1.
Fourth Crusade
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The Fourth Crusade was a Western European armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III, originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, a sequence of events culminated in the Crusaders sacking the city of Constantinople, the intention of the crusaders was then to continue to the Holy Land with promised Byzantine financial and military assistance. On 23 June 1203 the main fleet reached Constantinople. In August 1203, following clashes outside Constantinople, Alexios Angelos was crowned co-Emperor with crusader support, however, in January 1204, he was deposed by a popular uprising in Constantinople. In April 1204, they captured and brutally sacked the city, Byzantine resistance based in unconquered sections of the empire such as Nicaea, Trebizond, and Epirus ultimately recovered Constantinople in 1261. Ayyubid Sultan Saladin had conquered most of the Frankish, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, including the ancient city itself, the Kingdom had been established 88 years before, after the capture and sack of Jerusalem in the First Crusade. The city was sacred to Christians, Muslims and Jews, Saladin led a Muslim dynasty, and his incorporation of Jerusalem into his domains shocked and dismayed the Catholic countries of Western Europe. Legend has it that Pope Urban III literally died of the shock, the crusader states had been reduced to three cities along the sea coast, Tyre, Tripoli, and Antioch. The Third Crusade reclaimed an extensive amount of territory for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, including the key towns of Acre and Jaffa, but had failed to retake Jerusalem. The crusade had also marked by a significant escalation in long standing tensions between the feudal states of western Europe and the Byzantine Empire, centred in Constantinople. The experiences of the first two crusades had thrown into relief the vast cultural differences between the two Christian civilisations. For their part, the educated and wealthy Byzantines maintained a sense of cultural, organizational. Constantinople had been in existence for 874 years at the time of the Fourth Crusade and was the largest and most sophisticated city in Christendom. Almost alone amongst major medieval urban centres, it had retained the civic structures, public baths, forums, monuments, at its height, the city held an estimated population of about half a million people behind thirteen miles of triple walls. As a result, it was both a rival and a target for the aggressive new states of the west, notably the Republic of Venice. Crusaders also seized the breakaway Byzantine province of Cyprus, rather than return it to the Empire, barbarossa died on crusade, and his army quickly disintegrated, leaving the English and French, who had come by sea, to fight Saladin. There they captured Sidon and Beirut, but at the news of Henrys death in Messina along the way, many of the nobles, deserted by much of their leadership, the rank and file crusaders panicked before an Egyptian army and fled to their ships in Tyre. Also in 1195, the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos was deposed in favour of his brother by a palace coup, ascending as Alexios III Angelos, the new emperor had his brother blinded and exiled
2.
Mazo de la Roche
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Mazo de la Roche, born Mazo Louise Roche in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, was the author of the Jalna novels, one of the most popular series of books of her time. She wrote her first short story at age 9, One of the familys moves meant some years on a farm owned by a wealthy man who farmed as a hobby. There de la Roche began to develop her fictional world of aristocracy that would become Jalna. When she was seven, her parents adopted her younger cousin Caroline Clement. The two lived a reclusive life, their relationship was not discussed widely in the press. In 1931 they adopted the two orphaned children of friends of theirs, before she became famous, she lived for five years in Sovereign House in Bronte which has been designated a historical building by the Bronte Historical Society. Mazos Whiteoaks Chronicles figures into the term Whiteoaks which usually refers to the Oakville-Bronte area, De la Roche had her first story published in 1902 in Munseys Magazine but did not begin her writing career in earnest until after the death of her father. Her first two novels, Possession and Delight, were romantic novels and earned her little in income or recognition and her third novel, Jalna, was submitted to the American magazine Atlantic Monthly, winning a $10,000 award. Its victory and subsequent publication in 1927 brought de la Roche fame and her books became best-sellers and she wrote 16 novels in the series known as the Jalna series or the Whiteoak Chronicles. The series tells the story of one hundred years of the Whiteoak family covering from 1854 to 1954, the novels were not written in sequential order, however, and each can be read as an independent story. It is interesting to note the similarities and differences in the experiences of the Whiteoak family, while the lives and successes of the Whiteoaks rise and fall, there remained for them the steadiness of the family manor, known as Jalna. De la Roches family endured the illness of her mother, the perpetual job searches of her father, and her family did work a farm for a few years for a wealthy man who owned the farm for a hobby. Several critics believe that Finch Whiteoak who majors in Finchs Fortune is a reflection of de la Roche herself and he was a somewhat tortured concert pianist with overtones of gayness. The names of many of the characters were taken from gravestones in a Newmarket, the Jalna series has sold more than eleven million copies in 193 English and 92 foreign editions. In 1935, the film Jalna, based on the novel, was released by RKO Radio Pictures and, in 1972, Mazo de la Roche is buried near the grave of Stephen Leacock at St. Georges Anglican Church, at Sibbald Point, near Sutton, Ontario. Benares in Clarkson, Ontario is believed to be the inspiration for Jalna and is now maintained by the Museums of Mississauga, a nearby park is named Whiteoaks in honour of the series, as is a nearby elementary school. Streets in the area also bear such as Mazo Crescent, Jalna Avenue. Her house at 3590 Bayview Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, bought by The Zoroastrian Society of Ontario in 1975 and it is listed as a City of Toronto Heritage Property
3.
