Mataranga

The Mataranga were an Albanian noble family that held the coastland between Durrës and Vlorë. They first appear in a Ragusan document of 1297, and shifted between Angevin and Byzantine overlordship, accepting Philip of Taranto as suzerain when he retook Durrës in 1304.

Paul Mataranga joined an Albanian coalition against King Stephen Milutin of Serbia in 1319, but the family's lands were swallowed by the expanding Serbian Empire before 1343. After the death of Stephen Dušan in 1355, Blasius Mataranga built the short-lived Principality of Mataranga between the Shkumbin and Seman rivers.

He ruled from 1358 to 1367 with the Byzantine title of sevastokrator under the suzerainty of Simeon Uroš and exported grain to Ragusa. In 1367 his principality was partitioned between the Thopia and Muzaka families, ending the house's independent rule.