text: Principality of Arbanon Arbanon was ruled by the native Progoni family. And it is officially viewed (ignoring the Illyrian tribe of the Abroi/Albanoi) as the first Albanian state. It was founded 1190 in the lands of Kruja, to the east and northeast of Venetian territories. The sons Gjin and Demetrius succeeded Progon and managed to retain a considerable degree of autonomy from the Byzantine Empire. However, in ca. 1216, Arbanon lost its great autonomy.
  High Middle Ages
  Republic of Venice
  The Uprising of Asen and Peter was a revolt of Bulgarians and Vlachs living in Moesia and the Balkan Mountains, then the theme of Paristrion of the Byzantine Empire, caused by a tax increase. It began on 26 October 1185, the feast day of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki, and ended with the restoration of Bulgaria with the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire, ruled by the Asen dynasty.
  In building its maritime commercial empire, the Republic of Venice dominated the trade in salt, acquired control of most of the islands in the Aegean, including Cyprus and Crete, and became a major "power" in the Near East and in all the Balkans. Venice seized a number of locations on the eastern shores of the Adriatic sea before 1200, partly for purely commercial reasons, but also because pirates based there were a menace to its trade. The Doge since that time bore the titles of Duke of Dalmatia and Duke of Istria. Venice became a fully imperial power following the Venetian-financed Fourth Crusade, which in 1203 captured and in 1204 sacked and conquered Constantinople, dividing the Byzantine Empire into several smaller states and established the Latin Empire.