Sibiu

Sibiu, known as Hermannstadt in German and Nagyszeben in Hungarian, was a leading town of the Transylvanian Saxons. Built on a height above the Cibin River, its upper and lower towns were protected by walls and towers. Merchants and guild craftsmen prospered on routes linking the Transylvanian plateau with the passes toward Wallachia. In the fifteenth century the Saxon communities established their political centre here.

Ottoman raids and sieges threatened Hermannstadt in the fifteenth century, but the fortified town endured. Attacks in 1432 and 1438 damaged monasteries outside the walls; the Dominican community subsequently sought a safer site within the town. The Reformation reached its citizens in the sixteenth century, and in 1543 the Saxons adopted Lutheran teaching. In 1599 Michael the Brave defeated the Transylvanian army at nearby Șelimbăr; the city was drawn into the wars that followed, including sieges in the early seventeenth century.

After the Habsburg conquest of Transylvania, Sibiu acquired a new administrative role. The provincial government sat here from 1692 to 1791, and the city served as capital of the principality. Its churches, squares and merchants' houses reflected both its medieval Saxon wealth and the changing government of the land around it. The Saxon institutions retained a significant place in the social and political life of the province under its new rulers.