French people
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The French are an ethnic group and nation who are identified with the country of France. This connection may be legal, historical, or cultural, modern French society can be considered a melting pot. To be French, according to the first article of the French Constitution, is to be a citizen of France, regardless of origin, race. The debate concerning the integration of this view with the underlying the European Community remains open. A large number of foreigners have traditionally been permitted to live in France, indeed, the country has long valued its openness, tolerance and the quality of services available. Application for French citizenship is often interpreted as a renunciation of previous state allegiance unless a dual citizenship agreement exists between the two countries, the European treaties have formally permitted movement and European citizens enjoy formal rights to employment in the state sector. Seeing itself as a nation with universal values, France has always valued. However, the success of such assimilation has recently called into question. There is increasing dissatisfaction with, and within, growing ethno-cultural enclaves, the 2005 French riots in some troubled and impoverished suburbs were an example of such tensions. However they should not be interpreted as ethnic conflicts but as social conflicts born out of socioeconomic problems endangering proper integration, the name France etymologically derives from the word Francia, the territory of the Franks. The Franks were a Germanic tribe that overran Roman Gaul at the end of the Roman Empire, in the pre-Roman era, all of Gaul was inhabited by a variety of peoples who were known collectively as the Gaulish tribes. Gaul was militarily conquered in 58-51 BCE by the Roman legions under the command of General Julius Caesar, the area then became part of the Roman Empire. Over the next five centuries the two cultures intermingled, creating a hybridized Gallo-Roman culture, the Gaulish vernacular language disappeared step by step to be replaced everywhere by Vulgar Latin, which would later develop under Frankish influence into the French language in the North of France. With the decline of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, a federation of Germanic peoples entered the picture, the Franks were Germanic pagans who began to settle in northern Gaul as laeti, already during the Roman era. They continued to filter across the Rhine River from present-day Netherlands, at the beginning, they served in the Roman army and reached high commands. Their language is spoken as a kind of Dutch in northern France. Another Germanic people immigrated massively to Alsace, the Alamans, which explains the Alemannic German spoken there and they were competitors of the Franks, thats why it became at the Renaissance time the word for German in French, Allemand. By the early 6th century the Franks, led by the Merovingian king Clovis I and his sons, had consolidated their hold on much of modern-day France, the Vikings eventually intermarried with the local people, converting to Christianity in the process
4.
