The legend of the Twelve Archontopoula survives in six different documents in several versions, both in Greek and in Italian, which were collected in the 1900s by the German Byzantinist Ernst Gerland (Histoire de la noblesse crétoise au Moyen Âge).
[1] One of the documents purports to be a charter, dated to the year 1182, claiming that the Emperor "Alexios Komnenos the porphyrogennetos" sent his son Isaac to rule over Crete after a rebellion in the island, as well as twelve noble families as his aides and lieutenants.
[2] The facts however do not fit the date: Emperor Alexios II Komnenos, who ruled in 1182, was indeed a porphyrogennetos, but was murdered in 1183 at only fifteen years of age, and did not have any offspring.
[2] As a result, Gerlach suggested that the events refer to the revolt of Karykes in 1092, under Alexios I Komnenos, but the latter was not a porphyrogennetos,[2] and his son Isaac was only born in 1093.
The various sons of the Skordyles clan are mentioned, each with his own sobriquet, apparently in an effort, according to the French Byzantinist Charles Brand, "to provide each of the existent sub-clans or affiliated families of the Skordyloi with an eponymous ancestor".
[7] At the very least, both documents attest that in the late 12th century there were large land-holding families in Crete, a hereditary landed aristocracy that had emerged as imperial authority declined, much like elsewhere in the Byzantine world of time.
[18] 'Melissenos' was a common surname in the late medieval Greek world, thus the membership to the Cretan branch of the family of people bearing that name and active outside Crete is often uncertain.
[22] Matthew Kaphates (Καφάτης), Kalaphates (Καλαφάτης), or Kaphatos (Καφάτος) is mentioned in twelfth, eleventh, and tenth place in the various versions of the 1182 charter.