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DISCOURSE AS A FORM OF MULTICULTURALISM IN LITERATURE AND COMMUNICATION

SECTION: HISTORY AND CULTURAL MENTALITIES ARHIPELAG XXI PRESS, TÎRGU MUREȘ, 2015, ISBN: 978-606-8624-21-1

63

CULTURAL STRATIFICATION IN THE HUMAN HABITAT OF RODNA (BISTRIȚA-

NĂSĂUD COUNTY) IN THE 13TH CENTURY UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE

SAXON COLONISTS

Mircea Mureșianu

Assoc. Prof., PhD, ”Babeș-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca

Abstract: The presence of argentiferous gold ore, mining and mountain crossing have favored, even

from the early Middle Ages (the 13th

century), the occurrence and development of the prosperous

Oppidum of Rodna. Designed and accomplished by the German colonists brought here by the

Hungarian kings in view of recharging mining and overseeing the Carpathian passages, the stylish

medieval mountain town had imposing buildings, a monumental Dominican basilica, along with a

network of mysterious rooms and underground passages (catacombs), most likely disposed in order to

ensure the security of the population and their goods. Largely shattered by the rapacious Tatar-

Mongol hordes in 1241-1242, the urban dowry of the medieval small town was rebuilt in two decades,

but, unfortunately, the second Tatar invasion in the 13th century , 1285, transformed the Oppidum of

Rodna into ruins, and the town never succeeded in reaching the charm, greatness and glamour it

once had. Based on the scarce documents of the time, the materials and published writings, along with

the personal investigations, the attempt is to reconstitute the old Rodna Oppidum.

Keywords: Cultural stratification, medieval vestiges, Dominican basilica, catacombs, Tatar-Mongol

invaders

Introduction

We sometimes live in places that are unknown to their inhabitants from the

perspective of the chronological stratification of their civilizations. We know them

insufficiently, our perception remaining at the level of lived events or parental stories of the

ones who have placed landmarks in our growth throughout time. We realize the lack of

knowledge about the surrounding

space, when, upon the digging of

a house foundation or a ditch, for

instance, we find that the actual

human habitat overlaps the

remains of an older one. This is

also the case of contemporary

Rodna, a picturesque and stylish

rural settlement, situated in the

North of Romania and the

Oriental Carpathians, in the

North-East part of Transylvania

and Bistriţa-Năsăud county, on Fig. 1. Position of Rodna in the Northern Carpathians



64

the superior valley of Someşul Mare, at a tripartite interference between Transylvania,

Maramureş and Northern Moldavia (Bucovina), ancient regions of the ethnic-linguistic and

geo-demographic Romanian space that were often found under various authorities throughout

history.

In the Middle Ages there is the first written document referring to the town, dating

back to 1235, when the Russian chronicles mention the fact that Daniil (Daniel) Romanovici,

duke of Haliciu, on his way to Hungary, made a stop in Rodna, where he purchased golden

ornaments to offer as a sign of respect and friendship to the newly-enthroned king of

Hungary, Bela the 4th

(M. Mureșianu, E. Bălăi, S. Mureșianu, R. Bălăi, 1996).

The centre of the medieval small town was dominated by an imposing Benedictine

basilica, in its initial organization stage, until 1241-1242, and later Dominican, after 1242,

when a new Roman-Catholic place of worship was built. The documents of the time mention

palaces of the local leaders and counts, of the silver and gold mining administration, along

with the ones belonging to the metal weighers, smelters, jewellers, while, in the proximity

area of the stylish central town, there were the buildings of the merchants and craftsmen

(bakeries, butcher‘s shops, taverns, mills, boot making shops, tailor shops, slaughter houses

etc.)

