The Transylvanian Saxons are a Germanic people who settled in Transylvania in various waves from the 12th-century to the mid-19th century. They were mostly Luxembourgish, from the Low Countries as well as Alsace in modern day France, but also from other parts of present-day Germany.
The first ancestors of the Transylvanian 'Saxons' originally stemmed from Flanders, Hainaut, Brabant, Liège, Zeeland, Moselle, Lorraine, and Luxembourg, then situated in the north-western territories of the Holy Roman Empire around the 1140s and 1150s. Prof. de Maere of Université libre de Bruxelles wrote this paper as tribute to Prof. .
Alongside the Baltic Germans from Estonia and Latvia and the Zipser Germans (also sometimes known or referred to as Zipser Saxons) from Zips, northeastern Slovakia, as well as Maramureș and Bucovina, the Transylvanian Saxons are one of the three eldest German-speaking and ethnic German groups of the German diaspora in Central-Eastern Europe, having continuously been living there since the High Middle Ages onwards. The Transylvanian Saxons are part of the broader group of Romanian Germans as well, being the eldest of all the constituent sub-groups of this ethnic community.
Their native dialect, Transylvanian Saxon, is close to Luxembourgish. Nowadays, organisations representing the Transylvanian Saxons exist in Romania, Germany, Austria, Canada, and the United States (in the latter case most notably 'Alliance of Transylvanian Saxons'). Other smaller communities of Transylvanian Saxons can be found in South Africa and Australia as well as South America (for example in Argentina).
Name Although most Transylvanian Saxons did not descend from the medieval Saxons, the latter name was historically often used pars pro toto to describe any Germanic peoples. In the vicinity of Transylvania —Romania, Hungary, and Moldova— the Transylvanian Saxons are usually called simply "Saxons", with "Transylvanian" taken for granted. Names for (Transylvanian) Saxons in local languages include: Transylvanian Saxon: (Siweberjer) Såksen or Soxen (singular Sox or Soax) Transylvanian Landler: Soxn or Soxisch
Historical overview
Origin, status, impact
The legal foundation of their settlement in southern, southeastern, and northeastern Transylvania was officially stipulated within the Diploma Andreanum (, The Golden Charter of the Transylvanian Saxons, ) issued by King Andrew II of Hungary, which allocated them a territory to be held under their own local autonomy, known as Königsboden in German or Fundus Regius in Latin lit. "royal land" ().
The ancestors of the modern Transylvanian Saxons originally came from the contemporary Low Countries (more specifically the regions of Flanders, Hainaut, Brabant, Liège, or Zeeland) as well as the Moselle and Lorraine river valleys, and Luxembourg as well, which around the 1140s were part of the north-western territories of the Holy Roman Empire. Further or subsequent waves of German colonists in Transylvania also stemmed from more southern regions of present-day Germany such as Thuringia or even Bavaria (the latter particularly valid for the Saxons in northeastern Transylvania). The initial waves of Transylvanian Saxons were referred to as hospites flandrenses et teutonici or primi hospites regni in Latin, literally "the Flemish and Teutonic guests" or "the first guests of the kingdom" (i.e. of the former Kingdom of Hungary).
For centuries, the main tasks of the Transylvanian Saxons during the High Middle Ages were to protect the easternmost frontiers of the former Kingdom of Hungary against certain invading migratory Asiatic peoples, to bring more agriculture to the region, to instil Central European culture, enhance trade, and boost urbanisation and overall economic development. In the process of fortifying the borders of the Kingdom of Hungary to the east, they were early on helped by the Teutonic Knights. Later on, they had to further strengthen their hometowns and rural settlements against the expanding Ottoman Empire, which posed a major threat from the south. The rural settlements defended themselves by fortifying their churches into small fortresses, known as either '' (fortified churches) or '' (church fortress) in standard German.
During the Modern Age, they favoured more and more the Romanians for the latter to obtain increased and rightful political, social, and cultural rights before the Hungarian nobility, with Transylvanian Saxon intellectuals pleading for the Latinity of the Romanian language and the Romanian people. They were subsequently allied with the Transylvanian Romanians and thus sided with the Austrian Empire in the context of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.
After 1918 and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, in the wake of the Treaty of Trianon (signed in 1920), Transylvania united with the Kingdom of Romania, after the Transylvanian Saxons also voted for the union with the Romanian kingdom in February 1919. Consequently, the Transylvanian Saxons, together with other ethnic German sub-groups in then newly enlarged Kingdom of Romania (namely the Banat Swabians, Sathmar Swabians, Bessarabia Germans, Bukovina Germans, and Zipser Germans), became part of that country's broader German minority. Today, relatively few still live in Romania, where the second last official census (carried out in 2011) indicated 36,042 Germans, out of which only 11,400 were of Transylvanian Saxon descent. As per the latest Romanian census conducted in 2022, they are even fewer, as other sub-groups of the entire German community in Romania as well.
