Sunday, 02 September 2012

Immigration, mutual protection and communal endeavour

I was just scanning an old (2004) copy of Urban design and came across this in a note by Alan Stones reporting a study tour to Transylvania:

Biertan via art-historia blogThe ‘Saxons’ (who were in fact Flemings and Luxemburgers as well as Germans) were invited by the Hungarian King Geza II to settle in Transylvania during the 12th century in order to help stabilise its eastern borders… The immigrants rapidly established an agricultural and trading economy, together with a network of substantial towns and villages that have a typically Central-European look.

Then in 1241 the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan swept across the country, destroying all in their path. When they departed, as swiftly as they had come, the Saxons response was not only to rebuild even more solidly, but to turn their village churches into fortified citadels within which the population and their livestock could take refuge. These walled and towered enclosures still stand today as monuments to communal endeavour. The Saxon villages themselves were laid out as regular plots along a main street, with each homestead comprising a house on the street frontage separated by a garden and entrance from its neighbour, and a smallholding behind.

Image of The fortified church of Biertan (via).

 

2 Sep 2012 09:01:51 | Space and place

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