Archives for March 2022

Prof. Dr. Musa Ahmeti

Centar for Albanian Studies – Budapest 

Even today the Albanian Middle Ages is one of the dark periods which still needs to be researched in order to review or rewrite the history of the Albanian people. Many reasons have affected the creation of such a condition, but the main one is the lack of written manuscripts, documents, and original sources which are housed not only in Albanian archives and libraries, but also, and mainly, in European ones.

It is now widely known that during the Middle Ages, Albania was an “arena” of different wars. Foreign rulers came and went, one after another, destroying local civilized values ​​and looting the economic and cultural resources. Although these statements might sound quite accusative, I will argue them with various documentary sources, which, even if not saved in Albania, are fortunately preserved in other European archives and libraries. 

From the eleventh to fourteenth century alone, within about 300 years, about 32 different invaders came and left the Albanian lands, among them the Normans of Sicily, the Hohenstaufen, the Germans, the French Anjou, the Neapolitans, then Aragon’s Gonzalez, the Spanish empire, the Nicene and Byzantine empires, Bulgarian, the Serbian and the Ottoman empires, and the Venetian Republic.

A chronological presentation of all these regional wars in the Middle Ages looks roughly as follows: Seventh century (609), Avaro-Slavs populated the Balkans. The main Slavic tribes that took root in the Balkan Peninsula were the Croats and the Serbs. A significant event occurred in 732, when the Albanian bishoprics passed to dependence on Rome, leaving the rule of Constantinople. In the ninth century, the themes of Durres, Nikopol, Thessaloniki, and Dalmatia were established. From 852 to 879, the Albanian lands were under the rule of the Bulgarian king, Boris (Mihail), while the lands of the Albanians in Kosovo were occupied by another Bulgarian king, Simeon, from 894 to 927. In the early eleventh century, the theme of Skopje was established. The most important event in the Church, which left deep scars in the history of the Albanian people, was the division of the Catholic and Orthodox churches (1054), when Albanian lands were divided into two parts, namely, northern Albania belonging to the Rome-based Catholic Church, and south Albania belonging to the Orthodox Church with the patriarch in Constantinople. The Normans carried out a devastating raid on the Albanians in the years 1081 to 1084. The first Crusade in 1095 also passed through the Albanian lands, leaving destructive tracks behind. The Normans invaded Albania again in the years 1107-1108 and a third time in 1149.The Albanian territories were attractive for the Normans, so they occupied Albania for the fourth time, led by Guillermo I, in 1185. The crusaders of the Fourth Crusade also passed through Albania in 1204. The king of Sicily, Manfred Hohenstaufen, invaded in the years 1257-1258.

Throughout all these occupation campaigns, Albanians were often forced to migrate to other places which offered them security. It often happened that they also migrated to the power centers in order to integrate into the occupiers’ administrations and prosper under their authority. In both cases, their own cultural values were certainly taken into the new situation. This study will concentrate on medieval manuscripts that migrated from Albania to Italian and other European towns and are now housed in their respective archives and libraries.

Statuta et Ordinationes Capituli Ecclesiae Cathedralis Drivastensis

Statuta et ordinationes capituli ecclesiae cathedralis Drivastensis (Statutes and Constitutions of the Cathedral Chapter of Drishti) is one of the most important manuscripts of medieval Albania. Luckily it has survived as a complete manuscript with the name of its author, notary Simon Dromasys, and the exact date of creation. This statute is the only existent cathedral statute from the Adriatic coast and it is no wonder that it comes from the city of Drishti, which was a medieval town of strong Catholic character and high civic consciousness. These cathedral statutes were at the same time also town statutes, therefore they played a tremendous role in the history of Christianity in terms of specifying an ideal combination of secular life with religious one.  

Among the Great Council, which had the exclusive authority to admit ordinary citizens to the ranks of the nobility, the cathedral had a great impact on increasing the number of nobles because canonical choices by high religious institutions would turn ordinary people into nobles. This was one of the main reasons why the Albanian territories had more power to decide who would become clergy, and serve in important religious roles throughout Dalmatia, where they were automatically accepted into the top ranks of the local nobility.

