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This Bulgarian state included a large 'Vlach' element descended from those Latin-speaking provincials whom the Slavs had pushed before them in their original migration; while the main body of the 'Rumans', whom the same thrust of invasion had driven leftwards across the Danube, had established itself in the mountains of Transylvania, and was just beginning to push down into the Wallachian and Moldavian plains.
"The Christians," says Presbyter Diocleas, "seeing themselves in great tribulation and persecution, began to gather on the mountains and tried to construct castles and strongholds that they might escape from the hands of the Slavs until God should visit and liberate them." This is probably the origin of the Vlach settlements on hill-tops and the Albanian mountain strongholds.
The first civil war was fought between Kolokotrónis on the one side and the Primates of Hydhra and Peloponnesos on the other; but the issue was decided against Kolokotrónis by the adhesion to the coalition of Kolettis the Vlach, once physician to Mukhtar Pasha, the son of Ali, and now political agent for all the northern Armatoli in the national service.
Records exist of Croats raids in the tenth century, whilst further south there were two great immigrations the first, in the seventh century, by the "Belocroats," called by Porphyrogenitus, Croats, from the banks of the Elbe, descendants of whom may to-day be found in the islands; and the second, in the fourteenth century, by the people of Rascia, who now inhabit much of the interior and are known as "Morlacchi," a name derived from the Slav "Mauro vlach," the black Wallachs.
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