The centre of medieval Rodna was crossed by a network of rooms and subterranean

corridors (catacombs) disposed both at the initiative of the local authorities, and at the request

of the merchants, in view of ensuring the security of the population and their material goods

at a moment of peril in the history of the place. (P. Boca, 1985)

The great Tatar-Mongol invasion in the spring of 1241 significantly ruined the mining

town, the hordes led by Kadan conquering Rodna in March 31st in the midst of the Easter

celebration. (I. A. Pop, I. Bolovan, 2009). The most ancient and genuine account of the raid in

1241 comes from the Canonical (Monk) Rogerius, who participated at the events and was

taken hostage, only to miraculously escape from the hands of the barbarians. He describes the

invasion in the paper ―Carmen Miserabile‖, where, among others, it is shown that Aristaldus,

the leader of Rodna, was forced by Kadan to accompany the invaders along with his 600

soldiers, as a guide in the rush to Hungary. (V. Şotropa, 1940)

The recovery was accomplished in two decades. The centre of the town being

refurbished at the initiative of the new authorities and instead of the Benedictine abbey a

monumental Dominican basilica was built, whose structure harmoniously combined the late

Roman architecture and the early Gothic style.

After only four decades of peace and relative social security, the new cycle of

remaking and developing Rodna was interrupted by the second attack of the invading Tatar-

Mongol horde in the 13th century with the 1285 invasion, when, upon their return over the

Tihuţa Pass and the Bậrgău Valley, following the Someş Valley, the invaders devastated

Rodna, robbing and stealing from the inhabitants, while turning the buildings and churches

into ruins, including the Dominican basilica built after the 1242. This dramatic event caused

the medieval Oppidum of Rodna to lose the greatness and glamour the town once had in the

early Middle Ages.



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Today‘s picturesque rural centre, the village Rodna, continues to stir up questions

about the ancient Oppidum, both from the villagers and from the foreign visitors. The current

endeavour is to provide an answer to such questions.

Methodological guidemarks

Any study in historical geography is an interdisciplinary scientific ―product‖, a label

that can also be applied to the current attempt in the paper. Using history methods and tools (

the detailed study of the bibliographical sources that send to the current topic, the selection of

relevant, coherent and logical elements in the oral flow of information, the evaluation of polls

and archaeological diggings and the carrying out of own investigations and measurements

etc.) as well as geography methods (analysing the role of physical and geographical factors in

the genesis and evolution of the Oppidum of Rodna) the intention is to reconstitute and return

to the coevals a medieval urban entity of the Oppidum type, specific to the 13th

century in

Transylvania, as a component of the Hungarian Kingdom.

The pieces published in the inter-war period (1924-1940) in the ―Arhiva Someşană‖

magazine, in Năsăud, by a few enthusiast intellectuals (and some historians as well) were of

real help. Even if these materials are often seen with a dose of mistrust-as many of the

writings referring to the early Middle Ages in Rodna have not been validated by the

personalities and academic treaties discussing this topic-they introduce specific aspects of

Rodna‘s further past, aspects that are rightfully analysed and interpreted, often presented with

solid arguments. All the materials provided by the ―Arhiva Someşană‖ magazine (a total of 28

issues, of which 27 were published between 1924 and 1940, whereas the 28th

was published

only in 1994, because of the war firstly and later due to the communism) are published in the

bibliography section.

Valuable and consistent data about the ―generations‖ of existing basilicas in the

medieval Rodna were offered by the unique diggings and archaeological polls accomplished

in 1955 by a few historians and archeologists in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca, later published

in 1957 (V.Vătăşianu, D. Protase, M. Rusu,‖Raport 1955‖, in ―Materiale şi cercetări

arheologice, vol. IV, Bucureşti 1957).

The most interesting pieces of information about the traces occurred along with the

great constructions in the contemporary centre part of Rodna, in 1870-1910, are related to the

oral circulation of the stories, particularly by the accounts of the botanist and academician

Florian Porcius (1816-1906) from Rodna, which were further told by the first educator in a

Romanian school in Rodna, Mureşianu Silvestru (1850-1935) and passed forward to the

educator Boca Pompei (1908-1994) who wrote the stories in a manuscript entitled ―Border

Guard Stories‖ (with reference to the Border Regiment that the Habsburgs founded in

the area during the 1762-1851).

Last but not least, we brought a personal contribution to this retracing attempt through

the evaluation and observation of all the local medieval relics that occurred in 1970-1988, on

the occasion of completing important buildings such as the ―Ineu‖ hotel, the water supply and

the town drainage system, through the inventory and data correlation with the pre-existent

ones, as well as through the analysis and interpretation of these data.



