Herrmannstadt--Saxon immigrants--Museum--Places of interest in the
neighbourhood--The fortress-churches--Heltau--The Rothen Thurm
Pass--Turkish incursions.
The following morning a ride of ten miles brought me to Herrmannstadt.
Here I put up at the Hotel Neurikrer, a comfortable house; it was a new
sensation getting into the land of inns. The fact is, the Saxons are not
indifferent to the existence of inns; it relieves them of the necessity
of hospitality. The Hungarian will take the wheels off his guest's
carriage and hide them to prevent his departure, whereas the Saxon would
be more inclined to speed the parting guest with amiable alacrity. There
is an old-world look about Herrmannstadt that gives one the sensation of
being landed in another age; it is a case of Rip Van Winkle, only
"t'other way round," as the saying is: one has awakened from the sleep
in the hills to walk down into a mediæval town, finding the speech and
fashions of old Germany--Luther's Germany!
The Saxon immigrants in Hungary number nearly two millions. The greater
proportion of these is found in Transylvania; the rest, some forty
thousand, have a compact colony under the shadow of the Tatra Mountains,
in the north of Hungary, called from time immemorable the "Free
District." But it was to the slopes of the Southern Carpathians, to the
"land beyond the forest," where the first Saxons came and settled. It is
still called "Altland," being the oldest of their possessions in
Hungary. In fact this appellation of the "Oldland" belongs, strictly
speaking, to the Herrmannstadt district. Formerly no Hungarian was
allowed to settle in the town, so jealous were the burghers of their
privileges. I believe the earliest date of the Saxon immigration is
1143. The country had been wasted by the incursions of the Tartars, and
in consequence the Servian Princess Helena, widow of the blind King Bela
of Hungary, invited them hither during the minority of her son, Geysa
II. They appear to have come from Flanders, and from the neighbourhood
of Cologne. They were tempted to this strange land by certain privileges
and special rights secured to them by the rulers of Hungary, and
faithfully preserved through many difficulties; as a fact the Saxons of
Transylvania retained their self-government down to the middle of this
century.
These people have played no unimportant part in European history; for
Herrmannstadt and Kronstadt, the sister towns of Saxon Transylvania,
were called the bulwarks of Christianity all through the evil days of
Moslem invasion. Herrmannstadt was called by the Turks the "Red Town" on
account of the colour of its brick walls. It was besieged in 1438 with a
force of 70,000 men headed by the Sultan Amurad himself, and great were
the rejoicings amongst the brave burghers when it became known that an
arrow directed from one of the towers had rid them of their foe! Trade
and commerce must have prospered, by all accounts, in those days; and
the burghers made themselves of importance, for King Andrew II., a man
far in advance of his time, summoned them to assist in consultation at
the Imperial Parliament. The wealth of Herrmannstadt is a thing of the
past; the place has now the appearance of a dead level of competence,
where riches and poverty are equally absent. There were no new houses
building to supply an increasing population, nor, I should say, had any
been built for many years.
The town is prettily situated on a slight elevation above the
surrounding plain; it has the fine range of the Fogaraser Mountains as a
background. The old moat, where Amurad fell pierced by the well-directed
arrow, has been turned into a promenade; parts of the fortifications
remain in a state of picturesque ruin. Herrmannstadt is the seat of the
Protestant Bishop of Transylvania, and there is a fine old church,
which, however, has suffered severely in the process of restoration.
The interior of the church is in that unhappy condition which bespeaks
the churchwarden's period--whitewash plastered over everything,
obliterating lights and shades and rare carvings beneath a glare of
uncouth cleanliness. In their desire to remove every object that could
harbour dust or obstruct the besom of reform, they have bodily removed
from the church many rich monuments and interesting effigies, and these
are to be seen huddled away in an obscure corner of the churchyard. The
church has a large collection of richly-embroidered vestments belonging
to the pre-Reformation days.
Herrmannstadt is decidedly rich in collections. The Bruckenthal Library
contains an illuminated missal of great beauty; the execution is
singularly fine, and the designs very artistic. The curious thing is
that the history of this rare volume is unknown; by some it is believed
to have come from Bohemia during the time of the troubles in that
country, however nothing is positively known. The book is of the finest
vellum, containing 630 pages in small quarto. The pictures of
architecture and scenery are extremely interesting; the first represent
buildings familiar to us in old German towns, and the rural scenes
depict a variety of agricultural instruments, together with many details
of home life in the olden time. The colours of the birds and flowers are
as bright as if only finished yesterday. The ingenuity of the design is
very striking; no two objects are alike. It would have taken hours to
have looked over the volume thoroughly.
In the palace, of which the museum forms a part, there is a gallery of
pictures, collected by the Baron Bruckenthal, formerly governor of
Transylvania. The history of these pictures is very curious, they were
mostly purchased from French refugees at the time of the first
revolution. It appears that both at that period, and at the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, many French families had sought an asylum in
Hungary and Transylvania. In the Banat I am told there are two or three
villages inhabited entirely by people who came originally from France;
they retain only their Gallic names, having adopted the Magyar tongue
and utterly lost their own. This little colony of the Banat belonged of
course to the Huguenot exodus. I had now an opportunity of examining a
collection of the Roman antiquities obtained from the Hatszeg Valley.
I remained several days at Herrmannstadt, principally for the sake of
resting my horse, which unfortunately had been rubbed by the saddle-bags
on my ride from Petrosèny. I spent the time agreeably enough, exploring
the neighbourhood and making chance acquaintances. I bought here Bishop
Teusch's 'History of Transylvanian Saxons,' a handy-book in two volumes.
It interested me very much, especially reading it in the country itself
where so many stirring scenes had been enacted.
