SAXON CHURCHES AND SIEGES.
The words “church” and “fortress” used to be synonymous in
Transylvania, so the places of worship might accurately have been
described as churches militant. Each Saxon village church was
surrounded by a row, sometimes even a double or triple row, of
fortified walls, which are mostly still extant. The remains of moat
and drawbridge are also yet frequently to be seen. When threatened
by an enemy the people used to retire into these fortresses, often
built on some rising piece of ground, taking with them their valuables
as well as provisions for the contingency of a lengthy siege. From
these heights the Saxons used to roll down heavy stones on to their
assailants, sometimes with terrible effect; but when they had in
this way exhausted their missiles, the predicament was often a
very precarious one. Some of these stones still survive, and may
occasionally be seen—as within the fortress walls of the old ruined
church which I have already mentioned as standing on a steep incline
above the picturesque village of Michelsberg.
The church itself, having been replaced by a more conveniently situated
one down in the village, is now deserted, and is used only as a
storehouse by the villagers. The fortified walls are crumbling away,
and the passage round the church is choked up by weeds and briers,
among which lie strewn about many old moss-grown stones, circular
in shape and resembling giant cannon-balls. These were the missiles
which lay there in readiness to be rolled down on to an approaching
enemy; and there was a law compelling each bridegroom, before leading
his bride to the altar, to roll uphill to the church-door one of
these formidable globes. This was so ordained in order to exclude
from matrimony all sick or weakly subjects; and as the incline was a
steep one, and each stone weighed about two hundred-weight, it was a
considerable test of strength.
[Illustration: FORTIFIED SAXON CHURCH.]
Would that these old stones, lying here neglected among the nettles,
had the gift of speech! What traits of love and of bloodshed might we
not learn from them! Only to look at them there strewn around, it is
not difficult to guess at the outlines of some of the stories they are
dumbly telling us. Many are chipped and worn away, and have evidently
been used more than once in their double capacity, alternately rolled
up the hill by smiling Cupid, to be hurled down again by furious
Nemesis.
Here near a clump of burdock-leaves is a shabby-looking globe of
yellow sandstone, whose puny size plainly speaks of a _mariage de
convenance_—a mere union of hands without hearts; perhaps some old
widower, with trembling hands and shaky knees, in quest of a wife to
look after his house, and to whom the whole matter was very uphill work
indeed!
Close alongside, half hidden beneath the graceful tangles of a
wild-rose bush, is a formidable bowlder of gigantic, nay, heroic size,
which forcibly suggests that it must have been a mighty love indeed
which brought it up here—so mighty, no doubt, that to the two strong
young arms which rolled it up the hill it must have seemed light as a
feather’s weight.
And how many of these, might one ask, have been rolled up here in vain,
in so far as the love was concerned? When the fire of love had grown
cold and its sweetness all turned to vinegar, how many, many a former
lover must heartily have wished that he had never moved his stone from
the bottom of the hill!
Such thoughts involuntarily crowd on the mind when sitting, as I have
done many a time, within this lonely ruin on fine summer evenings, the
idyllic peacefulness of the scene the more strongly felt by contrast
with the bloody memories linked around it. It is so strange to realize
how completely everything has passed away that once used to be: that
the hands which pushed these heavy globes, as well as the Moslem crania
for which they were intended, have turned alike to dust; that hushed
forever are the voices once awaking fierce echoes within these very
walls; and that of all those contrasting passions, of all that tender
love and that burning hatred, nothing has survived but a few old stones
lying forgotten near a deserted church!
* * * * *
The history of the sieges endured in Transylvania on the part of Turk
or Tartar would in itself furnish matter for many volumes. Numberless
anecdotes are yet current characterizing the endurance and courage of
the besieged, and the original means often resorted to in order to
baffle or mislead the enemy.
Once it was the ready wit of a Szekel woman which saved her people
besieged by the Tartars within the Almescher cavern. As the whole
land had been devastated from end to end, a severe famine was the
consequence, and both besiegers and besieged were sorely in want of
victuals. The Szekels had taken some provisions with them into the
cave, but these were soon exhausted; and the Tartars, though starving
themselves, were consoled by thinking that hunger would soon compel
their enemy to give in. One day, when, as usual, the barbarians had
assembled shouting and howling in front of the cavern, whose entrance
was defended by a high wall, a Hungarian woman held up before their
eyes a large cake at the end of a long pole, and cried out, tauntingly,
“See here, ye dogs of Tartars! Thus are we feasting in plenty and
comfort, while you are reduced to eat grass and roots of trees.” This
much-vaunted cake was but kneaded together of water and ashes, with a
few last remaining spoonfuls of flour; but the Tartars, taken in by the
feint, abandoned the field.
