Caransebeş

Caransebeș lies at the foot of the Banat mountains, where the Timiș and Sebeș rivers meet. Its medieval fortress and town formed a centre of the Banate of Severin, guarding the approaches between the Hungarian plain and the mountain country. Romanian districts around it retained distinctive local rights within the kingdom.

From 1536 Caransebeș and Lugoj gave their names to a frontier banate, which passed under Transylvanian authority after the division of Hungary. Its fortifications were repaired in 1551 and 1552 as the Ottoman threat grew. In 1658 the region was ceded to the Ottomans; Austrian forces occupied Caransebeș in 1688, and the town subsequently changed hands during further wars. Its defences were dismantled in the early eighteenth century, before the wider Banat came under Habsburg rule.