Lay or monastic? The medieval landscape and property disputes over Tiburcztelke (Chinteni, Cluj county)
Lay or monastic? The medieval landscape and property disputes over Tiburcztelke (Chinteni, Cluj county)

Summary/Abstract: During the second half of the 14th century Tiburczelke, the small property in the Chinteni’s Valley, knew tensioned episodes. The right of property and its using implicitly were the object of a suit, documented for three generations, between Cluj-Mănăștur Benedictine Abbey and a family of land nobles entitled so. The property there and the setting inside of it count five centuries, from the 14th one to the 18th century, the moment the village was depopulated. The large number of preserved documents on the long suit directed the researchers’ attention to, given the amount and quality of details regarding the involved parties and the medieval archeological landscape. Location and partial delimiting of the area where Tiburczelke developed were so possible. Generally, we speak about a territory between Chiteni on the south, and Vechea, Deușu and Măcicașu on the north and north-west. The archive, map and toponyms data allowed us indentifying the former village, some farming areas, forests and possible ponds, or pastures and old routes. The case study belongs to the micro-history and the local landscape analyzing, but the abundance of data allowed detailed restitutions of the medieval realities up to a level that is difficult or quite impossible to be secured within other many areas. Difficulties within a suit generated by an illegal occupation of a territory, with violent episodes and corruption as it seems that none of the involved parties had original documents were found out in that case. The suit evolution and event shows that we might speak initially about a monastic property and a nobiliary persistent attempt to tear it off the abbatial estates.

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