[1] The community based its organizational, political and economic activities on the decisions of a council of elders or a senior member appointed as its leader.
[3] However, this description is more in line with today's distinct form of nomadic pastoralism called transhumance, whereas in the medieval times it had socio-political dimension, and significance in social and state affairs.
[6][7] A katun consisted of a community of several families or households gathered around one leader who directed the organizational, political and economic goals of his group.
Such groups (municipalities and katuns) could encompass a large number of villages and hamlets, and numerous population of different ethnic and/or cultural background.
[5][4] The earliest news about Vlach katuns can be found in the sources of Byzantine provenance, in the letters of Patriarch Nicholas to Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, at the very beginning of the 12th century.
The first mentions of katuns in medieval Bosnia dates back from the 14th century and are related to the Burmazi (1300), Banjani (1319), Drobnjaci (1354), Predojevići (1356), Mirilovići (1366), Zlokruha (1367), Žurovići (1367), Ugarci (1368), Vlahovići (1368), Tomići (1369), Vragovići (1376), Plijeske (1377), Prijeraci (1377), Kresojevići (1379), Perutinići (1386), Hrabreni (1388), Kutlovići (1393) and Maleševci (1397).
As the katun grew and organizationally developed, warrior petty nobility multiplied, and in feudal organisation would take a title of knez, who would often rule over 40 or 50 individual villages.