According to a note made ​​public recently, the library of the Cathedral Chapter of Drishti was one of the largest libraries in the Balkans and the manuscript of the Statuta was taken from this library by Maria, daughter of Peter Angelus, when she had to leave Drishti at the end of the fifteenth century due to the Ottoman conquest of Drishti. This manuscript remained for a long time in the Venetian Republic and in the seventeenth century Petrus Angelus, vicar of Brias in the Veneto province, took it to his residence. At the end of the eighteenth century, Flav Komnenus Angeli sold this manuscript among many others, incunabulae, rare books, and his house to a Venetian merchant. From that time to the 1920s it is impossible to track the route of the manuscript 

The fifteenth-century manuscript is now housed in Copenhagen, in the Danish Royal Library (Det Kongelige Library, Håndskriftsafdelingen, København). Its existence, unknown to scholars since 1925, was rediscovered in 2005. Fragmented information about the existence of this manuscript and indications about its current location were retrieved by from notes of the Croatian medievalist Milan Šufflay. According to these notes, the manuscript of the “Statutes of the Cathedral Chapter of Drisht” were mentioned for the first time in catalog no. 438 of the German antiquarian Carl Wilhelm Hiersemann from Leipzig in June, 1915, fascicle 43, number 250. The manuscript is described briefly, but with the full title: Statuta et ordinationes capituli Ecclesiae Cathedralis Drivastensis. Since the manuscript was not sold, Hiersemann inserted the same notes from 1915 in the 1920 in catalogue no. 477, fasc. 7, under number 33.

Research in different libraries has shown that the manuscript of Statuta et ordinationes capituli ecclesiae Cathedralis Drivastensis was known among scholars, manuscript and rare book collections from1833. Information about the existence of this manuscript was made public by the collector Thomas Thorpe from references by Guilford, Naylor, Shaw, Mason, Allard, Monteil, and other collectors and today is to known as MSS Thorpe, 1833. The manuscript was transliterated, translated, and edited according to the critical criteria of modern publications by the Danish scholar Gunnar Svane, who unfortunately did not present a precise description and was not sensitive enough to errors in transcription. 

Research in many sale catalogs before 1915 for Sir Thomas Phillipps revealed an entry that Sothebys called Bibliotheca Phillippica: “the catalog of a further part of … manuscripts and later autograph letters of Thomas Phillipps (London, 1913), for a four-day sale (19-23 May 1913) on page 168 for the manuscript 826 (sold on May 22, 1913).” It continues: “Illyria: Statuta Pauli Angeli Archiepiscopi Dyrrhachiensis et Illyrice [sic] Regionis Judicis et Comissarii, original manuscript dating back to the fifteenth century in vellum with miniature and initial of Paul Angelus in the bishop’s coat. Folio. XV century.”

The Bodleian Library of Oxford holds a photocopy of the comments of this catalog in which the annotator gave the names of buyers and also the numbers of manuscripts in the original printed catalog of the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps. In this case, the buyer was Hiersemann and the price was 4 pounds 15 shillings. In Phillipps’ original catalog this manuscript was number 7308. There is also a modern reprint of this catalog: A. N. L. Munby, ed., The Phillipps Manuscripts: Cataloguse librorum manuscriptorum in Bibliotheca D. Thomae Phillipps, Bt. Impressum typis medio-montanis 1837-1871 (London, 1968). The entry for this manuscript in this catalog (p. 111) states: “Pauli Angeli Statuta sm f. V. s. XV [i.e., the little folio, vellum, saeculi XV], 1468.” Thus, it appears in this manuscript group under the title: “MSS Thorpe, 1833. From Guilford, Naylor, Shaw, Mason, Allard, Monteil, and Other Collections” (p. 107). In other words, the manuscript was bought by broker Thomas Thorpe in 1833, and came from one of those collections, the name of which cannot be identified with certainty. One thing is sure, that the manuscript did not come from the collection of Lord Guilford because the manuscripts from his collection are marked with “G” in the catalog. The phrase “… and other Collections” leaves room for continued research in the catalogs of other collectors to collect information about other early related Albanian manuscripts that are still unknown. Thomas Phillipps’ collection was colossal and large parts of the collection continued to be sold by his heirs long after his death. 

