Medieval Fortified Churches

The Transylvanian villages with fortified churches provide a vivid picture of the cultural landscape of southern Transylvania. The seven villages inscribed are characterized by the specific land-use system, settlement pattern, and organization of the family farmstead units preserved since the late Middle Ages, dominated by their fortified churches, which illustrate building periods from the 13th to 16th centuries. We mention here the churces from Calnic, Prejmer, Viscri, Darju, Saschiz, Biertan and Valea Viilor. Since 1993 Biertan fortress church, as well as the access paths around it is on the World Heritage list drawn up by UNESCO, and from 1999 the other 6 churches was added to the list.
The nominates sites are settlements of the Saxon colonists of Transylvania. They are relevant for ethnology, the history of architecture (above all the defensive architecture), and the history of urbanism. At the same time their political, social and religious history is very interesting.
The fortified churches, representing all the important types of this phenomenon of European architecture, constitute not only the ending point or a variation of it, but also architectural masterpieces, due to the way they have intermingled and adapted, over more than two centuries in use, the most complex and elaborate forms of the time. These accomplishments are not isolated; on the contrary, they are representative for a general phenomenon on a well defined geographical and historical area - the Saxon colonisations on the ancient "royal lands" of Transylvania.
Over these two last centuries, the villages have preserved almost unaltered the original topographical structure of the site (street network, plot system); on this basis developed types of constructions specific of these sites, and that reflect the political, social, and religious history of their creators, the Saxons of Transylvania. Often they are integrated in a landscape structured by the traditional human activities in the places where they are found.
The design of these sites - regular street network, with compact fronts alternating the façades and the high surrounding walls, located close to the church placed in the middle - contributes to the definition of the cultural pattern of this zone of multiethnic and multicultural Europe - Central Europe.

The fortified churches are outstanding as a group. Nowhere in the world can one find within such a narrow space so many fortified churches. That proves that this cultural phenomenon had spread all over this geographical and ethnic area. They constitute an exceptional work of architecture, due to the wide range of defensive architecture patterns from the late European Middle Ages. While in Western and Southern Europe certain defensive patterns applied to churches are characteristic of certain territories or country (for instance, the fortified churches in France and in the northern countries, the churches with fortified precinct in Germany, and in Austria), one finds in Transylvania the presence, in the narrow space already mentioned, three main types of church fortification:

  • the fortified precinct church (for instance, Prejmer),
  • the fortified church (for instance, Saschiz)
  • or the fortress - church (Valea Viilor as example of complexity).
It is worth mentioning that these fortifications are adapted reconstructions of earlier monuments. In most cases the fortification of the entire range of structures has resulted in transformations. Short Romanesque basilicas without a tower or with a west tower, and late Gothic churches with a single nave have undergone alterations. Sometimes these fortifications have created monuments with a double function - sacred and defensive, perfectly balanced from the point of view of form and function (for instance, Saschiz, Cloasterf, etc.).
These achievements of the defensive architecture are added to the intrinsic worth of the churches revealing the spread of certain architectural styles, from Roman art to the late Gothic. The churches have preserved precious inner elements: altars at Prejmer (about 1450), mural painting fragments (Dârjiu), furniture from the 16th century (Prejmer, Saschiz, Valea Viilor). The fortified mansion of a nobleman is itself authentic and valuable by its architecture.
The regular street network, though sometimes influenced by the relief, is characteristic in the nominated sites; most of them are developed along a street or a vast median space, sometimes doubled by secondary axes (for instance, Câlnic, Valea Viilor, Biertan, Viscri). Other less frequent types of village develop according to a place emerged as a result of the church fortification (Prejmer).
The protected zone - the historic core - has preserved the narrow long pieces of land attested by documents and researches, as well as the way in which that piece of land is organised: usually the house walls bearing pinions face the street, while the annexes are lined in a row. At the same time, it is possible to rebuild historically the plot system of the cultivated lands (for instance, Viscri), as the toponyms designating the ancient properties have been preserved in the oral tradition.
The tightness, typical of these sites, has also been preserved: continuous rows of houses with half buried basements and high ground floors, with few openings and pinion, and surrounding walls at the height of the façade, sometimes bearing the same decoration.
The location of public buildings has remained around the fortified church. Some of them are still functioning: the presbytery or the parishioner's lodgings, the school and the schoolmaster's house, either in the schoolyard, or close by, the mayoralty and ceremony hall, the barn. The number of buildings and their architectural worth is remarkable for all the nominated sites.
In the Saxon sites that are situated on the "royal lands", and above all in the nominated sites, it is likely to find two types of dwellings conserved almost intact. At the same time, the variety of adornment patterns, and certain important changes of the pattern range mark their evolution in time.
The sites have preserved until the 1980s their nature of multiethnic settlements, with ethnic districts which still exist.
The specific details justifying these criteria are mentioned in the 2nd chapter (item d.) of the dossier of each site.

Nature Tourism Rural Tourism Cultural Tourism