The Transylvanian-Saxon University at War: Trabanten in John Sigismund Szapolyai’s Campaigns at the North-Western Borders of Transylvania (1561–1567)
The Transylvanian-Saxon University at War: Trabanten in John Sigismund Szapolyai’s Campaigns at the North-Western Borders of Transylvania (1561–1567)

Summary/Abstract: Throughout the seventh decade of the sixteenth century, the border regions located in north‑western Transylvania were disputed between Ferdinand of Habsburg and John Sigismund Szapolyai. The actual stake of this conflict was, in fact, the Crown of St. Stephen, claimed by both dynasties, as ‘true heirs’ of the medieval kings of Hungary. Despite being already treated by the Hungarian and Romanian historiographies, there is also a lesser‑known aspect of these conflicts: the involvement of the Transylvanian Saxons in John Sigismund Szapolyai’s war efforts in the Partes Hungariae. The unpublished and underused account books of the Transylvanian‑Saxon University and those of Sibiu and the Seven Seats dating from the mentioned period reveal exciting data on the topic, which I aim to analyze in the present paper. According to these sources, the Transylvanian‑Saxon University hired infantry hand gunners, also known as trabanten, who participated in the north‑western campaigns of John Sigismund Szapolyai between 1561 and 1568.This analysis is also an excellent opportunity to emphasize the transformations that the military organization of the Transylvanian Saxons went through by the mid‑sixteenth century

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