International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Fani Gargova
University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; 
[e-mail]
Contesting Epirote Identities: 
Material Culture and Ethnicity in the Second Half of the 14
th
Century
Much has been written about Epirus’ location as a crossroad or a territory in-between cultural 
spheres and its constantly changing status during late Byzantine times. An increasingly hybrid 
ethnical space, shared and negotiated between Latin Angevins and Florentines, Byzantines, and 
Serbs, one ethnicity stands out in how negatively they are portrayed in written sources: The Albanian 
presence in Epirus during the 14
th
century was a source of constant trouble and concern. They were 
seemingly barbarous, uncivilized and nomads and thus could not be integrated into society. At the 

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same time they were just as Christian as their neighbors and were, at least from a military point of 
view, capable of ruling a territory and maintaining capital cities in Arta and Angelokastron. This 
paper will ask for the material traces of the Albanian presence in Epirus during this period of time 
and whether those traces tell a different story then the Byzantine chronicles.

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EPIRUS REVISITED – NEW PERCEPTIONS 
OF ITS HISTORY AND MATERIAL CULTURE – PART 2
Conveners:
 Lioba
Theis
, 
Christos
Stavrakos
, 
Galina
Fingarova
, 
Fani
Gargova
Lorenzo Riccardi
, 
Unitary but Incomplete and in Part Lost. 
The Mosaics and the Scuptural Decoration of the Parigoritissa in Arta: 
Status Quaestionis and Some Observations
Brendan
Osswald
, 
The State of Epirus as Political “Laboratory”