A műemlékek sokszínűsége (A 28. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1998 Eger, 1998)

Előadások / Presentations - SEBESTYÉN József: Saxon and székely fortofoed churches in Transylvania

oval in shape. The counterforted outer bailey that still stands in front of the gatehouse, of a kind also found elsewhere, was added in the 17th century. The height of the gate tower was raised in 1720 and it was given a Baroque curtain wall along with the rest of the whole church, in 1796. The village of Bölön lies in forested country of the Baróti foothills. A new church was built between 1893 and 1894 by Lajos Pákei on the site of the 13th century original. The Regestrum of 1567 records that the village had 130 gates, which made it a larger settlement than Marosvásárhely was at the time. It was mentioned as having a Unitarian minister in 1569. The medieval church, first mentioned in 1512, was rebuilt at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, and the predecessor to the gate tower which still stands was probably erected in the middle of the 16th century, along with the high, strong, oval castle wall with a machicolated gallery and loopholes, and an oblique hip-roofed defensive tower on the south side. The fortifications were certainly in place at the time of the siege in 1612, and were subsequently renovated, around 1617, with the erection of the southern and south-eastern wall sections, still standing today, capped by various kinds of battlements. The south-east tower was built at the same time. Fragments of inscriptions noted by Balázs Orbán can still be seen on their walls. Later, in the second half of the 17th century, a new defensive tower with loopholes was constructed on the castle wall on the north side. A fire in 1720 and the earthquake of 1802 again severely damaged the castle church, but this time only the gate tower was renovated. Sepsiszentgyörgy is the capital of Háromszék. Its county-town privileges were probably granted by King Sigismund. The reconstruction of the church dating from the 13th century was finished in the first half of the 16th century, a church circular of the time giving the date as 1547, and the name of the patron as Pál Daczó. This fact is reinforced by the existence of a gravestone bearing the name Ferenc Daczó and a late-Gothic reticulated vault in the chancel. The oval-shaped castle wall reinforced with a gate tower and a pentagonal defensive tower was probably erected when the church was rebuilt in the middle of the 16th century. The outline of the 17th-century secondary outer bailey, which was demolished in 1786 owing to the damage inflicted by repeated sieges, is retained by the crypt added in the last century. The buttresses which have remained cut down to stumps on the northern side and the row of arches supported on them suggest that the church was fortified in a way similar to the Saxons churches, and that the frieze-like row of arches is actually the remains of a former machicolated gallery. Similar fragments remain in the churches in Esztelnek and Zabola. Surrounded by a similar oval-shaped wall, the Zabola church also dates from the 13th century. Conversion to the Gothic chamber church which stands there today was carried out in the first half of the 16th century. Despite the clumsy, coarse modifications made in the seventies, the remains of the former defensive machicolated gallery can still be seen from without along the walls of the nave and the chancel. The facade of the church fort can be clearly inferred from the engraving published by Balázs Orbán. The defensive wall also dates from the end of the 16th century. The bell in the gate tower is inscribed with the date 1588. In Székelyderzs, lies one of Székelyföld's most outstanding and best-known church. Built at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, frescoes painted on the walls of the church's nave in 1419 have survived to our times. Under the patronage of the Petki family which settled in Derzs, the church's new late-Gothic reticulated vault and the first, oval defensive wall was probably built at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. This hypothesis could only be proved by archaeological research, however. The complete fortification of the church must have been completed sometime in the first third of the 17th century, and is based on the Saxon church fortifications in Királyföld. The form of the surrounding wall, strengthened by square towers on diagonal corners, can be traced to the fortifications of the churches in Homoród, Lesses and Morgonda, and running round the main body of the church is a loopholed, machicolated defensive gallery built on counterforts and consoles, reminiscent of the construction surrounding the church in Buzd, near Szászsebes. The completion date of the south-west tower is given by the inscription „1622" on its corner stone. The Romanian