From Venice's Centralization to the Revival of Blood Feuding in Northern Albania, Fifteenth–Seventeenth Centuries

• In Event: Negotiating the Levant

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the Venetian administration contributed to the deepening regionalism and the revival of tribalism, because of its weak monopoly on power, the centralization of life, and the corrupt administrators disinterested in the application of the just rule of law in Venetian Albania. In these conditions, the Albanian population solved their own problems through the application of the country's customary law. The chain events that followed, such as the 1479 surrender of Scutari, the center of Venetian Albania, the massive exodus of the population, and the abandonment of plains, the decline of production and the establishment of the Ottoman Timar system with a natural economy and rent payment in nature favored the descent of whole stockbreeding communities in the plains. The newly established tribal villages protected their self-government, autonomy, and isolated lifestyle, while challenging the Ottomans for centuries to come.

Author

• Azeta Kola, Northwestern University