Milan Šufflay was not only the first one who drew the attention of the scientific world to the existence, value, and importance of the manuscript, but also the first to identify its location at that time, until 1920. Šufflay shared this information with Ivan Bojčinić in 1916, and was also trying to find a buyer able to buy the valuable manuscript itself. Šufflay approached the Croatian ban, Rauh, to buy it for the university library in Zagreb, but the purchase was not realized. He tried again through Thalloczy to make the Viennese Academy or Budapest buy it, but without success. While Šufflay was insisting that the manuscript be bought by any means (he also addressed the Serbian Academy of Sciences in Belgrade for help), suddenly, in 1920, he was informed that an anonymous buyer had bought the manuscript for the enormous amount of 2,000 marks, the highest price listed by the German antiquarian. This was unfortunate because he had hoped to publish this source, which he recognized as having exceptional value for understanding medieval Albanian cities.

In 1924, through the scholar Henrik Barić, Šufflay managed to ascertain the name of the buyer, a Dane, Sir Thomas Phillipps. He and his colleagues, Victor Novak and Henrik Barić, asked the Danish scholar Holger Pedersenin to mediate with Phillipps to obtain a photograph copy of the entire manuscript. Finally, in 1925, a copy of the manuscript, which was not yet complete, reached Šufflay, who, along with Viktor Novak, immediately started work and prepared the manuscript for publication, even with all the disadvantages. Their work was published in Biblioteka Arhiva za Arbanasku starinu, jezik i etnologiju in Belgrade in 1927. Although published, it remained virtually unknown and untapped by scholars and historians, Albanians and foreigners, for various reasons. In 1972, it was published in an abbreviated form in Albanian with multiple interventions in the magazine: Gjurmime Albanologjike, seria e shkencave historike [Albanological Traces, the Series of Historical Sciences] in Prishtina. 

To correct and complete the history of the arrival of the manuscript Statuta et ordinationes capituli ecclesiae Cathedralis Drivastensis in Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Håndskriftsafdelingen, København (the Danish Royal Library), we had the generous assistance of two great Albanologists Dr. Noel Malcolm and Dr. Robert Elsie. Through the latter, Malcolm sent us valuable information about the history of the movement of the manuscript. From his research in British libraries, Malcolm came to the conclusion that the claim that the manuscript was sold by Hiersemann to the “Danish” Thomas Phillipps was wrong, since Mr. Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872) was not Danish, but a famous English manuscript and books collector.

Codex ASHB 1167 of Laurenziana – Florence 

In the constellation of outstanding Albanian humanists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Archbishop Paulus Angelus is the most prominent. Not only did his family play an important role in the Middle Ages in Albania, but he also did himself, especially in the period of Skanderbeg. He had close ties with leading noble Albanian families and managed to organize important events during his lifetime. The Ashburnham Codex is famous among Albanians because it included the first sentence written in Albanian, namely, the baptism formula.

In 1915 the Romanian historian Nikolae Jorga was the first to draw the attention of scholars to this codex. He discovered the manuscript of Paulus Angelus, Ashb. 1167, in which the baptismal formula appears and published it in his work Notes et extratis pour servir a l’Histoire des Croisades au XV^e Siècle. Since 1915, when N. Jorga first made ​​public the news of the discovery of the Codex of Paulus Angeli in the Biblioteca Laurenziana of Florence, many scholars have written and debated about it. His information is found in texts of literary history, the history of the Albanian people, specialized monographs, special editions of the Linguistic Institute of Academy in Tirana and Prishtina, bibliography, studies, and articles both purely scholarly and popular nonfiction. 