Othon de la Roche
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Othon de la Roche, also Otho de la Roche, was a Burgundian nobleman from the castle of La Roche-sur-lOgnon. He joined the Fourth Crusade and became the first Frankish Lord of Athens in 1204, in addition to Athens, he acquired Thebes by around 1211. The chronicler Alberic of Trois-Fontaines writes that Othon was the son of a certain noble Pons of La Roche in Burgundy, the identification of La Roche is uncertain, because Burgundy may refer either to the Free County or to the Duchy of Burgundy. La Roche-sur-lOgnon, a hamlet by Rigney in the Free County, is the most probable candidate, because of its proximity to Flagey, Venise, Othon confirmed his forefathers donations to the Charlieu Abbey in 1195. He was with the Fourth Crusade on its arrival before the walls of Constantinople in 1203, at that time, he was a member of the sixth division of the crusading army, which was formed by the people of Burgundy, according to the chronicler Geoffrey of Villehardouin. The crusaders captured Constantinople on 12 April 1204 and they started the conquest of the Byzantine Empire under the command of Baldwin IX of Flanders who was elected the first Latin Emperor of Constantinople on 9 May. The distribution of the conquered lands gave rise to conflicts among the commanders of the crusaders, Boniface of Montferrat—one of the most influential leaders of the Crusade—even laid siege to Adrianople, a town recently captured by Emperor Baldwin. In order to reach an agreement, the other commanders initiated negotiations with Boniface. Villehardouin writes that Othon de la Roche was one of the four counsellors of Boniface during the discussions. An agreement on the distribution of the Byzantine Empire was reached in October 1204, Boniface of Montferrats claim to the western regions of the Byzantine Empire was tacitly acknowledged. He went on to conquer Thessaly, Boeotia and Attica in November, to Othon de la Roche, he gave Athens. It is possible that Othon also received Thebes from Boniface, although Jean Longnon has argued that Boniface granted Thebes to Albertino and Rolandino of Canossa after the conquest, Othon took the title of Megaskyr or Grand Lord in Athens. There is uncertainty about when and how or even if he acquired the title Duke. The traditional account, found in the Chronicle of the Morea, states that it was first officially bestowed by King Louis IX of France around 1259 to Othons successor, Guy I de la Roche. The title does appear in some documents, including a letter of Pope Innocent III from July 1208. The Acropolis of Athens was fortified in Othons reign, according to Longnon, following the specialist Antoine Bon, Othon had a square tower erected by the main entrance of the citadel. Othon seems to have supported the development the Latin Church in his domains, Pope Innocent III confirmed on 27 November 1206 that Berard, the first Catholic Archbishop of Athens succeeded his Orthodox predecessor, Michael Choniates. Othon had good relations with the Cistercian Bellevaux Abbey in his native Burgundy and he established some monks from Bellevaux at Daphni Monastery in his Greek domains in about 1207
5.
Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell
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James Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell GCB GCMG GCVO PC, known as Sir Rennell Rodd before 1933, was a British diplomat, poet and politician. He served as British Ambassador to Italy during the First World War, Rodd was the only son of Major James Rennell Rodd and his wife Elizabeth Anne Thomson, daughter of Anthony Todd Thomson. On his fathers side he descended from the geographer James Rennell, Rodd was educated at Haileybury and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was associated with the circle of Oscar Wilde. Wilde later assisted Rodd in securing publication for his first book of verse, Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf, as Wilde began to court scandal in his public career, their friendship subsequently cooled. He entered the Diplomatic Service in 1883 and served in positions at the British embassies in Berlin, Rome, Athens. From 1894 to 1902 Rodd worked under the Consul-General of Egypt Lord Cromer and he played an important part in negotiating the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897 with Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia. In late 1901 he was appointed First Secretary at the embassy in Rome, in 1904 Rodd was made Minister plenipotentiary to Sweden, but did not arrive until 17 January 1905. He played an active and neutral part in the dissolution of the Union between Sweden and Norway, for which he was rewarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star by King Oscar II, after the secession he continued as a Minister in Sweden until 1908. The latter year he was appointed Ambassador to Italy and he was to remain in this post until 1919, and played a key role in securing Italys adhesion to the Entente cause. Rodd left the Diplomatic Service in 1919 but nonetheless served on the mission to Egypt in 1920 with Lord Milner and was British delegate to the League of Nations from 1921 to 1923 and he also sat as Unionist Member of Parliament for St Marylebone between 1928 and 1932. Apart from his diplomatic services Rodd was also a poet and scholar of ancient Greece. He published his memoirs, entitled Social and Diplomatic Memories, in three volumes between 1922 and 1925 and his diaries were published in 1981 by Torsten Burgman, and edited by Victor Lal in 2005. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1908 and in 1933 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Rennell, Lord Rennell of Rodd married Lilias Georgina Guthrie, daughter of James Alexander Guthrie, in 1894. They had four sons and two daughters and his third son, Peter Rodd, married the author Nancy Mitford, daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale and one of the famous Mitford sisters. His eldest daughter Evelyn Violet Elizabeth Rodd was a Conservative politician and was created a peer as Baroness Emmet of Amberley in 1965. The Dictionary of National Biography, 1941-1950
6.
