It has been suggested that it was founded by Rudolph Peel de Lan, a Norman who was sent as ambassador to Emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates (r. 1078–1081) and whom Anna Komnene records as "Raoul" in her history.
The first member of the family appears in 1108, when "Humbert, son of Graoul [Raoul]", a councillor of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118) was part of the Byzantine delegation that signed the Treaty of Devol.
The family is less prominent during the remainder of the century, although they were by all accounts prosperous landowners, with large estates in Thrace, and members of the imperial aristocracy.
Manuel and a third brother, Isaac, supported Patriarch Arsenios Autoreianos in opposing the Union of the Churches however, and were arrested and blinded.
John in the meantime had wed Theodora Palaiologina Kantakouzene, who after his death became a nun and one of the best-known literati of Constantinople in the last decades of the 13th century.