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Results and Discussion

All the attempts to reconstruct parts of the medieval Oppidum of Rodna were grafted

based on a double intent: the urgent investigation (by archaeological diggings and/or polls) of

the site where the ruins of the Dominican basilica were to be found and the study of the local

catacombs‘ relics. Consequently, the issues related to the organization of the medieval small

town and, implicitly, to its shape and orientation, the road texture etc. have aroused the

curiosity of the researchers. The reality of the Rodna hearth, with a distinct time-space

dynamic, with ―buildings‖ always intermingled with catacombs, or even adapted to them,

with the building of other houses over these catacombs and using them as caves or pavements

used to keep produces, determined the researchers to approach the reasonably preserved

elements, the most visible and relevant ones, from the perspective of the medieval central

nucleus of the settlement.

If the documents written in the 13th

century are scarce and sometimes lacking

relevance and explanation, our endeavour takes them into consideration, weighing altogether

the documents referring to the following centuries, with interesting mentions of all the found

relics (whose discovery was often made by chance). Therefore, after the first documented

mention in 1235 and Rogerius‘ accounts about the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1241-1242,

Rodna reappears in several written documents, e.g. in 1268, regarding an assets transaction,

which states the existence of an administration, with a board made of a judge and 12 jurors

appointed by the king (I. Marţian, 1924); The document indicates that, two decades and a half

after the Tatar-Mongol invasion, Rodna was rebuilt, taking back its socio-economic life. This

is believed to be the moment when the network of settlements, corridors and subterranean

ways – the catacombs of Rodna – were designed and arranged. The 1268 document draws the

attention over another significant element in the medieval history of Rodna, an enigmatic

medieval fortress situated less than 3 kilometres downstream. It is possible that the specific

strategic objective was established after the events in 1241-1242. Some bastions of the

fortress were well kept until the inter-war period (1924-1925), when the historian Iulian

Marţian made an accurate re-enactment of the essential elements of the building. (I. Marţian,

1925)

Other documents that hint at the passage between the 13th and 14

th century date from

1292-1296 and 1313 and refer to solving legacy issues, certifying the property over various

assets. (I. Marţian, 1924).



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Fig. 2. The ruins of the Dominican Basilica

Fig. 3. The remains of

a catacomb at the

basilica

Fig. 4. Entrance from

the school yard in the

centre of Rodna into

one of the better

preserved catacombs

Austere from the point of view of written documents, the XIVth century witnessed a

significant tide, as the economy of the settlement, along with mining, the social, political and

cultural-religious life were stricken by the Tatar-Mongol invasion in the 1284-1285. Even if

there are some historians who believe that the invasion of Rodna in 1285 was uncertain, and

the written documents do no provide much help, the return of the invaders who ruined

Bistriţa, (arriving there through the Tihuţa pass) on the Someş Valley forces us to accept that

the preying and ruining of the settlement was a given fact, knowing also the ―eloquence‖ with

which the invaders used to operate. This fact is also supported by the dramatic and definite

decay of medieval Rodna, which, in 1287, was already in a position inferior to Bistriţa, as seat

of the district with the same name. (K. Gündisch, 1993)

Beginning with the 14th

century, Rodna witnessed a regress shaped primarily on the

two great and devastating Tatar-Mongol attacks, on the terror that instilled the inhabitants

who found refuge in safer places and, not last, on the destruction of the Dominican basilica, as

a factor of culture and civilization, order and civic discipline in the area. The importance of



68

Rodna in the area diminished, the socio-economic situation became fragile and mining

declined, given that silver was on demand for a certain period of time. (P. Niedermeier, 2004).

The information referring to the economic and cultural-religious life in the 14th

- 15th

centuries is nearly absent.

The relapse of Rodna from the 14th

and 15th centuries is underlined by the repeated

calls from the year 1440 by Queen Elisabeth to the Szekely‘s comes, Jakch of Kusal, to take

over a devastated and depopulated Rodna, and by the royal privilege from 1520 which offer

Rodna the right to hold a market every Sunday, to have a seal and own heraldic shield, in

order to revitalise the social-economic life of the settlement (A. Csallner, 1941). The

stagnation and regress continue in the 16th

and 17th centuries, a fact that can be observed in

the reports of the inspectors sent by Francisc Rákoczi in 1638 to evaluate the mines that were

considered unprofitable. (M. S. Salontai, Bistriţa Magazine, XXIV, 2010)

As a message came across the centuries from the medieval Oppidum, the report of the

imperial officers in 1695 indicates the existence of a house with large basements on the verge

of ruin and of other 140 houses that were functional, as well as the walls surrounding the

church, which had been half-covered in shingles by the villagers and which housed the

ancient lecterns (R. Slatta, V. Wallmann, I. Dordea, 1999, II) It is the first document

rendering information about the ―subterranean‖ areas of Rodna, in the 400 years since the last

invasion in the 13th

century, people adapting their houses to the former catacombs

transformed into basements of household use.