Principality of Achaea
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The Principality of Achaea or of the Morea was one of the three vassal states of the Latin Empire which replaced the Byzantine Empire after the capture of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. It became a vassal of the Kingdom of Thessalonica, along with the Duchy of Athens, until Thessalonica was captured by Theodore, after this, Achaea became for a while the dominant power in Greece. Achaea was founded in 1205 by William of Champlitte and Geoffrey I of Villehardouin, the victory was decisive, and after the battle all resistance from the locals was limited to a few forts, that continued to hold out. The fort of Araklovon in Elis, was defended by Doxapatres Boutsaras and withstood the attacks until 1213, the fort of Monemvasia, and the castles of Argos, Nauplia and Corinth under Leo Sgouros held out until his suicide in 1208. By 1212, these too had conquered, and organized as the lordship of Argos and Nauplia. William of Champlitte ruled Achaea until he departed for France to assume an inheritance and he was succeeded by Geoffrey I of Villehardouin, who ruled until his own death in 1219. Achaea was rather small, consisting of the Peloponnese peninsula, but it was fairly wealthy, exporting wine, raisins, wax, honey, oil, the capital of the principality was originally at Andravida. It was bordered on the north by Epirus and the Duchy of Athens and surrounded by Venetian-held territories in the Aegean Sea, the twelve temporal barons were joined by seven ecclesiastic lords, headed by the Latin Archbishop of Patras. The twelve secular baronies were, Shortly after 1260, a barony, that of Arcadia was established. When Tsakonia and the mountainous regions of the southeast were subdued in the late 1240s. The twelve barons retained considerable powers and privileges, so that the Prince was not an absolute sovereign, thus they had the right to construct a castle without the Princes permission, or to decree capital punishment. Since Salic Law was not adopted in Achaea, women could inherit the fiefs. In addition, a Lower Court is mentioned, which abjudicated in matters of common law. On the other hand, all vassals owed the Prince four months service in the field and four months garrison duty every year, retiring after the age of sixty and this put the principality on constant war footing. Indeed, the knights of Achaea enjoyed a reputation both in the Levant and in Western Europe. The most important secular and ecclesiastical lords participated in the council of the Grand Court, the council had great authority, and its decisions were binding for the Prince. The Principality also produced a set of laws, the Assizes of Romania, which combined aspects of Byzantine and French law. Several Byzantine titles such as logothetes and protovestarius continued in use, the Frankish barons were subjected to heavy military obligations
7.
Geoffrey of Briel
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Geoffrey of Briel, in older literature Geoffrey of Bruyères, was a French knight and the third lord of the Barony of Karytaina in the Principality of Achaea, in Frankish Greece. He led a colourful and turbulent life, narrated in detail in the Chronicle of the Morea and he was pardoned both times, but henceforth held his title as a gift of the Prince. He died childless in 1275, and the Barony of Karytaina was split up, Geoffrey was the son of Hugh of Briel and Alice of Villehardouin, a daughter of the Prince of Achaea, Geoffrey I of Villehardouin. The family, which hailed from Briel-sur-Barse in the French province of Champagne, is named in the sources, e. g. Brieres or Prieres, Bruières, Briers. Geoffreys father inherited the Barony of Karytaina sometime around 1222 from his brother, the Barony was the third largest in the Principality of Achaea, counting 22 knights fiefs and being responsible for keeping watch over the rebellious inhabitants of the mountainous Skorta area. Geoffrey was born in Greece, possibly in Karytaina, soon after his fathers arrival there, Hugh of Briel died in early 1238, not yet forty years old, and was succeeded by the young Geoffrey. The Chronicle credits Geoffrey with the construction of the castle of Karytaina, Geoffrey enjoyed a high reputation as a warrior, and was deemed to be the best knight in the Morea. According to the Aragonese version of the Chronicle he maintained a school of chivalry at the castle Karytaina, Geoffrey married Isabella de la Roche, daughter of the