page_title: Transylvanian Saxons
section_title: Origins and medieval settlements
hierarchical_section_title: Transylvanian Saxons / Origins and medieval settlements
caption_attribution_description: Română: Regiunile de provenienţă ale coloniştilor saşi în Transilvania în secolul al XIII-lea.
context_page_description: The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who were settled in Transylvania in waves starting from the mid 12th century until the late Modern Age. The Transylvanian 'Saxons' originally stemmed from Flanders, Hainaut, Brabant, Liège, Zeeland, Moselle, Lorraine, and Luxembourg, then situated in the north-western territories of the Holy Roman Empire around the 1140s.
  After 1918 and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, in the wake of the Treaty of Trianon, Transylvania was joined to the Kingdom of Romania. Consequently, the Transylvanian Saxons, together with other ethnic German sub-groups in newly enlarged Romania, became part of that country's broader German minority. Today, relatively few still live in Romania, where the last official census carried out in 2011 indicated 36,042 Germans, out of which 11,700 were of Transylvanian Saxon descent.
context_section_description: The initial phase of German settlement began in the expansive mid-12th century, with colonists travelling to what would become Altland or Hermannstadt Provinz, based around the city of Hermannstadt, today's Sibiu. Although the primary reason for Géza II's invitation was border defense, similar to employing the Székelys against invaders, Germans were also sought for their mining expertise and ability to develop the region's economy. Most colonists to this area came from Luxembourg and the Moselle River region (see for instance Medardus de Nympz).
  A second phase of German settlement during the early 13th century consisted of settlers primarily from the Rhineland, the southern Low Countries, and the Moselle region, with others from Thuringia, Bavaria, and even from France. A settlement in northeastern Transylvania was centered on the town of Nösen, the later Bistritz (Bistrița), located on the Bistrița River. The surrounding area became known as the Nösnerland.
  Continued immigration from the Empire expanded the area of the Saxons further to the east. Settlers from the Hermannstadt region spread into the Hârtibaciu River valley (Harbachtal) and to the foot of the Cibin (German: Zibin) and Sebeș (German: Mühlbacher) mountains.
  The latter region, centered around the city of Mühlbach (Sebeș), was known as Unterwald. To the north of Hermannstadt they settled what they called the Weinland including the village of Nympz (Latin for Nemșa / Nimesch) near Mediasch (Mediaș). Allegedly, the term Saxon was applied to all Germans of these historical regions because the first German settlers who came to the Kingdom of Hungary were either poor miners or groups of convicts from Saxony.
  In 1211 King Andrew II of Hungary invited the Teutonic Knights to settle and defend the Burzenland in the southeastern corner of Transylvania. To guard the mountain passes of the Carpathians (Karpaten) against the Cumans, the Knights constructed numerous castles and towns, including the major city of Kronstadt (Brașov). Alarmed by the Knights' rapidly expanding power, in 1225 Andrew II expelled the Order, which henceforth relocated to Prussia in 1226, although the colonists remained in Burzenland. The Kingdom of Hungary's medieval eastern borders were therefore defended in the northeast by the Nösnerland Saxons, in the east by the Hungarian border guard tribe of the Székelys, in the southeast by the castles built by the Teutonic Knights and Burzenland Saxons, and in the south by the Altland Saxons.
caption: The regions of origin from which the initial waves of Transylvanian Saxons stemmed (the dotted line represent the border of the Holy Roman Empire during the High Middle Ages). Legend:   Lorraine -  the main region of origin of the initial settlers   Brabant, Bavaria, and Thuringia - secondary regions of origin
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