Transylvanian Saxons, German-speaking population that in the Middle Ages settled in Transylvania, then part of Hungary. The Transylvanian Saxons represented one of the three nations that made up the Transylvanian feudal system. Their region was called the Szászföld (Hungarian: Saxon Lands) or Királyföld (Royal Lands). A small population of Saxons continues to live in Transylvania, now part of Romania.

In the 12th century King Géza II of Hungary (reigned 1141–62) invited Germans to settle and defend relatively sparsely populated Transylvania. The people who arrived were in fact not all Saxons; they came from the whole of the German-speaking region and also included Walloons. The first group of immigrants settled in southern Transylvania, in the region of Nagyszeben (present-day Sibiu, Rom.). The existing inhabitants of the area were moved elsewhere, thereby creating a homogeneous German-speaking region (the Altland). Later settlers moved into the surrounding areas inhabited by Magyars (Hungarians) and Romanians.

The second great wave of German settlement took place after the Hungarian king Andrew II (reigned 1205–35) granted the Barcaság area (around present-day Brașov, Rom.) in southeastern Transylvania to the Teutonic Order in 1211. The order, however, attempted to found its own state, and so Andrew, in order to win the Saxons’ favour against the Teutonic Knights, granted the Saxons a wide range of privileges in his decree of 1224, the Andreanum. As a result the Saxons were united as one nation under the leadership of the crown lieutenant (comes; Latin: count) in Nagyszeben, and they received new territories. They were guaranteed free elections for priests and local leaders, together with exemption from customs duties and taxes, except for an annual payment to the king for the lands they had received from him. The Saxons also were obliged to provide soldiers for the king; these would come from their patrician class, the Gräfe.

Though in principle all members of Transylvanian Saxon society were equal, in practice they were led by the Gräfe. Outside the Saxon Lands the Gräfe were effectively thought of as nobles. But because the Saxon Lands were considered to be the property of the universitas (Latin: community), they could not fall into private hands; thus, many of the Gräfe acquired aristocratic estates in the counties of royal Hungary. By the 15th century the Gräfe had become completely Magyarized, and they gave up their status in the Saxon Lands. Meanwhile, what had begun as a peasant society gradually transformed into an urban one, with the citizens of the developing Saxon towns—such as Sighișoara—eventually becoming the leading force.

Tower of the Clock, Sighișoara, Rom. © Alexandru Paler

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In 1324 the Saxons rebelled against the Hungarian king Charles I (reigned 1308–42), who, after suppressing the rebellion, reorganized the region by creating three new territories for those Saxons who had settled in parts of Transylvania other than the Barcaság. Crown lieutenants governed the Saxon territories, with the exception of Nagyszeben, which was divided into sedes (Latin: seats) led by crown judges. In 1437 the Saxons signed the Union of Kápolna; they thus became one of the three feudal nations of Transylvania, alongside the Magyar nobility and the Szeklers (a distinct Magyar people). All the Saxon territories gradually came to be controlled by crown judges, and between 1464 and 1469 each territory won the right to elect its own crown judge. The Andreanum decree was extended to cover the three additional Saxon territories in 1486, from which time the leader of all the Saxon Lands was the Saxon count, who also held the title of mayor of Nagyszeben.

The germ of the Reformation first appeared among the Transylvanian Saxons in the 1530s. In 1545 the Saxon universitas stated its acceptance of Lutheran teachings, and in 1553 the Saxons began to elect their own bishops.

The establishment of the independent principality of Transylvania within the Ottoman Empire, following the Turks’ defeat of Hungary at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, forced the Transylvanian Saxons into a position of opposition. Being ethnically German, they tended to side with the Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, rather than with the Ottoman Turks. Nevertheless, the Saxons continued to play a leading economic role in Transylvania, thanks to the trade they conducted with the Romanian principalities. During the 17th century Saxon class structure became increasingly rigid, and the cultural advance of the preceding century slackened.

In the late 17th century, after Turkish power in the region waned, the Holy Roman emperor Leopold I issued the Diploma Leopoldinum (1690), which guaranteed the rights of the Transylvanian Saxons, as well as those of the Magyars and Szeklers, and promised autonomy for the principality. However, the Transylvanian leadership remained under direct Habsburg influence, and the Treaty of Carlowitz (1699) formally transferred control of Transylvania and much of Hungary from the Ottoman Empire to Habsburg-ruled Austria.

The Saxons numbered about 100,000, representing roughly 10–15 percent of the population, in 17th-century Transylvania. In the 18th century their numbers were bolstered by new settlers, including Protestants exiled from Austria, former soldiers, and craftsmen. Despite the great epidemics of the era, which decimated the predominantly German-speaking urban areas, by the mid-19th century there were more than 200,000 Saxons (about 10 percent of the population) in the region. About one-fifth of them lived outside the Saxon Lands in counties of Hungary, however.

The 19th century bore witness to a Transylvanian Saxon cultural revival. The Saxons’ political objectives were to make German the official language of Transylvania and to consolidate their autonomy. They rejected the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 against the Habsburgs, as well as the idea of a Transylvanian union with Hungary. But their own national demands were untenable, given the strength of Magyar influence within Transylvania as well as the fact that, by this time, Romanians constituted a majority, even in the Saxon Lands.

After suppressing the revolution of 1848, the absolutist Habsburg regime made Transylvania a crown province, and in 1867 Transylvania was absorbed into the Hungarian portion of the new empire of Austria-Hungary. In the Saxon National Program, adopted by an assembly in Medgyes (now Mediaș, Rom.) on May 11, 1872, the Transylvanian Saxons conceded to the Hungarian union but insisted on the preservation of their political autonomy. However, in 1876 the Saxon Lands were integrated into the Hungarian county system, and the Saxon universitas, reorganized as a financial foundation, lost political power. It was primarily through the Lutheran church that the Saxons were able to retain a measure of cultural autonomy. The Saxon People’s Party, which had formed in 1876, advocated against Magyarization until 1890, when it came to an agreement with the Hungarian authorities: in return for an end to Magyarization and significant subsidies for industry, the Saxons joined the governing Liberal Party. The Saxons remained a part of that party, with interruptions, until the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.

At a meeting in Mediaș on Jan. 8, 1919, the Transylvanian Saxons declared their intention to join the newly expanded kingdom of Romania. This act brought them significant advantages: their church received state funding, and their education system was left undisturbed. Yet Romanian land reform was as damaging to them as it was to the Transylvanian Hungarians: the Lutheran church and the universitas lost about half of their property. Moreover, in 1937 the wealth of the universitas was divided between the Lutheran church and a Romanian cultural organization.

During World War II, as a result of the German-Romanian treaty of 1940, the Transylvanian Saxons, along with other ethnic Germans in Romania, were granted special economic and political rights. Many of them served in the German military forces. But from 1944, when Romania realigned with the Allies, ethnic Germans were treated as war criminals: their property was expropriated and their citizenship revoked. Tens of thousands of them were deported to the Soviet Union. Conditions finally began to return to normal about 1950.

In the mid-1950s the Saxons represented about 8 percent of the population of Transylvania, but by the late ’70s this figure had decreased to less than 5 percent. By that time it was only in the regions of Sibiu and Brașov that they lived in significant numbers. Under the Nicolae Ceaușescu communist dictatorship (1965–89), most of the Saxons emigrated to West Germany; their departure was supported by the Romanian regime, as the German government effectively paid Romania a ransom for them. After the dictatorship was overthrown, further emigrations to Germany took place. In the early 21st century there remained roughly 20,000 Saxons, constituting less than 1 percent of the Transylvanian population.