[2] The Chrysobull describes in detail the expansion of estates which King Milutin gifted to the settlements of Ibar, Sitnica, Laba, in Ras, Hvosna, Plava, Budim, Zeta, and others.

[3] After the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the Ottomans pillaged Milutin’s endowment and took the charter in the process, which has been kept in Constantinople since the second half of the 15th century, in the sultan's treasury of Old Saraj.

St. Stefan’s Chrysobull had been preserved in its original form—a parchment codex measuring 230 × 290 mm—but was trimmed down to 210 × 270 mm during the late 19th-century, when it was rebound in the red leather currently enclosing it.

[citation needed] Copied in Uncial script, in brown ink, with twelve lines per page, the manuscript boasts initials in red cinnabar, as well as signatures in red cinnabar (Milutin and Dragutin) and in blue ink (archbishop Nikodim).

Milutin's signature in the Chrysobull reads: "Stefan, by the mercy of God, King and Autocrat of all Serbian and seaside lands".