Marcu-Istrate, Daniela - Rusu, Adrian Andrei - Szőcs Péter Levente (szerk.): Arhitectura religioasă medievală din Transilvania 3. (Satu Mare, 2004)
Alexandru Baboş: Invisible features in the Design of the Timber Curches of Maamureş
Alexandru BABOŞ attention in the eyes of those involved with the recent repairs, and therefore, they were replaced by insignificant copies with no respect for the original sizes. At the end of the research for the inner proportions, no doubt remained that these wooden churches were planned with great care for their sizes. From the starting width to the length of the spire’s poles nothing was left by chance or to obsessive exaggerations. Moreover, the parts were always linked and balanced to each other, with emphasis on the starting width. Scale as relevance While determining the sizes, the carpenters played consciously or not with what we call today the scale of a construction. They definitely knew that once the width was decided, the other sizes flowed from it to build a specific magnitude of the entire church.18 But before that first decision, they had to take into considerations all the main factors, influencing their work. In particular, they had to deal with the size of the parish community and with expressed in the site, the availability of the building material, and of the economical resources. The question of capacity. For the parish churches the problem of scale is inseparable from the capacity of the building. A master carpenter - just like a skilful women cutting a traditional shirt after the size of the one who would wear it - had to dimension his object with respect to the size of the parish. Therefore, the main sizes, both the starting width and the complementary length, were established with great concern for the capacity.19 In order to understand how the capacity of a new church corresponded to the size of the parish, the district of Coşău is chosen for a closer research. The dates coming from the end of the 18lh century (fig. 9) are compared. Coşău was the smallest of the four districts, which formed the county of Maramureş. Fortunately, many wooden churches are preserved in this part, and some of them still are in use - after 2, 3 or 4 centuries. Moreover, all the vanished wooden churches are known from written church records,20 while the 18 As the starting width gradually vary between 1!4, 2, 214 and 3 royal fathoms, we can establish a simplified distinction between the wooden churches, as small (114 - 2 fathoms wide), medium (2 - 214 fathoms wide), large (214-3 fathoms wide) and very large (3 fathoms). 19 In normal conditions the capacity was calculated for 3,25 parishioners on 1 m2, able to stand and kneel during the service. The Soleea and the 70 cm wide passage from the entrance to soleea was excluded from this estimation. In conditions of a throng 5 parishioners standing on 1 m2 was calculated, unable to kneel and occupying even the passage. 20 The estimated sizes of the 7 vanished wooden churches are gathered from the following sources: Vad: National Archive, Cluj-Napoca, fond 149, 133/1867; Iloteni: National Archive, Baia Mare, fond 148, 1/1858; Năneşti: National Archive, Baia Mare, fond 148, 32/186; Crăceşti: National Archive, Baia Mare, fond 174, 3/1873; Bârsana: National Archive, Baia Mare, fond 148, 1/1866; Berbeşti: V. Moldovan, Vizitafie canonică în Maramureş, Gherla 298
