A marosszentkirályi pálosok és birtokaik. Egy tájrégészeti kutatás előzetes eredményei és további lehetőségei
The Paulines from Sâncraiu de Mureş and Their Estates. Preliminary Results of a Landscape Analysis and Further Research Possibilities

Summary/Abstract: The present study offers a short synthesis and overview of a landscape archaeological study which focuses on the Pauline monastery and its landed estates located in Sâncraiu de Mureş, County Mureş, Romania. Along the few centuries of their existence the Pauline community accumulated numerous and varied landed donations. Among these donations the number of mills, mill places, and mill incomes represented an outstanding percent, which ensured the Paulines monopoly in the region. Other donations included fishponds or parts of fishponds, forests, parts of arable lands, pastures, meadows, and vineyards. Based on the testimony of several documents the authors discuss certain important events from the history of the Paulines, focusing on possible constructions that could have taken place in the building complex. The location of the monastery is relatively well-known and even though archaeological investigation never took place at the site of monastery at least two construction or renovation works could have taken place, one in 1392 and another around 1520. Additionally, the results of a geophysical survey conducted in 2013 are presented in detail, which again supply a more exact identification of the monastic buildings. The study discusses in detail the research of two landscape elements, both of which are connected to the use of the surrounding water bodies, the mills and the fishponds. The analysis indicates that most of the mills owned by the Paulines were situated on an artificial canal of the River Mureş, which crossed mainly through the territory of a village called in the sources Székelyfalva, but disappeared by today, and on the territory of the village Sâncraiu de Mureş. This canal appears in the sources under the name Maros-árok (ditch/dike of the Mureş) or Kis-Maros (Small Mureş). According to the sources several mills could have functioned also around the settlements of Nazna and Micești (Kisfalud). Historic maps show that this dike branched off from the Mureş River towards north around the village Micești and joined the Mureş again in the area of Sâncraiu de Mureş. The same historic maps illustrate that the river bed of the Mureş was in a continuous change until the 20th century modernization works. As a consequence, it is hard to estimate how did the Mureş River change its course along the centuries, thus the exact course of the river in the time of the Paulines, just as the formation date of the canal on which a number of mills were located is unknown. The earliest information on the canal comes from 1380, when this had already functioned, referred to as an interior canal, and in 1378 a mill is already attested in Nazna. The name Marosarka was used for the first time in 1420 and then in 1489. Sometimes next to the mills fishponds were attached. Written documents indicate that the Paulines owned fishponds or parts of fishponds near the village Sâncraiu de Mureş, Bărdeşti, Berghia, Toldal, and Ercea. The research of both landscape features requires a complex, multi-disciplinary approach, in the framework of which our results represent only a first phase. However, even in this preliminary phase the identification and sometimes even the mapping of visible remains of these features could be conducted given the largescale earthworks that the development of these features required, such as mill canals, dams etc.

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