Great Lord of Athens and Thebes, Guy I de la Roche. Later, however, he sided with his father-in-law Guy de la Roche, William however prevailed in the Battle of Karydi in 1258, and a parliament was assembled at Nikli to judge the defeated lords. Geoffrey was pardoned by the Prince and his lands returned. In 1259, Geoffrey participated in the army that joined the Achaean–Epirote–Sicilian alliance opposing the Empire of Nicaea. The allied forces, riven by distrust between the Latins and the Epirote Greeks, were dealt a defeat in the Battle of Pelagonia. Prince William and most of his barons, including Geoffrey, were captured in the aftermath of the battle, after William agreed, Geoffrey was released in order to convey the emperors proposals to the nobles of the Principality. A parliament was again held in Nikli, in the presence of Geoffrey, Guy de la Roche. The captive lords were represented by their wives, whereby this assembly became known as the Parliament of Ladies, the surrender of the fortresses began a long period of conflict between the Greeks of the reconstituted Byzantine Empire and the forces of the Principality for control of the Morea. Prince William was absolved by the Pope of his oaths to Palaiologos and his absence allowed the inhabitants of Skorta to rise up and aid the Byzantine troops in their offensive, which was halted by the same John of Katavas in the Battle of Prinitsa. Geoffrey was again deprived of his barony for this act, but was pardoned and restored to it on his return, Geoffrey is mentioned again in the campaigns of the early 1270s, when Palaiologos sent a new commander to the Morea, Alexios Doukas Philanthropenos. In 1270, Geoffrey and his neighbour, the Baron of Akova, the Latin force raided the Byzantine holdings in Laconia, but Philanthropenos avoided being drawn into a pitched battle
8.
Guy I de la Roche
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Guy I de la Roche was the Duke of Athens, the son and successor of the first duke Othon. After the conquest of Thebes, Othon gave half the city in lordship to Guy and it is unknown when he succeeded to the duchy, Othon is last mentioned in 1225, and was certainly dead by 1234. Guy also owned the whole of Thebes, for which along with Argos he owed homage to the Prince of Achaea, Athens itself was independent of any other sovereign than the Latin Emperor after the fall of the Kingdom of Thessalonica in 1224. The duchy was prospering at the time, however, due to its industry and its trade with Venice. In 1240, Guy gave out half of the lordship of Thebes to Bela of St. Omer, when William II of Achaea disputed the suzerainty over the island of Euboea with the Venetians and the local triarchs, Guy supported the latter. In the spring of 1258, William marched on Thebes and defeated Guy in a battle at the foot of Mount Karydi. He was subsequently besieged in Thebes and forced to surrender and he did homage at Nikli, but the barons of the realm, not being his peers, sent him for judgment to France. He left in the spring of 1259, the court of France found him not liable for liege homage and thus unable to be deprived of his fief. His journey was to be his punishment, the Chronicle of Morea asserts that Athens, which was technically only a lordship, was officially raised to the status of a duchy only after Guy met with Louis IX of France sometime in 1260. In Spring that year, Guy set out to return to Greece, receiving news on the way that William II had been defeated by Michael VIII Palaeologus at the Battle of Pelagonia, soon after his arrival, news reached him of the fall of Constantinople to the Byzantines. Guy also served as the administrator of Achaea while William II was held prisoner by Michale VIII, Guy survived these serious ruptures to the Frankish states in Greece until his death in 1263 and was succeeded by his son John I. Guy married a woman from the de Bruyeres family and had the following children, John, Duke of Athens. William, Duke of Athens, married Helena Angelina Comnena, by whom he had one son, Guy II, alice, Regent of Beirut, married John II of Beirut Marguerite, married Henry I, Count of Vaudémont. Isabella, married firstly, Geoffrey of Briel, Lord of Karytaina and she married secondly, Hugh of Brienne, Count of Brienne and Lecce Catherine, married Carlo di Lagonessa, Seneschal of Sicily. The Frankish States in Greece, 1204–1311, in Wolff, Robert Lee, Hazard, Harry W. A History of the Crusades, Volume II, The Later Crusades, les premiers ducs dAthènes et leur famille
9.
