Launch app →

Europe · High and late Middle Ages

Thessaly

drawn on the map 1272–1332

After 1268 John I Doukas, illegitimate son of Michael II of Epirus, ruled Thessaly (from Neopatras) as an autonomous Greek lordship (1268–1289), later held by his descendants (John II, to 1318). Its populations included Greeks and Vlachs (the region was sometimes called "Great Wallachia").

Shown on the map
1272–1332
Peak area
15k km²
Region
Europe

Overview

After 1268 John I Doukas, illegitimate son of Michael II of Epirus, ruled Thessaly (from Neopatras) as an autonomous Greek lordship (1268–1289), later held by his descendants (John II, to 1318). Its populations included Greeks and Vlachs (the region was sometimes called "Great Wallachia"). In the 14th century Thessaly fell in part to the Catalans (the Duchy of Neopatras, 1319–1394, attached to Athens), and later to Serbian rulers during Stefan Dušan's expansion, before Ottoman conquest in the late 14th century.

Common questions

What was Thessaly?
After 1268 John I Doukas, illegitimate son of Michael II of Epirus, ruled Thessaly (from Neopatras) as an autonomous Greek lordship (1268–1289), later held by his descendants (John II, to 1318). Its populations included Greeks and Vlachs (the region was sometimes called "Great Wallachia").
When is Thessaly shown on the map?
The border data draws Thessaly 1272–1332. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
How large was Thessaly?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Thessaly covered about 15,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia and the scholarship of Donald Queller, Thomas Madden and Jonathan Harris on the Fourth Crusade, whose post-conspiracy reading of 1204 this document follows. The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

See Thessaly in its world

Open the atlas at 1302 and every neighbour, rival and successor is on screen with it — then drag the slider and watch what happens next.

Open the map at 1302 →