The Vlachs of Thessaly (originally a chiefly transhumant Romance-speaking population) first appear in Byzantine sources in the 11th century, in the "Strategikon of Kekaumenos" and Anna Komnene's "Alexiad"). In the 12th century, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela records the existence of the district of "Vlachia" near Halmyros in eastern Thessaly, while the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates places "Great Vlachia" near Meteora. The term is also used by the 13th-century scholar George Pachymeres, and it appears as a distinct administrative unit in 1276, when the "pinkernes" Raoul Komnenos was its governor ("kephale").