In the first half of the 14th century, mercenaries, raiders and migrants known in
Greek as
Άλβανοί (
Albanoi or "Albanians") flooded into
Greece (specifically raiding
Thessaly in 1325 and 1334). In 1358, Albanians got regions of
Epirus,
Acarnania and
Aetolia under their rule and established two principalities under their leaders,
Gjin Bua Shpata and
Pjetër Losha.
Naupactus (Lepanto) was later taken in 1378. Although German historian
Karl Hopf provided a genealogy of the Shpata family, it is deemed by modern scholarship as "altogether inaccurate". According to Schirò, Shpata family was not kin (blood relatives) with the later
Bua family. However this theory is rejected and their first name was Bua, while the name Spata appears to them as a second name, creating a cadet branch of the Buas. ==Family tree==