The Firenze Codex, Ashb 1167, as it is called, is a Miscellanae of nineteen manuscripts which differ in their content, form, and time of creation. These various manuscripts, concentrated on the town of Drishti and also frequently tied to the Angelus family, hint at a broad use of the codex for political purposes or something similar. The high social position that the Angelus family achieved in Italy in the Early Modern period could have been grounded on these manuscripts, transported overseas. The titles of these manuscripts never been published before. 

1. f. 2^r-9^r Paulus Angelus, miseratione divina, archiepiscopus Durachiensis et Illiricae regionis
2. f. 9^v-11^r Casi reservati 
3. f. 11^r-13^r Ex aureo antiquitatum libro archivi civitatis Durachiensis 
4. f. 13^r-v Insuper additio facta mandato reverendissimi et illustrissimi Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae cardinalis archiepiscopique Dyrachiensis domini, domini Pauli Angeli anno Incarnationis Dominicae 1463., XV. Kalendas Ianuarii, Pontificatus vero Sanctissimi domini nostri domini Pii divina providentia papae secundi, anno eius sexto, videlicet… 
5. f. 13^v-19^r Decretum sanctissimi domini nostri domini Pii divina providentia Papae II. Emanatum ad instantiam reverendissimi ac illustrissimi Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalis ac Dyrachiensis archiepiscopi domini domini Pauli Angeli, et contra sectam Mahumetanam ac in favorem invictissimi regis Albaniae domini Scanderbeggi, ejusdem illustrissimi domini Pauli consobrini et prout patet per infrascriptam bullam, videlicet 
6. f. 19^v-20^r Cupientes igitur ut littere predicte plenariam (!) consequantur effectum discretioni vestre per apostolica scripta mandamus quatinus vos vel plures aut unus vestrum per vos vel alium seu alios litteras predictas 
7. f. 20^v Reperitur in Archivio Urbis Dryadensis hodie vero Drivastensis 
8. f. 21^r-22^r Privilegium seu confirmatio privilegiorum dominorum comitum civitatis Drivasti 
9. f. 22^v-25^r Conventiones et pacta facta cum domino Francisco Quirino a nobilibus Drivastensibus se sibi nomine illustrissimi dominii Venetiarum subicientibus 
10. f. 25^r-27^v Conventiones et pacta facta inter illustrissimum ac potentem ducem dominum Georgium Topiam, domini Durachii, et dominum Saracenum Dandulum nomine illustrissimi Venetiarum dominii de castro Dirachii 
11. f. 27^v– 29v De generationibus illustrium filiorum Isacii patricii senatorisque Romani et vari(et)atis fortunae eiusque cognominis 
12. f. 29^v-31^v Praeterea prefati illustres domini Pauli ad presens archiepiscopi Dirachiensis ac magnifici Comitis Drivastensis domin Petri fratres 
13. f. 31^v-32^r Insuper sciendum est quod anno salutis nostre millesimo CVI 
14. f. 32^r-v Baiulo et capitaneo Durachii 
15. f. 32^v-33^v Consilium cum Collegio die VIIII-o Junii 1461. Reverendo in Christo patri domino Paulo, Dei et Apostolice Sedis gratia archiepiscopo Durachiensi , amico dilecto
16. f. 33^v-34^v Fides operationum quas fecit reverendissimus ac illustrissimus Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalis dominis Paulus Angelus, archiepiscopus Dirachiensis, in favorem christiane religionis ac illustrissimi dominii Venetiarum suis propriis sumptibus
17.  f. 34^v-35^v Promissiones ab excellentissimo Consilio X. Facte magnifico domino Alexio Hispano de ducatis 400 annuatim sibi ac heredibus suis dandis de provisione 
18. f. 35^v Die XXVII Junii 1484 in Consilio Decem captum fuit quod omnes promissiones facte in acquisitione civitatum Provinciae Albaniae observentur in omnibus etc. 
19. f. 36^r-37^r Sanctissimo in Christo patri et domino domino Coelestino III, Dei gratia ac sacrosanctae Romanae ecclesiae Summo Pontifici. Isacius Angelus Constantinopolitanus imperator ac caesar semper augustus promptam cum omni subiectione reverentiam etc. 

