Importanţa planurilor cadastrale în localizarea unor biserici dispărute. Două cazuri semnificative la Mediaş
The Importance of Cadastral Plans in Localizing Lost Churches. Two Case Studies from Mediaş

Summary/Abstract: The object of this paper is the analytical geo-historical attempt to locate the setting of the first orthodox church in Mediaş. In order to locate the first Saxon and Hungarian churches, the Saxon historiography used old plans of the settlements where the name indications of the holy places did not always correspond to the documentary realities. A thorough analysis based on chronicles or the collective memory was left out, therefore the limitation to sometimes approximate setting proposals. By using cadastral plans from 1895, the last graphical form of urban and parcelled out “crystallization”, by integrating doubtless documentary attestations and with the confirmation of several old plans, the paper addresses the localization of the following two catholic churches (that is until the Reformation): Nicolaus Kirche, which is not documentary attested but attributed through chronicles to the first Saxon colonists’ settlement, and Ecclesia Sancti Udalrici, attested in 1477. They both disappeared at unknown dates, but probably due to the local political and religious changes after the defeat of the Hungarian army at Mohács (1526). It was on this occasion that the last count of Hungarian origin from Mediaş disappeared and his church, the church of the “Castel”, was to be taken over by the Saxon community, which would abandon Nicolaus Kirche. The highlight of the paper is the attempt to locate the first church of the Romanians. Although the existence of native Romanians and of their leader is documentary attested beyond any doubt, their first church does not appear in the plans. Historically speaking, we are facing an indisputable reality: the presence of Christian natives, the Walachians to be, who were well organised politically and economically (they had formed an opposition that the king could not repress), implied the existence of a religious Building. The location suggestion, which goes beyond a mere hypothesis due to the value of the “crystallization” on the ground of the evolution and the modifications of an inner part of the building, represents the main topic of the paper.

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