Slănic

Slănic lies in the hills north of the Wallachian plain, where deposits of rock salt gave the settlement its chief source of wealth. Merchants were recorded here in the sixteenth century. In 1685 the nobleman Mihai Cantacuzino bought land at Slănic with the intention of exploiting its salt; a charter of 1691 confirmed his rights over the estate and a share of the salt extracted. In 1713 he gave the estate and mines to the Colțea monastery in Bucharest, linking the work of the salt miners to an ecclesiastical foundation.