Duchy of Athens
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The first duke of Athens was Otto de la Roche, a minor Burgundian knight of the Fourth Crusade. Although he was known as the Duke of Athens from the foundation of the duchy in 1205, instead, Otto proclaimed himself Lord of Athens. The local Greeks called the dukes Megas Kyris, from which the shortened form Megaskyr, like the rest of Latin Greece, however, the Duchy recognized the suzerainty of Charles I of Sicily after the Treaties of Viterbo in 1267. The Duchy occupied the Attic peninsula as well as Boeotia and extended partially into Thessaly, sharing a border with Thessalonica. It did not hold the islands of the Aegean Sea, which were Venetian territories, the buildings of the Acropolis in Athens served as the palace for the dukes. The Duchy was held by the family of la Roche until 1308, walters son Walter VI of Brienne retained only the lordship of Argos and Nauplia, where his claims to the Duchy were still recognized. In 1312, the Catalans recognized the suzerainty of King Frederick III of Sicily, the ducal title remained in the hands of the Crown of Aragon until 1388, but actual authority was exercised by a series of vicars-general. In 1318/19 the Catalans conquered Siderokastron and the south of Thessaly as well, part of Thessaly was conquered from the Catalans by the Serbs in the 1340s. The principal towns and villages were represented by the síndic, which had their own councils, judges and notaries were elected for life or even as inherited offices. In 1379 the Navarrese Company, in the service of the Latin emperor James of Baux, conquered Thebes, meanwhile, the Aragonese kept another part of Neopatras and Attica. After 1381 the Duchy was ruled by the Kings of Sicily until 1388 when the Acciaioli family of Florence captured Athens, from 1395 to 1402 the Venetians briefly controlled the Duchy. In 1444 Athens became a tributary of Constantine Palaeologus, the despot of Morea, in 1456, after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey conquered the remnants of the Duchy. Despite the Ottoman conquest, the title of Duke of Athens and Neopatras continued in use by the kings of Aragon, Athens was the seat of a metropolitan archdiocese within the Patriarchate of Constantinople when it was conquered by the Franks. The see, however, was not of importance, being the twenty-eighth in precedence in the Byzantine Empire, nonetheless, it had produced the prominent clergyman Michael Choniates. It was a metropolitan see with eleven suffragans at the time of conquest, Euripus, Daulia, Coronea, Andros, Oreos, Scyrus, Karystos, Porthmus, Aulon, Syra and Seriphus, and Ceos and Thermiae. The customs of the church of Paris were imported to Athens, antonio Ballester, however, an educated Catalan, had a successful career in Greece as archbishop. The Parthenon, which had been the Orthodox church of the Theotokos Atheniotissa, the Greek Orthodox church survived as an underground institution without official sanction by the governing Latin authorities. The Greek clergy had not typically been literate in the century and their education certainly worsened under Latin domination
10.
Barony of Veligosti
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After Veligosti was lost to the Byzantines towards 1300, the name was retained even though the barony was reduced to Damala. Veligosti, near ancient Megalopolis, appears to have fallen to the Frankish Crusaders without resistance ca. The Valaincourt family was indeed represented in the Fourth Crusade, but as Antoine Bon points out, Bon himself considers the form Veligosti to be the original one—of ultimately Slavic origin—and the French name to have been derived from it. 1209, was one of the original secular baronies of the Principality of Achaea. Matthew held the barony until his marriage to a Byzantine princess, already in a document dated to 1256, William de la Roche is mentioned as lord of Veligosti. The process of the transfer is obscure, Hopf hypothesized that a sister of Matthew of Mons may have married William de la Roche. William de la Roche, younger brother of the Duke of Athens Guy I de la Roche, also held the region of Damala in the Argolid as a fief, and the two domains became united under the same title. Damala was captured easily in the first days of the Frankish conquest of the Morea, unlike the neighbouring citadels of Argos and Nauplia and these reports date to the second half of the century, and the area appears to have been entirely devoid of Frankish presence before that. From the 1260s, Veligosti became an important base for the Principality of Achaea in its war against the Byzantine province of Mystras in the southeastern Morea, along with Nikli it guarded the passes leading from Byzantine territory into the plateau of central Arcadia, the heart of the peninsula. After ca.1272 the Frankish presence at Veligosti began to come under increasing threat,1300, both Nikli and Veligosti had been lost to the Franks, and indeed seem to have been razed and/or abandoned entirely, as they are no longer mentioned in the sources. Although now confined to the fief of Damala, the continued to use the title of Veligosti, or rather its French version, Véligourt. Martino was succeeded by his two sons, first Bartholomew, and after his death in 1336, Centurione I, after Centuriones death in 1382, Damala seems to have been lost to the Zaccaria. Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté d’Achaïe, a History of the Crusades, Volume III, The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
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