INVENTARUL ARMAMENTULUI CETĂŢII DEVA ÎN ANUL 1640
WEAPONS INVENTORY OF DEVA FORTRESS IN 1640

Summary/Abstract: An inventory from 1640, published in this study, describes in detail the number of war instruments in the fortress of Deva. The inventory was made at the sale of the Deva estate by Lady Maria Széchy to Prince George I Rákóczy. So far only one such document was known, completed on 30 November 1640 and published by historian Endre Veress. However, the present inventory precedes it by one month, having been made by the archivists of the Alba Iulia Chapter house. The three men of the Transylvanian prince identified numerous pieces of artillery and other tools necessary for the defence of the fortification, but most of them were obsolete, sometimes a century old. Even if the weaponry was neither too modern nor too numerous, combined with the extraordinary position of the fortress it could still be an asset. The inventory of weapons of Deva offers us the possibility of investigating the military aspects of a Transylvanian fortress in the middle of the 17th century. Knowledge of military resources in that period is essential in understanding how the principality of Transylvania adapted to changes in tactics and weaponry in the early modern era.

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