Population: settlement and evolution
The colonization of Transylvania by ethnic Germans later collectively known as Transylvanian Saxons began under the reign of King Géza II of Hungary (1141–1162). For several consecutive centuries, the main task of these medieval German-speaking settlers (as that of the Szeklers for example in the east of Transylvania) was to defend the southern, southeastern, and northeastern borders of the then Kingdom of Hungary against foreign invaders stemming most notably from Central Asia and even far East Asia (e.g. Cumans, Pechenegs, Mongols, and Tatars). At the same time, the Saxons were also charged with developing agriculture and introducing Central European culture. Later on, the Saxons needed to further fortify both their rural and urban settlements against invading Ottomans (or against the invading and expanding Ottoman Empire). The Saxons in northeastern Transylvania were also in charge of mining. They can be perceived as being quite related to the Zipser Saxons from present-day Spiš (), north-eastern Slovakia (as well as other historical regions of contemporary Romania, namely Maramureș and Bukovina) given the fact they are two of the oldest ethnic German groups in non-native German-speaking Central and Eastern Europe.
The first wave of settlement continued well until the end of the 13th century. Although the colonists came mostly from the western Holy Roman Empire, they came to be collectively referred to as 'Saxons' because of Germans working for the royal Hungarian chancellery.
Gradually, the type of medieval German once spoken by these settlers, craftsmen, guardsmen, miners, and various other workers became locally known as Såksesch (i.e. "Saxon"; more fully Siweberjesch-Såksesch "Transylvanian Saxon") and remains, still to this day, very closely related to Luxembourgish or Ripuarian with which it shares many lexical similarities.
The Transylvanian Saxon population has been steadily decreasing since World War II as they started leaving the territory of present-day Romania en masse during and after World War II, relocating initially to Austria, then predominantly to southern Germany (especially in Bavaria).
The process of emigration continued during communist rule in Romania. After the collapse of the Ceaușescu regime in 1989 and the fall of the East German communist government, many of them continued to emigrate to unified Germany. As a result, today only approximately 12,000 Saxons remain in Romania.
Nowadays, the vast majority of Transylvanian Saxons live in either Germany or Austria. Nonetheless, a sizable Transylvanian Saxon population also resides today in North America, most notably in the United States (specifically in Idaho, Ohio, and Colorado as well as in Canada, southern Ontario more precisely).
On the history of the Transylvanian Saxons, former federal German president and professor doctor Theodor Heuss (FDP) stated the following: "...their history is a piece of German history as a whole...".
Origins and medieval settlements
The initial phase of German settlement in Transylvania began in the mid and mid-late 12th century, with colonists travelling to and residing in what would later become known in standard German as (i.e. Țara Oltului in Romanian, after the German name for the Olt river, or the old land as in a word for word translation from German) or , based around the picturesque well preserved medieval town of , today's Sibiu. Additionally, the surrounding areas of the present-day town of Sibiu/Hermannstadt (former European Capital of Culture in 2007 alongside Luxembourg City) were formed of marshlands in the High Middle Ages. This is further hinted but also highlighted in the coat of arms of the town of Sibiu/Hermannstadt () by the water lily included therein.
These German settlers were invited by Géza II. Although the primary reason for Géza II's invitation was border defence, similar to employing the Szeklers against foreign invaders in the east of Transylvania, Germans were also sought for their mining expertise as well as the ability to develop the region's economy. Most colonists to this area came from Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Lëtzebuerg) and the Moselle River region (see for instance Medardus de Nympz, former knight and founder of the fortified village of Niemesch/Nemșa in Moșna).
A second phase of German settlement during the early 13th century consisted of settlers primarily stemming from the Rhineland region, the southern Low Countries, and the Moselle region, with others from Thuringia, Bavaria, and even from France. A settlement in northeastern Transylvania was centered on the town of , the later (), located on the Bistrița River. The surrounding area became known as the . That area was important for mining in the Middle Ages.
Continued immigration from the Empire expanded the area of the Saxons further to the east. Settlers from the Hermannstadt region spread into the Hârtibaciu River valley () and to the foot of the Cibin () and Sebeș () mountains.
The latter region, centered around the town of (), was known as . To the north of Hermannstadt they settled what they called the including the village of (Latin for /) near (). Allegedly, the term Saxon was applied to all Germans of these historical regions because the first German settlers who came to the Kingdom of Hungary were either poor miners or groups of convicts from Saxony.K. Gündisch, "Autonomie de stări și regionalitate în Ardealul medieval, în Transilvania și sașii ardeleni" în istoriografie, Asociația de Studii Transilvane, Sibiu, Heidelberg, 2001, pp. 33–53.
In 1211, King Andrew II of Hungary invited the Teutonic Knights to settle and defend the in the southeastern corner of Transylvania. To guard the mountain passes of the Carpathians () against the Cumans, the knights constructed numerous castles and towns, including the major city of ().
Alarmed by the knights' rapidly expanding power, in 1225 King Andrew II expelled the Teutonic Order from Transylvania permanently, which henceforth relocated to Prussia in 1226, although the colonists remained in . The Kingdom of Hungary's medieval eastern borders were therefore defended in the northeast by the Saxons, in the east by the Hungarian border guard tribe of the Székelys, in the southeast by the castles built by the Teutonic Knights and Saxons and in the south by the Altland Saxons.