ROBERT THE WISE OF NAPLES, 1309-43an important theatre of war since the Knights of StJohn of
Jerusalem occupied Rhodes in 1310.^21 In the former Byzantine
lands claimed by the Angevins there was more progress. The
'Kingdom of Albania' seemed to acquire again some reality,
with the co-operation of the native Thopia family.^22 The
Albanian nobility was loyal to the house of Anjou in the 1320s
and 1330s; probably it saw the Angevins as generous de-
fenders of their own domains against the Serbs. In 1336-37
an Angevin prince, Louis of Durazzo, gained successes against
the Serbs, fighting in central Albania. It was his family that
received Durazzo and the hinterland as a fief from Robert
of Anjou, founding a cadet branch of the dynasty which
was to have a major role in the politics of Naples and of
Hungary later in the century. So too in Achaia the Angevins
enforced their authority (1338-42), or rather the authority
of Charles of Valois' daughter Catherine de Courtenay, who
had married into the Angevin dynasty and had brought the
imperial title of Constantinople with her. More importantly,
she brought to high office and royal attention a remarkable
man who was greatly to help shape the kingdom of Naples
in future years: the Florentine Nicola Acciaiuoli, the son of
a prominent banker. For his help in holding Achaia he was
awarded his first fiefs, in the western Peloponnese; and on
his return to Naples he won office as justiciar of the Terra
di Lavoro, the province around Naples. Thus events in the
. '>1
Balkans help mould the shape of those m Naples.-
The links between the court of Naples and the Hungarian
court were intensified. A series of projects for a marriage
alliance between the two Angevin dynasties reached frui-
tion in the betrothal of Joanna, granddaughter of Robert,
and Andrew, younger son of the Hungarian ruler Carobert.
Joanna had become heiress after her father Charles of
21. Housley, Avignon papacy and the Crusades, p. 39, for Neapolitan involve-
ment in various plans.
22. As has been seen, Frederick III declined the offer to exchange Albania
and Achaia against Sicily: David Abulafia, 'The Aragonese kingdom
of Albania. An Angevin project of 1311-16', Mediterranean Historical
Review, vol. 10 (1995), pp. 1-13. On the Thopias, see D.M. Nicol, The
Despotate of Epiros, 1267-1479 (Cambridge, 1984).,
23. The principal account of Acciaiuoli remains that of E. Leonard, Histoire
de jeanne Jere reine de Naples, comtessf! de Provence, vol. 3, Le regne de Louis
de Tarente (Monaco/Paris, 1936); also Leonard, Angioini, pp. 461-
505.