The Barony of Kaytaina 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 "Chronicle of the Morea" mentions that the barony, centred on the mountain town of Karytaina, comprised twenty-two knight's fiefs. Karytaina was of particular strategic importance, as it controlled the southern part of the Skorta region and the ravine of the Alpheios valley, which was the main route from and into the central Peloponnese from the coastal plains of Elis.