The settling of the Petrus region

The Petrus region, extending around the upper stream of the Great Morava, the Grza and the Jovanovacka Reka, was not inhabited in Czar Dusan’s reign. The Czar’s charter indicates that it was a wasteland (pustos), which Župan Vukosav and his sons Držman and Crep were bequeathed. The wasteland was soon populated through internal and external colonisation. As early as in 1360, the nobility of the Virgin of Petrus, a foundation of the Vukoslavic family, had five villages in their possession. The Vukoslavic family formed another metochion on their land which they donated to the Athonite monastery of Laura of St Athanasius. The censuses of these metochia give information on internal colonisation. A considerable amount of text was written on the ruralisation of the Vlachs as an aspect of internal and external colonisation.