Despotate of Epirus

Despotate of Epirus
Variously vassal of the Latin Empire, the Empire of Nicaea and the Palaiologan Byzantine Empire, the Angevins, and the Ottoman Empire
ca. 1205 – 1337/40 1356–1479
The Latin Empire, Empire of Nicaea, Empire of Trebizond, and the Despotate of Epirus, c. 1204
Capital		Arta (1205–1337/40, 1430–49), Ioannina (1356–1430), Angelokastron (1449–60)
Languages		Greek,Serbian
Religion		Greek Orthodox Church
Government
Despot of Epirus
•	1205–1214	Michael I Komnenos Doukas
•	1448–1479
Historical era		High Medieval
•	Established	1205
•	Byzantine conquest	1337/40
•	Re-establishment by Nikephoros II Orsini	1356
•	Ottoman conquest of Vonitsa	1479
Preceded by Succeeded by Byzantium under the Angeloi Serbian Empire Byzantium under the Palaiologoi Ottoman Empire
Today part of		Albania  Greece
a.	^ Subsumed into the Empire of Thessalonica, 1224–30; temporary Nicaean conquest, 1259–60
b.	In union with the County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos after 1416

The Despotate of Epirus (Modern Greek: Δεσποτάτο της Ηπείρου) was one of the successor states of the Byzantine Empire established in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 by a branch of the Angelos dynasty. It claimed to be the legitimate successor of the Byzantine Empire, along the Empire of Nicaea and the Empire of Trebizond. The term "Despotate of Epirus" is, like "Byzantine Empire" itself, a modern historiographic convention and not a name in use at the time.

The Despotate was centred on the region of Epirus, encompassing also Albania and the western portion of Greek Macedonia and also included Thessaly and western Greece as far south as Nafpaktos. Through a policy of aggressive expansion under Theodore Komnenos Doukas the Despotate of Epirus also briefly came to incorporate central Macedonia, with the establishment of the Empire of Thessalonica in 1224, and Thrace as far east as Didymoteicho and Adrianopolis, and was on the verge of recapturing Constantinople and restoring the Byzantine Empire before the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230. After that, the Epirote state contracted to its core in Epirus and Thessaly, and was forced into vassalage to other regional powers. It nevertheless managed to retain its autonomy until conquered by the restored Palaiologan Byzantine Empire in ca. 1337. In the 1410s, the Count palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos managed to reunite the core of the Epirote state, but his successors gradually lost it gain to the advancing Ottoman Empire, with the last stronghold, Vonitsa, falling to the Ottomans in 1479.