retain him in his own service, but Villehardouin teamed up with his fellow Champenois, William of Champlitte, whom he enticed with tales of the richness of the land and with a pledge to recognize him as his lord. Boniface finally sanctioned their undertaking, and in charge of around a hundred knights and several soldiers, Champlitte and Villehardouin set out together to conquer the Morea. The towns of Patras and Andravida in the northwest fell without struggle, and at the latter Champlitte received the homage of the local magnates and people of the Skorta and Mesarea in the central Morea. From there the Franks moved south along the western coast, accompanied by a fleet, easily taking the fortress of Pontikon, which they repaired and garrisoned. They bypassed the strong fortress of Arkadia (Kyparissia), and passing through Navarino, arrived at Modon. They repaired the fortress walls, long ago torn down by the Venetians to stop its use as a pirate base, and assaulted the nearby fort of Coron, which fell after a single day, and the town of Kalamata, which surrendered. Battle At this point, the Greeks of Laconia and Arcadia, under the leadership of a certain Michael, tried to stop the Franks at the olive grove of Kountouras in northeastern Messenia. Modern scholars have traditionally identified this Michael with Michael I Komnenos Doukas, founder of the Despotate of Epirus, but this identification has been questioned more recently by Raymond-Joseph Loenertz, as the fragile nature of his control over Epirus would have made a departure to aid the Moreote Greeks a major and unlikely gamble. The events of the conquest are narrated by two sources, the various versions of the Chronicle of the Morea, and On the Conquest of Constantinople, by the Crusader Geoffrey of Villehardouin (uncle of Geoffrey I). According to the Chronicle, the Franks had 700 men on horse and on foot, while the Greeks had 4,000, both mounted and on foot. The Greeks are described as "the Romans in Nikli, those of Veligosti, and those of Lakedaemonia", and it is remarked that most of the infantry was provided by the Melingoi, the Slavic tribe living in Mount Taygetos. The elder Villehardouin states that the army of Michael (who is not mentioned by the Chronicle) numbered over 5,000 men, and that of the Franks little above 500 mounted troops. The two sources also differ in the exact chronology of events,