DBA Armies

This was the second (with Nikaia) large Byzantine state created when the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople and founded the Latin empire. The list covers the Despotates of Epiros, Thessaloniki and Thessaly. Epiros was organized from Byzantine remnants in Albania and western Greece. It destroyed the Latin kingdom of Thessaloniki in 1224, proclaimed the Empire of Thessaloniki; and was moving on Constantinople when defeated by the Bulgarians at Klokotnitza in 1230. The Bulgarians seized Thrace and Macedonia and the remainder of the empire split into Epiros, Thessaly and Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki fell to Nikaia in 1246, Thessaly was only nominally subordinate to Epirus and both were absorbed in 1340 by the revived Palaiologan Byzantine empire centred on recaptured Constantinople. References: Armies and Enemies of the Crusades 1. Heath, Armies of the Middle Ages Vol 2 1. Heath, The Despotate of Epirus D.M. Nicol.