Barony of Veligosti
| Barony of Veligosti | |||||
| Barony of the Principality of Achaea | |||||
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| Capital | Veligosti, then Damala | ||||
| Government | Feudal lordship | ||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||
| • | Established | 1209 | |||
| • | Disestablished | c. 1300/1380s | |||
The Barony of Veligosti or Veligosti–Damala was a medieval Frankish fiefdom of the Principality of Achaea, originally centred on Veligosti (Greek: Βελίγοστι or Βελιγόστη; French: Véligourt; Spanish: Viligorda; Italian: Villegorde) in southern Arcadia, but also came to include the area of Damala (Greek: Δαμαλᾶ, French: Damalet) in the Argolid when it came under a cadet branch of the de la Roche family in the 1250s. 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 c. 1206. The name's origin is obscure. The 19th-century historian Karl Hopf thought that the Greek name derived from the French form Véligourt, in turn possibly a corruption of Valaincourt/Walincourt, which Hopf proposed as the place of origin of the original baronial line of Mons. The Valaincourt family was indeed represented in the Fourth Crusade, but as the French medievalist Antoine Bon pointed out out, there is nothing other than the similarity of the names to link them to the Frankish Morea. 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.
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