the barony of nikli was established ca. 1209, after the conquest of the peloponnese by the crusaders, and was one of the original twelve secular baronies within the principality of achaea. the barony, with six knight's fiefs attached to it, was given to a lord known in the greek and italian versions of the "chronicle of the morea" only as william, but whose family name is given by angevin records as morlay. william was succeeded by his son hugh—although karl hopf suggested the interposition of a second william after the original founder for chronological reasons—and then, around 1280, by androuin de villiers or de villa, who had married hugh's sister sachette.