Naupactus in 1378.
Once in possession of most of north-western Greece, the Albanians opened the way for other immigrants. Offshoots of Albanians and Vlachs entered Boeotia, Attica and Euboea, having probably come from summer pastures on Mt Parnassus and from southern Aetolia; and other groups of Albanians forced an entry or gained an invitation of entry into the Peloponnese, sometimes crossing over the western part of the Gulf of Corinth and sometimes coming to the Isthmus of Corinth. In many parts of the mainland co-existence of immigrants and Greeks was practised. But not in Epirus, which bore the main brunt. There the Greek pocket of resistance, which preserved the Greek language even when its ruler was Serb or Italian, was the plateau of loannina and its hinterland (primarily Zagori). A typical example of Greek withdrawal into the interior is afforded by the movement of a bishopric from Photice (by Paramythia) to Vela (in the upper Kalamas valley) and finally to Konitsa (in the upper Aous valley) (27). When 'Isaou', the Italian ruler of loannina, passed to the offensive in 1399, he had already won over the Mazarakii (Albanians) and the Malakasaei (perhaps Vlach-speakers) and he recruited Greeks evidently from Zagori, Papingo (above Konitsa), and "Druinoupolis with Argyrokastro and the great Zagoria" (probably the high country northeast of Argyrokastro, of which a part is still called Zagorie) (28) . He went then to ‘Mesopotamo', which I take to have been (like the modern Mesoyefira) below Konitsa at the confluence of the Aous and the Voidhomati; for he aimed to advance in the direction of Dibia, ie. via Korce and Ochrid (Epeirotica 2.237). His aim was to join hands with the Greeks who maintained their independence on the frontier of western Macedonia.
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