page_title: Coat of arms and flag of Transylvania
section_title: 17th-century variants
hierarchical_section_title: Coat of arms and flag of Transylvania / History / 17th-century variants
context_page_description: The coat of arms and flag of Transylvania were granted by Maria Theresa in 1765, when she established a Grand Principality within the Habsburg Monarchy. While neither symbol has official status in present-day Romania, the coat of arms is marshalled within the national Romanian arms; it was also for decades a component of the Hungarian arms. In its upper half, it prominently includes the eagle, which may have been one of the oldest regional symbols, or is otherwise a localized version of the Polish eagle.
  An early version of the Transylvanian charges was first designed in Habsburg Hungary at some point before 1550, and only attested as in use by the Transylvanian Principality in or after 1580. The first Prince to recognize and use them was Sigismund Báthory. They entered the heraldic patrimony and, during Ákos Barcsay's reign, were codified as representing three separate jurisdictions: the eagle stood for Transylvania-proper, the sun-and-crescent is for Székely Land, while the seven towers are canting arms of the Saxon-populated cities.
context_section_description: One of Michael's allies and rivals, Moses Székely, briefly took the throne of Transylvania in 1603. His seals included a representation of the lions rampant, but there is disagreement as to whether these alluded to Michael's heraldry or to Moses' own family arms. Taking over as Prince in 1605, Stephen Bocskai removed the lions and briefly restored the seven mountains, also changing the overall arrangement. Bocskai was also the first Transylvanian Prince to include the state arms on coinage, featuring them alongside his family arms or those of the Zápolyan monarchy. His successor Sigismund Rákóczi used a different design for the eagle which, according to historians such as Bedeus and Marțian, was actually a revival of the Polish arms; Moisil sees it as a borrowing from the Prince's personal arms. At that stage, a Transylvanian eagle was used on coinage issued by the Saxon city of Kronstadt (Brașov), which had risen in rebellion against Rákóczi.
  Before 1621, anti-Habsburg Prince Gabriel Bethlen incorporated his claim to the Lands of the Hungarian Crown by depicting Hungary and Transylvania's arms on a single shield. His crimson swallowtail, reuniting the Bethlen family arms and Transylvanian symbols (black eagle, seven red towers on gold etc.), was preserved and reproduced in later centuries. Historian Vencel Bíró argues that in the 1630s, under George I Rákóczi, Transylvania already used a "blue, red, gold-yellow" tricolor as its state flag. This appears in heraldry used by the Transylvanian post riders. 
  George II Rákóczi used a vast range of Transylvanian arms, freely mixing the elements and including his family's arms. A portrait of his by John Overton features the three elements as separate shields, with the Székely moon wrongly depicted as a bird's head. From 1637, the regular coat of arms, combined with dynastic symbols, was still used as a watermark by the Rákóczian paper mill of Lámkerék (Lancrăm). Between the reigns of Bethlen and Rákóczi, knowledge about "heraldic art" was spread in Transylvania by writer Ferenc Pápai Páriz, whose book standardized descriptions of both princely families' arms. While this revival saw a surge in the number of arms granted by Transylvanian Princes to their Transylvanian or Moldavian subjects and allies, the arms themselves were seldom depicted, as most recipients could not afford the cost of having them painted.
  Various other designs of the state arms, featuring the same basic elements, continued under several Princes until 1659, when Ákos Barcsay restored Sigismund's basic arrangement. This was probably the result of a ruling by the Transylvanian Diet, associating each heraldic element with a distinct entity of Transylvania, and issuing orders for each to be made into a separate seal. A Diet writ also specified the introduction of distinct arms for Partium—an area of Hungary-proper which had been attached to the Principality. This subregion was to be represented by four bars and a Patriarchal cross. Nevertheless, a symbol of Partium never appeared on Barcsay's Transylvanian arms, and the notion was eventually abandoned. As attested in the 1650s by Claes Rålamb, the various towns of this area flew their own symbols, a multitude of "flags and colors".
  The 1659 ruling is widely read as the first to explicitly associate each component privileged class, social as well as national. This interpretation is seen as erroneous by various historians: Marțian notes that the bird was not intended as a stand-in for the Hungarian Transylvanians, but for the multinational nobility and the regular, non-autonomous, counties; this verdict is also backed by Attila István Szekeres and Sándor Pál-Antal: the Diet ascribed a primarily geographical meaning to each element, separating between "the counties", represented by the eagle, and the two autonomous enclaves. Moisil also highlights a non-ethnic definition of the "nation" represented by the eagle, but also comments that, by that moment in time, Romanian nobles were being "gradually Magyarized".
caption: Gabriel Bethlen's banner