Bistrița

Bistrița, called Bistritz by its German inhabitants and Beszterce in Hungarian, was a fortified Saxon town in northeastern Transylvania. It grew beside the river from which it took its name, with merchants and craftsmen serving the surrounding country and routes toward the Carpathian passes.

In 1353 King Louis I granted the town a fifteen-day annual fair and a seal bearing an ostrich with a horseshoe in its beak. Its prosperity supported strong walls, gates and towers, whose defence was entrusted to the guilds. In 1465 work began on the town's fortifications. The Reformation changed the religious life of its Saxon community in the sixteenth century. Later wars brought further hardship, while Armenian merchants from Moldavia settled in Bistrița during the 1670s, adding another community to the town's commercial life.