Kruja, referred to as “Kroia” in Byzantine and as “Akçe Hisar” in Ottoman sources is the renowned mountainous stronghold of George Castriota Scanderbeg, considered to be a national hero of Albania. The city and its castles are located at the slopes of Kruja Mount, at an elevation of 580 m above the sea level. Appearing as a Diocese as early as 879 A.D., by the twelfth century it is already mentioned as a fortified city. When Kruja became the seat of the Castriota family, at the end of the fourteenth century or early fifteenth century, its castle had already been repaired extensively at least twice. The first recorded time was during the rule of Charles of Anjou, who almost reconstructed it in 1271, while in the course of most parts of the fourteenth century the castle’s previous tenant, Charles Thopia, also carried out important repair works. Hence, when the city and its castle became the stronghold of John Castriota, father of George Castriota Scanderbeg and husband of Voisava Tribalda, the hero of this story, they were effectively fortified and secured.
At the time of the Castriota rule, the Castle of Kruja was where its walls are now, as the Ottomans who rebuilt them did so on the foundations of the older Castle. By the sides of the main entrance, a round tower and a polygonal tower stood to control the traffic to the city and protect it from direct attacks. Inside the Castle’s entrance were the galleries of the guardians, the cistern, and the baths. At the Castle’s eastern side, a second pair of towers (one of which was later transformed to a clock tower) linked with fortifications marked the acropolis, a fortified zone within the fortified zone of the Castle. It is in this space that the residence of Kruja’s leaders must have been, including that of the Castriota family. The church, in which the story of Voisava Tribalda is unfolding, was existent at the latest since the fourteenth century. Its small dimensions fit a family-owned-and-used church – an appropriate setting for our story.
