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

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

the Balkans and was threatening the rapidly-developing, burgeoning southern regions of the country. Turkish forces first invaded Barcaság in South Transylvania in 1394, and after the defeat suffered by the Crusaders in 1396 at the battle of Nikapolos the Turkish peril became permanent. In response, the residents of the Saxon towns in the southern areas started with increasing urgency to build town walls and to erect castles and fortifications around their churches. From the first half of the 15th century, their example was followed by other Saxon towns, and later Székely towns. The large number of fortified and walled churches, and the emergence and spread of their rich and varied architecture, are principally the results of the period of terror and conflict which lasted up to the end of the 17th century and the final expulsion of the Turks from Y • 'pe. his kind of defensive building is not confined to Transylvania. In 1415, the Turks reached i..,ioach/Ljubljana after defeating the Hungarian army sent to hold them back in an alliance with the Bosnians, and then attacked Hungary through the south. Thereafter, starting in the second half of the century, they continually threatened and terrorised the area of modem Slovenia, which belonged at that time to the Austrians' hereditary provinces. Here palisade castles consisting mostly of earth ramparts, known as „Hussite Camps" had been built as refuges at the time of the peasant revolts. These camps were later demolished, and their memory is now only preserved through place-names. Surviving longer with that name, however, were fortifications built around churches. Camps of several different layouts were built around churches mostly in the second half of the 15th century and the first half of the 16th. The fort built around the church in Kneza (Grafenbach) is square in plan and has a square gate tower. The counterforted, irregular polygon-shaped fort wall in Ihan, dating from the end of the 15th century, also has a gate tower. The church in Krtina is guarded by a five-sided castle wall with square and round towers at the vertices, and that in Djekse (Diex) by a similar, but six-sided, wall. The fortified church in Repnje has the form of a médiával castle. The medieval church of Podtabor pri Podbrezjah has a castle wall in the shape of an elongated oval. These fortifications were only erected or reconstructed during the 18th- 19th centuries after they had largely lost their defensive role. Until then they retained their original 15th-16th century forms, and new forts were not built in this area after the 16th centuries. Churches were also fortified in what was Hungary's western border area at the time, modern Burgenland, and in the north-east, now Kárpátalja. Also to be mentioned here are the round-tower „Castle walls" built around churches of the Hajdú settlements in the 17th century. It is well known that the custom of fortifying churches was most common and lasted longest in Transylvania. The Saxons started strengthening and fortifying their churches in the 15th century, making later additions and reinforcements, and in the Székely land new church defences were still being erected in the 17th, and in a few cases even into the 18th centuries. There is also the occasional refuge, like the original form of the Szelindek castle near Szeben, built to guard the road to Medgyes, and the fortifications in Szászkézd and Földvár. The fortification erected in the village of Kelnek at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th centuries was a refuge. The type built further from the villages, and whose upkeep required greater sacrifices, were not widespread in either Királyföld or Székelyföld. Fortification of churches in Szászföld was not inhibited by decree, and was often encouraged by the councils of Nagyszeben and Segesvár by tax concessions, such as in Homoróddaróc in 1494, Szászkézd in 1503 and 1507, in Apold in 1504 and 1507, and in Hegen in 1507. The church fort in Prázsmár assumed its final form in the second half of the 15th century, and the churches in the Saxon villages of Lesses and Morgonda were also rebuilt and fortified during the 15th century. The Church of the Holy Cross in Tartlau/Prázsmár in Barcaság was built in the 13th century, drawing on the work of craftsmen who built the Cistercian monastery in Kerc. The church was reconstructed in the 15th century, and a five-metre thick castle wall divided by towers was built around it in the shape of an irregular