The 18th

century and the first half of the 19th century bring the Habsburg conquer of

the House of Wien in Transylvania and implicitly in Rodna. Beyond the convulsions that

accompanied the settlement consolidation process of the new authorities, the last attack of the

invading hordes of the Tatar-Mongolians in 1717 with their robberies and atrocious cruelty

for the inhabitants of Rodna (M. Mureşianu, 2000), the 18th

century remains a century of the

great projects meant to rebuild Rodna, put to fire and sword for so many times, faced with

natural calamities and implicitly with depopulation and devastation during the Border

Regiment, of Rodna‘s militarization (1762-1851), allowing the small town to return to its

status as important settlement, home to a strategic Border guard company- the Vth one. (V.

Şotropa, 1925) It is at this time that the Austrian authorities initiate the rebuilding of the civic

centre of Rodna within the former medieval Main square and they discover that they are

forced to rearrange the new imposing buildings (the headquarters of the Military Company,

administrative and commercial locations, offices belonging to the authorities in mining etc.)

either by replacing some ruined building or above the medieval catacombs.

The Habsburg projects reveal a series of relevant details for the medieval centre of

Rodna, currently the former main street in the 13th - 18

th centuries which stretched on the

Eastern wing of the medieval square, passing in front of the Dominican basilica, behind the

contemporary Town Hall and South-East from the Roman-Catholic church the road is

interrupted. Along this road, over an alignment of catacombs that have been transformed into

basements (reshaped and consolidated with brick walls) several wooden living facilities are

built for the military authorities (P. Boca, personal communication, August 12, 1992). P.

Boca‘s notes, expanding the writings of several precursors-local intellectuals who descended



69

in the history of the place until the end of the 18th century and completing the information

from the contemporaries of the epoch, indicate that the most important objective in the

Eastern wing of the medieval square was the Dominican basilica, from which, towards North

and South, the Eastern front of the medieval centre was continued with buildings hosting the

clergy and the administrative staff.

The ruined catacombs on this alignment led the Habsburg military authorities to attach

the once inhabited space to a habitat destined for some public use buildings, one of them; a

former storehouse of the military garrison preserved its catacomb as a strategic basement,

being well hidden until the end of the 19th

century. (P. Boca, personal communication, August

12, 1992)

After the abolition of the military border (1851) and the setting up of the Austro-

Hungarian dualism, the Hungarian authorities initiate a project meant to change completely

the ancient centre, both in the habitat of the former square of the 13th century and in the

spaces covered by buildings that date back to the Border Guard. This way, between 1875 and

1900, on the Western alignment of the former medieval square the large wooden buildings

dating from the Habsburg period are demolished, their place being taken by the Pretura and

the two-storied school made of brick and stone, in front of the catacombs alignment on the

Western wing of the medieval square. Relics of the former catacombs (some consolidated in

brick and used as cellars or basements) are still kept under some private houses or at the end

of buildings on this Western front in the medieval centre, such as the school and Pretura.

Fig. 5. Plan of the medieval square from the 13

th century



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Fig. 6. The historic site of the Dominican basilica, with the road that existed until the Interwar

period on the location of the present-day Orthodox church (source:

http://postcards.hungaricana.hu/en/view/front/215395/?bbox=-1089%2C-

2259%2C4375%2C93)

Fig. 7. View from the south on the present-day square



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Fig. 8. The north-western part of Rodna‘s central square, reshaped and re-planned at the end

of the 19th

century, with the stately building known as „Găbănașu‖ to the right. The building

was demolished in 1937 to make place to the present-day Orthodox church (source:

http://postcards.hungaricana.hu/en/view/front/215394/?bbox=-872%2C-

1977%2C4137%2C179)

It was in this period of time that the current Town Hall, the Parish House of the

Roman- Catholic priest and a beautiful private house were built on the Eastern wing of the

medieval square, whereas the road was moved from behind the Town Hall, passing now in

front of the building and turning right in front of the Roman-Catholic church (with a first

nucleus built in 1778), towards the bridge over the Izvorul Băilor river. The former medieval

centre of Rodna is thus reshaped and re-dimensioned by the new authorities in such a way

that, in 1900, the area had only a third of the previous medieval square in the 13th

century.