Another time it was nothing more than a swarm of bees which turned
the scale in favor of the Saxons, hard pressed by the enemy outside.
Already they had begun to scale the walls of the fortified church,
and death and destruction seemed imminent, when the youthful daughter
of the church-warden was struck by a bright idea. Behind the church
was a little garden full of sweet-scented flowers, and containing a
dozen beehives, which it was Lieschen’s (such was her name) pride to
watch over. Seizing a hive in each hand, she sprang up on the fortress
wall, and with all her strength hurled them down among the approaching
besiegers. Again and again she repeated this manœuvre till the hives
were exhausted, and the bewildered enemies, blinded by the dense swarm
of infuriated bees, deafened by the angry buzzing in their ears, and
maddened by hundredfold stings, beat an ignominious and hasty retreat.
This occurred in the village of Holzmengen towards the end of the
seventeenth century, and of this same village it is related that, when
peace was finally restored to the land, the population was so reduced
that most houses stood empty. Of four hundred landholders there used
to be, but fifteen now remained; and many years passed by without any
wedding being celebrated in the place. When, however, at last this rare
event came to pass, the bridegroom received the name of the “young
man,” which stuck to him until his end. The bride was no other than
Lieschen, the bee-maiden, and Thomas was the name of her husband; and
to this day whoever is in possession of that particular house goes by
the name of “_den jung mon Thomas_,” even though he happen to have been
christened Hans or Peter, and be, moreover, as old as Methuselah. If
you ask the name of such another house in the same village, you are
told that it belongs to _Michel am Eck_ (Michael at the corner). It is
not a corner house, neither does its proprietor answer to the name of
Michel; but where it stands was once the corner of a street, and Michel
the name of one of the fifteen landholders who divided the property
after the war; hence the appellation.
There is a story told of an active Saxon housewife who, after she had
been shut up for three days within the fortress awaiting the Tartars
reported to be near, began to weary of her enforced idleness, and
throwing open the gate of the citadel, impatiently called out, “Now,
then, you dogs of Tartars, are you never coming?”
When the Tartars had succeeded in capturing prisoners they used to
fatten them up for eating. A woman from the village of Almesch, being
sickly, refused to fatten, and, set at liberty, came home to relate the
doleful tale. The little Hungarians and Saxons were regarded as toys
for the young Tartars, who, setting them up in rows, used to practise
upon them the merry pastime of cutting off heads.
Living in Transylvania, we are sometimes inclined to wonder whether
to be besieged by Turks and Tartars be really a thing of the past,
and not rather an actual danger for which we must be prepared any
day, so strangely are many little observances relating to those times
still kept up. Thus in the belfry tower at Kaisd there hangs a little
bell bearing a Gothic inscription and the date 1506. It is rung every
evening at the usual curfew-hour, and until within a very few years ago
the watchman was under the obligation of calling forth into the night
with stentorian voice, “Not this way, you villains! not this way! I see
you well!”
Also the habit of keeping provisions stored up within the fortified
church-walls, to this day extant in most Saxon villages, is clearly
a remnant of the time when sieges had to be looked for. Even now the
people seem to consider their goods to be in greater security here than
in their own barns and lofts. The outer fortified wall round the church
is often divided off into deep recesses or alcoves, in each of which
stands a large wooden chest securely locked, and filled with grain or
flour, while the little surrounding turrets or chapels are used as
storehouses for home-cured bacon. “We have seven chapels all full of
bacon,” I was once proudly informed by a village church-warden; but,
with the innate mistrust of his race, he would not indulge my further
curiosity on the subject by suffering me to inspect the interior
of these greasy sanctuaries, evidently suspecting me of sinister
intentions on his bacon stores.
This storing up of provisions is a perfect mania among the Saxons,
and each village has its own special hobby or favorite article, vast
quantities of which it hoards up in a preposterous, senseless fashion,
reminding one of a dog who buries more bones than he can ever hope
to eat in the course of his life. Thus, one village prides itself on
having the greatest quantity of bacon, much of which is already thirty
or forty years old, and consequently totally unfit for use; while in
another community the oldest grain is the great _specialité_. Each
article, case, or barrel is marked with the brand of the owner, and the
whole placed under the charge of the church-warden.