The Statutes of Shkodra

The Statutes of Shkodra, one of the best preserved corpora of medieval laws in Eastern Europe, confirms the strong legal basis of medieval Albanian towns. Although they date from the fifteenth century, these statutes were unknown to Albanian medievalists until 1997, when Lucia Nadin discovered them in Museo Correr in Venice. According to the date at the end of the manuscript, the writing ended in 1469, when the last amendment was inserted. The first codification, however, seems to have started from the beginning of the fourteenth century. The author of this last amendment also added the place where the manuscript was preserved, the Archive of the Tenth. That also shows the importance attached to this manuscript: Ex originali antiquo quod est in archivio excelsi consilii X alme civitatis Venetiarum exemplatum per me Marinum Dulcichium quondam domini dischi quondam domini Wladislai de verbo ad verbum prout iacet in ipso antique.

Even though no other historical data are known that would tell how this manuscript ended up in Venice, it is no wonder to find it there. Shkodra was part of Venetian Albania at least from 1396 to 1479, when the Ottomans destroyed it and many other Albanian towns. Many Albanians fled to the Venetian Republic and also to other Italian towns, taking with them what they could, including intellectual property. The person who took these statutes with him was probably from one of the noble families who enjoyed a good reception in the Venetian Republic, which seems to be supported by its being housed in the archive of the Tenth.

Other Albanian manuscripts in Italy and their “flight” from Albania

Unpublished manuscripts are of great importance as primary sources in order to glimpse not only events of the Middle Ages, but also to the mentality of document creation, especially if those documents are related to each other either by having a joint author, or addressing an event or personality of that time. One attitude is to become suspicious about the truthfulness of their contents and treat these documents as worthless forgeries. Some specialists, scholars, and historians, however, consider these sources of great historical value that enriches the history of medieval mentalities. The Drishti Angelus manuscripts are among the manuscripts about which scholars continue to argue pro and con. 

The manuscripts of the Drishti Angelus family are numerous in Italian state and private libraries and elsewhere. Some of them are published, but most have only been discovered and are not yet published. Unpublished manuscripts of the Angelus noble family of Drishti are held in Venice, Florence, the Vatican City, Copenhagen, and Shkoder. A common element of four of them, namely, the ones from the Vatican City, Florence, and Venice is that they are written by the same hand, namely, a scribe in the first decades of the sixteenth century. Some of the Angelus manuscripts were also published, especially in the course of the sixteenth century, but since the Anglus family was already established in Italy, it is impossible to state whether these manuscripts were taken out of Albania or whether they were created while their authors were in Italy.

The majority of the manuscripts that had to flee Albania did so in 1477, when the Angelus family was at risk in Drishti and escaped from the Ottomans to Venice. Since the Angelus family had close links with the Venetian Republic, they managed to have a successful flight and took away almost everything that could be removed. The manuscript of the “Statutes of Drishti” was certainly an important document to be valued and its legal significance applied not only to the Church but also to the reputation of the family itself. With this manuscript, the Angelus family could prove the continuity of their nobility, their position, and the properties in Drisht that they had enjoyed for centuries. 

The fate of Codex ASHB 1167 was similar. After spending a few years in the Venetian Republic, Petrus Angelus gave it as a dowry gift to his daughter, Maria, upon her marriage into the noble Florentine De Medici family. The codex was kept as family property until the end of the sixteenth century and then, along with other manuscripts and rare books, became part of the famous Biblioteca Medici, where Nikola Jorga, the Romanian scholar, found it in 1916. The Statutes of Shkodra had a similar history. When it arrived in the Venetian Republic, the manuscript was valued so highly that it was kept in the library of the Senate. Through these manuscripts Albanian noble families managed to position themselves in the elites of societies where they sought to be incorporated.