Aspects of Urban Life in Eighteenth-Century Transylvania: Administrative History and Natural Phenomena in Martin Bredt’s Town Chronicle of Reghinul Săsesc
Aspects of Urban Life in Eighteenth-Century Transylvania: Administrative History and Natural Phenomena in Martin Bredt’s Town Chronicle of Reghinul Săsesc

Summary/Abstract: The article includes a translation and critical assessment of the orator Martin Bredt's family chronicle written in the Transylvanian town of Reghin in the eighteenth-century. A copy of the chronicle can be found in the Transylvanian Archives in Gundelsheim am Neckar, Germany. The article presents the historical and social context in which the chronicle was written, the composition of the town council of which Bredt was a member, as well as the chronicle's scientific importance for the history of Reghin. Despite being of secondary importance, the chronicle still provides valuable data on the town's history before 1848 when its archives perished in a fire. Therefore, it fills certain gaps regarding the construction of the local Roman Catholic church, the settlement of Catholic families in a predominantly Lutheran town, natural event and the expansion of the town's limits. Moreover, the chronicle reinforces and complements data provided by other sources on Reghin and its surroundings at the end of the eighteenth century. The text of the chronicle reminds of the Humanistic tradition in which the recount of a town's history is combined with the description of buildings and the enumeration of functionaries.

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