The Kladas family is known in records from the Morea since 1296 when a "Corcondille" captured a castle controlled by the Franks for the Byzantine Greeks. Members of the family donated to a monastery at Mystra in 1366 and 1375. A "Krokodeilos" appears in the satire of Mazaris as one of the rebels against the Byzantine emperor Manuel II in 1415. The name "Krokontēlos" also appears on an inscribed donation to a church in Karytaina dated to the mid-1300s. Krokodeilos Kladas and his brothers are respected in Venetian sources. Also, Kladas was awarded Venetian knighthood and a gold robe just before the 1480 revolt.