Vagenetia

Vagenetia or Vagenitia () was a medieval region on the coast of Epirus, roughly corresponding to modern Thesprotia. The region likely derived its name from the Slavic tribe of the Baiounitai. It is first attested as a sclavinia under some sort of Byzantine control in the 8th/9th centuries. It passed under Bulgarian rule in the late 9th century, and returned to Byzantine rule in the 11th. It passed to the Despotate of Epirus after 1204, where it formed a separate province. Vagenetia came under Albanian rule in the 1360s, until conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1430.

==History== thumb|Seal of Ilarion, the basilikos protospatharios and [[archon of Vagenetia]] The region's name derives from the Slavic tribe of the Baiounitai, who appear in the early 7th century during the Slavic invasions of the Balkans. Already during the 8th century, the Byzantine Empire tried to re-impose some control over the region, as a seal of office attests the presence of a civil governor ("Theodore, basilikos spatharios and archon of Vagenitia"), but the reading of the latter is not certain. Byzantine administration is securely attested towards the end of the 9th century, with the presence of both a bishop called Stephen in the Fourth Council of Constantinople in 879, and the seal of a civil governor (the basilikos protospatharios and archon Ilarion) from the turn of the 10th century.