Wishing to see some of the neighbouring villages, I set off one fine day
on a walking expedition. I chose Sunday, because on that day one can see
to best advantage the costume of the peasants. Hammersdorf is a pretty
enough village, "fair with orchard lawns," but not so charming as
Heltau, which, standing on high ground, commands an extensive view of
the whole plain, with the old "Red Town" in the foreground of the
picture. The church in this village is a very fine specimen of the
fortified churches, which are a unique feature of the Transylvanian
border-land. The origin of this form of architecture is very obvious; it
was necessary to have a defence against the incursions of the Tartars
and Turks, who for centuries troubled the peace of this fair land. In
every village of the Saxons in the south and east of Transylvania the
church is also a fortified place, fitted to maintain a siege if
necessary. The construction of these buildings varies according to
circumstances: the general character is that the sacred edifice is
surrounded, or forms part of a strong wall with its watch-towers; not
unfrequently a second and even a third wall surround the place. In every
case a considerable space of ground is enclosed around the church,
sufficient to provide accommodation for the villagers; in fact every
family with a house outside had a corresponding hut within the fortified
walls. Here, too, was a granary, and some of the larger places had also
their school-tower attached to the church. It happened not unfrequently
that the villagers were obliged to remain for some weeks in their
sanctuary.
Heltau is an industrious little place. Here is manufactured the peculiar
white frieze so much worn by the Wallacks. Nearly every house has its
loom, but I was told the trade is less flourishing than formerly. The
woollen-cloth manufacturers of Transylvania have suffered very much from
the introduction of foreign goods; but, on the other hand, if they would
bestir themselves they might enormously increase their exports. Heltau
is a market-place, and reserves many old privileges very jealously. Its
inhabitants were often in dispute with the burghers of Herrmannstadt,
and on one occasion they had the audacity, in rebuilding their
church-tower, to place four turrets upon it. Their neighbours regarded
this with great indignation, for are not four turrets the sign and
symbol of _civic_ authority? The burghers of Herrmannstadt hereupon
obliged the men of Heltau to sign a bond, saying that "they were but
humble villagers," and promising to treat their haughty neighbours with
all due "honour, fear, and friendship."
From Heltau I went on to Michaelsburg, an extremely curious place. In
the centre of a lovely valley rises a conical rock of gneiss, protruding
to the height of 200 feet or more. This is crowned by the ruins of a
Romanesque church. There are, I believe, only two other specimens of
this kind of architecture in the country. The time of the building of
Michaelsburg is stated to be between 1173 and 1223. Before the use of
artillery this fortified church on the rock must have been really
impregnable. Inside the walls I found a quantity of large round
stones--the shot and shell of those days; these stones were capable of
making considerable havoc amongst a besieging party I should say. The
custom was in the old time that no young man should be allowed to take
unto himself a wife till he had carried one such stone from the bed of
the river where they are found, to the summit of the rock within the
church walls. As these stones weigh between two and three hundredweight,
and the ascent is very steep, it was a test of strength. The villagers
were anxious to prevent the weaklings from marrying lest they should
spoil the hardy race.
The view from the village itself is very pretty, home-like, and with a
more familiar look about the vegetation than I had seen elsewhere. There
were orchards of cherry-trees, and hedges, as in our west country,
festooned with wild hops and dog-roses. Every girl I met was busily
engaged plaiting straw as she walked. This straw is for hats of a
particular kind for which the place is famed. Besides this industry, the
people are great bee-keepers, and make a good trade by selling the
honey. The produce of the hives in the Southern Carpathians is the very
poetry of honey; it is perfectly delicious, not surpassed by that of
Hymettus or Hybla, so famed in ancient story. This "mountain honey"
sometimes reaches the London market, but, unfortunately, not with any
regularity. It is most difficult to make these people practical in their
trade dealings; and as for _time_, they must have come into the world
before it was talked about.
I made a short excursion into the Rothen Thurm Pass, the principal road
across the Southern Carpathians, if we except the Tomöscher Pass from
Kronstadt, which, owing to local circumstances, has become more
important. The Rothen Thurm or Red Tower Pass is extremely picturesque.
It is traversed by the Aluta, which though rising in the Szeklerland in
the north-east, finds its way through the Carpathian range, flowing at
length into the Lower Danube. The red tower stands at the narrowest part
of the defile, an important position of defence; and not far from this
spot signal victory was gained by the Christians over the infidels. In
the year 1493 the Turks made one of their frequent raids into
Transylvania. They had succeeded in collecting a vast amount of booty,
including many fair young maidens and tender youths, and were returning
in long cavalcade through the Red Tower Pass. Here, however, they fell
into an ambuscade arranged by the men of Herrmannstadt, headed by their
burgomaster, the brave George Hecht. At a concerted signal the Saxons
rushed upon the despoilers with such a fierce and sudden onslaught, that
though the Turks far exceeded them in number, they were completely
overpowered. Many a turbaned corpse lay that day on the green margin of
the classical Aluta, and few, very few, of the hated Turks, it is said,
escaped over the frontier to tell the tale of their disaster. How many a
home must have been gladdened by the sight of the rescued children after
that happy victory!
These abductions are not altogether a thing of the past. In the autumn
of 1875, the very date of my tour, a paragraph appeared in a Pest
newspaper stating that a young girl of great beauty in the neighbourhood
of Temesvar, in the Banat of Hungary, had been secretly carried off into
Turkey without the knowledge or consent of her parents. It was further
stated that these scandalous proceedings were of very frequent
occurrence in the border provinces. For some years past the supply of
beautiful Circassians has been deficient, it is said, so doubtless the
harems of Constantinople are supplied with Christian maidens to make up
the numbers. The late Sultan--I mean the one who committed suicide--was
considered a moderate man, and he had eight hundred women in his harem,
at least so a relative of mine was credibly informed at Constantinople.