and Lake Ohrid in a west to east axis and between the Shkumbin river valley and Mat river valley in a south to north axis. The fortress of Krujë was the military and administrative center of the region throughout its existence. History Early development There are scarce sources about Arbanon, with the exception of the chronicles of Byzantine historian George Akropolites, whose work is the most detailed primary source for Arbanon and this period of Albanian history in general. In 1166, we know that prior Arbanensis Andrea and episcopis Arbanensis Lazarus participated in a ceremony held in Kotor, then under the Serbian Grand Principality. A year later in 1167, Pope Alexander III, in a letter directed to Lazarus, congratulates him for returning his bishopric to Catholic faith and invites him to acknowledge the archbishop of Ragusa as his superior. After some resistance from local officials, the bishopric of Arbanon was put under the direct dependence of the Pope, as documented in a Papal letter dated in 1188. Little is known about archon Progon who was, between 1190 and 1198, the first ruler of Kruja and its surroundings. The Kruja fortress stayed in the possession of the Progon family, and Progon was succeeded by his sons Gjin and later Demetrius (Dhimitër). Reign of Demetrius Progoni Demetrius was the third and last lord of the Progon family, ruling between 1208 (or 1207) and 1216 (or 1215). He succeeded his brother Gjin and brought the principality to its climax. Since the beginning of his rule, Dhimitër Progoni sought out to create friendly networks in foreign policy in order to preserve the sovereignty of Arbanon against external threats, the most important of whom were for much of his reign the Republic of Venice and later the Despotate of Epiros. In 1208-09, he considered conversion to Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy for the first time in order to obtain support against his Venetian rivals. As Venice had been given the nominal rights to control Albania, conversion to Catholicism would nullify Venetian claims over territory controlled by another Catholic state, the Principality of Arbanon. It would also protect him from expansion by post-Byzantine successor states like the Despotate of Epiros. In his preserved correspondence with Pope Innocent III, Progoni as leader of the iudices of Arbanon, who signed as his followers, asked the Pope to send missionaries to spread Catholicism in his land. The Pope responded that