page_title: History of Albania
section_title: Principalities and League of Lezhë
hierarchical_section_title: History of Albania / Middle Ages / Principalities and League of Lezhë
caption_attribution_description: Josef Székely VUES IV 41056 Shkodra: the fortress. End of August 1863
context_page_description: The history of Albania forms a part of the history of Europe. During the classical times, Albania was home to several Illyrian tribes such as the Ardiaei, Albanoi, Amantini, Enchele, Taulantii and many others, but also Thracian and Greek tribes, as well as several Greek colonies established on the Illyrian coast. In the 3rd century BC, the area was annexed by Rome and became part of the Roman provinces of Dalmatia, Macedonia and Moesia Superior. Afterwards, the territory remained under Roman and Byzantine control until the Slavic migrations of the 7th century. It was integrated into the Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century.
  In the Middle Ages, the Principality of Arbër and a Sicilian dependency known as the medieval Kingdom of Albania were established. Some areas became part of the Venetian and Serbian Empire, but passed to the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. It remained under Ottoman control as part of the province of Rumelia until 1912, when the first independent Albanian state was founded by an Albanian Declaration of Independence following a short occupation by the Kingdom of Serbia.
context_section_description: In 1355 the Serbian Empire was dissolved and several Albanian principalities were formed including the Balsha, Kastrioti, Thopia and Shpata as the major ones.
  In the late 14th and the early 15th century the Ottoman Empire conquered parts of south and central Albania. The Albanians regained control of their territories in 1444 when the League of Lezhë was established, under the rule of George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, the Albanian national hero. The League was a military alliance of feudal lords in Albania forged in Lezhë on 2 March 1444, initiated and organised under Venetian patronage with Skanderbeg as leader of the regional Albanian and Serbian chieftains united against the Ottoman Empire. The main members of the league were the Arianiti, Balšić, Dukagjini, Muzaka, Spani, Thopia and Crnojevići. For 25 years, from 1443–1468, Skanderbeg's 10,000 man army marched through Ottoman territory winning against consistently larger and better supplied Ottoman forces. Threatened by Ottoman advances in their homeland, Hungary, and later Naples and Venice – their former enemies – provided the financial backbone and support for Skanderbeg's army. By 1450 it had certainly ceased to function as originally intended, and only the core of the alliance under Skanderbeg and Araniti Comino continued to fight on. After Skanderbeg's death in 1468, the sultan "easily subdued Albania," but Skanderbeg's death did not end the struggle for independence, and fighting continued until the Ottoman siege of Shkodra in 1478–79, a siege ending when the Republic of Venice ceded Shkodra to the Ottomans in the peace treaty of 1479.
caption: The ancient Albanian Castle of Rozafa in Shkodër, was the focal point of the Siege of Shkodra.
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