Some parishes can still boast of many curiously wrought pieces of
church plate remaining over from Catholic days—enamelled chalices,
bejewelled crucifixes, remonstrances, and ciboriums, richly inlaid and
embossed. The village of Heltau is in possession of many such valuable
ornaments which, during the Turkish wars, used to be buried in the
earth, sometimes for a period of many years, the exact spot where the
treasure was hidden being known only to the oldest church-warden, who
was careful to pass on the secret to the next in rank when he felt
himself to be drawing near the end of his life. Thus, in the year 1794,
the church at Heltau, struck by lightning, was seriously damaged, and
urgently demanded extensive repairs. How to defray these expenses was
the question which sorely perplexed the village pastor and the church
elders, when the old warden came forward and offered to reveal to
the pastor and the second warden the secret of a hidden treasure of
whose existence none but he was aware. The man himself had never set
eyes on the treasure, but had received from his predecessor precise
directions how to find it in case of necessity. Accordingly, under his
guidance the pastor, accompanied by the younger warden, repaired to
the church, where, entering the right-hand aisle, the old man pointed
to three high-backed wooden seats fixed against the wall, saying, “The
centre one of these chairs has a movable panel, behind which a door
is said to be concealed.” After some effort—for the panel was jammed
from long disuse—it yielded, moving upward, and disclosing a small
iron door with a keyhole, into which fitted an old-fashioned rusty key
produced by the warden. When this door was at last got open, the three
men stepped into a small vault paved with bricks. “One of these bricks
is marked by a cross, and under it we have to dig for the treasure,”
were the further instructions given by the old man. A very few minutes
proved the truth of his words, bringing to light a small wooden
chest containing a chalice, a silver remonstrance, and various other
valuables, which may still be seen at the Heltau parsonage; likewise
a bag of gold and silver coins, dating from the time of the Batorys,
which leads to the supposition that the treasure had been lying here
concealed ever since the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Great was the pastor’s surprise and delight at this unexpected
windfall; but he only took from the bag sufficient money for the
necessary repairs, replacing the rest of the treasure where it had been
found. None of the other parishioners were informed whence had come the
money, so the secret remained a secret.
Only many years later, in the present century, when the son-in-law of
the former clergyman had become pastor in his turn, the story of the
treasure was imparted to him by the successor of former wardens. The
necessity for concealment had now gone by, and peace and prosperity
reigned in the country; so the church ornaments were once more
disinterred, and finally restored to the light of day, while the
antiquated gold and silver pieces, exchanged into current coinage, were
applied to useful purposes. Thus it was that the secret oozed out, and
came to be generally known.
* * * * *
Saxon village churches of the present day are generally bare and
unornamented inside, for all decorations had been dismantled at the
time of the Reformation; stone niches have been emptied of the statues
they contained, and rich pieces of carving stowed away in lumber-rooms.
Only the old Oriental carpets, brought hither from Turkish campaigns,
which frequently adorn the front of the pews or the organ-gallery, have
been suffered to remain, and hang there still, delicately harmonious in
coloring, but riddled through with holes like a sieve, and fed upon by
the descendants of a hundred generations of moths, which flutter in a
dense cloud round the visitor who inadvertently raises a corner of the
drapery to investigate its fleecy quality.
Curious old tombstones and bass-reliefs may often be seen carelessly
huddled together in the church entrance or outside the walls, treated
with no sort of appreciation of their historical value or care for
their ultimate preservation. Also the numerous frescos which used to
cover many church walls have been obliterated by the barbarous touch
of a whitewashing hand. It would almost seem as if this Saxon people
had originally possessed some degree of artistic feeling, which has
been, however, effectually extinguished by the Reformation; for it
is difficult otherwise to explain how a nation capable of raising
monuments of real artistic value in the troubled times of the barbarous
Middle Ages should be thus heedless of their conservation in the
present enlightened and peaceful century.
[Illustration: RUINED ABBEY OF KERZ.]
Of this lamentable indifference to the conservation of their historical
and artistic treasures, the ruined Abbey of Kerz, situated in the
valley of the Aluta, offers a melancholy instance. This wealthy
Cistercian monastery was founded by King Bela III. towards the end
of the twelfth century; but being abolished by King Mathias three
centuries later, on account of irregularities into which the monks had
fallen, it passed, with its lands, into possession of the Hermanstadt
church.
The choir of the ancient abbey church, built in the time of Louis the
Great in the transition style, is still used as a place of worship by
the small Lutheran congregation of Kerz, but the nave has been suffered
to fall into decay; many of the richly carved stones of which it was
formed have been carried off by the villagers, who have utilized them
for building their houses, or degraded them to yet baser purposes. We
ourselves crossed the little stream, which runs close by the parson’s
house, on stepping-stones evidently taken from the ancient building.
Likewise a lime-tree of gigantic dimensions in front of the western
portal, and supposed to have been planted when the foundation-stone of
the church was laid, is now in imminent danger of splitting in twain
for want of the trifling attention of an iron waistband to keep its
poor old body together. Such the present lamentable condition of one
of the most interesting relics in the country which has been named the
Melrose of Transylvania.