Arbanon ( or , , Árvanon; ) was a principality ruled by the native Progoni family, and the first Albanian state to emerge in recorded history. The principality was established in 1190 by the native archon Progon in the region surrounding Kruja, to the east and northeast of Venetian territories. Progon was succeeded by his sons Gjin and then Demetrius (Dhimitër), who managed to retain a considerable degree of autonomy from the Byzantine Empire. In 1204, Arbanon attained full, though temporary, political independence, taking advantage of the weakening of Constantinople following its pillage during the Fourth Crusade. However, Arbanon lost its large autonomy ca. 1216, when the ruler of Epirus, Michael I Komnenos Doukas, started an invasion northward into Albania and Macedonia, taking Kruja and ending the independence of the principality. From this year, after the death of Demetrius, the last ruler of the Progon family, Arbanon was successively controlled by the Despotate of Epirus, then by the Bulgarian Empire and, from 1235, by the Empire of Nicaea. During this period, the area was ruled by the Greco-Albanian lord Gregorios Kamonas, the new spouse of Demetrius' former Serbian wife Komnena Nemanjić, and by Golem (Gulam), a local magnate who had married Kamonas' and Komnena's daughter. Arbanon was eventually annexed in the winter of 1256–57 by the Byzantine statesman George Akropolites. Golem subsequently disappeared from historical records. The main primary source for late Arbanon and its history is the work of 13th century Byzantine historian George Akropolites. Etymology The principality was known as Árvanon (Ἄρβανον) in Greek, as Arbanum in Latin, and as Raban in the early 13th-century Serbian document Life of Stefan Nemanja. The term represents the name of a south Illyrian tribe attested in Ancient Greek Ἀλβανοί, later on denoting a proper name for an ethnic Albanian until it was replaced with Shqiptar in the 18th century. It is attributed directly to a Latin rendering of the tribal name Albanoi by Orel. Versions of "Arbën" have been observed since the 2nd century BC, the History of the World written by Polybius, mentions a location named Arbona (ancient greek Ἄρβωνα, latin Arbo) in which some Illyrian troops, under Queen Teuta, scattered and fled to in order to escape the Romans. Arbona was perhaps an island in Liburnia or another location within Illyria. In the 6th century AD, Stephanus of Byzantium, in his important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica (Ἐθνικά), mentions a