The park in the current square was arranged after 1950, the central nucleus of Rodna being

free and more spacious until then.

By making an inventory of all the medieval relics, by weighing the elements of

symmetry, urban aesthetics and architecture in the 13th

century and by considering all the

pieces of information with reference to the medieval trails discovered throughout the repeated

attempts to rebuild Rodna, we continued with the measurements intended to distinguish the

real spatial-geographic extent of the medieval Oppidum of Rodna centre.

The most consistent medieval trails occur on the Western part of the square, where the

front of the buildings dating in the 1875-1900 faced severe difficulties due to the

concatenation of the catacombs on a North-South direction. The Pretura and the Central

School were built between the catacombs‘ alignment and nowadays square, and the few

private homes were built over the catacombs, later transformed either in basements or septic

tanks.



72

The length of the Western part in the Medieval Square was of approximately 120

meters, taking into consideration the alignment of the catacombs which went along a series of

imposing administrative, military and mining administration buildings. Parallel to the Western

part, the Eastern wing of the former medieval square had a length of a similar dimension,

measured along the former road giving access to the central part of the Oppidum, passing in

front the Dominican basilica until the last catacomb on this alignment, damaged in the last

part of the 20th century, when a prison was built on the respective site. (P. Boca, personal

communication, August 12, 1992). The subterranean room in front of the Dominican basilica,

located on the same line with the above-mentioned one was also used as ground floor of the

church, an argument to support this being the large piles of wastage, debris and stone that

surround it, at present invaded by vegetation. (M. S. Salontai, Bistriţa Magazine, XXIV 2010)

The Northern part of the Medieval Square was set out by commercial buildings and

private houses, whereas in the North-West begins the connection road to the silver and goal

mines at Valea Vinului (9 kilometres along the Izvorul Băilor river).

The Southern part of the central medieval ―quadrilateral‖ of Rodna was closed by a

few buildings which marked the border of the main street that continued its route towards

Bistriţa, while the South-Western corner of the square was marked by a connection street with

the occupied habitats in the central and Western area of the Rodna hearth. The Northern and

Southern sides of the medieval square measured each 100 meters in length.

Integrated in a quadrangle that enclosed a beautiful and picturesque square, the central

part of the Oppidum of Rodna stretched on a surface over 1 hectare (over 11,000 square

meters), over two thirds larger than the contemporary square (around 3,300 square meters),

having imposing buildings, an emblematic Dominican basilica for those days in the Vallis

Rodnensis and especially a thrilling socio-economic life. The 13th

century was one of full

flourishing for a mountain settlement that quickly passed from the stage of Villa to the

Oppidum (Civitas).

Conclusions

Rodna is a mountain settlement that occurred between the 12th

and 13th

centuries, due

to the interest of the Hungarian kings for the argentiferous-gold riches of its subterranean

areas but also due to some location favours at the East-North-Eastern border of the Hungarian

Kingdom.

The German colonists (Saxons) brought here by the Árpádian Hungarian kings to

revitalize mining and to guard the Carpathian passes, establish here, in the heart of the

mountains, a stylish and prosperous human settlement, which moves rapidly from being a

villa to being a civitas (Oppidum).

A civic centre, dominated by a central square – two thirds smaller than the former

medieval square-shaped as a quadrilateral, was endowed with imposing buildings, an

emblematic Dominican basilica made in the architectonic style of the epoch (late Romantic,

early Gothic and Burgundian) and with an enigmatic network of rooms and subterranean

corridors (catacombs) that are unique in this geographic space.



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―The seisms of history‖ (the two devastating Tatar-Mongol invasions in 1241 -1242

and 1284-1285) and the game of economic interests related to searching and valuing gold and

silver on the contemporary markets caused the decay of Rodna, which witnessed, between the

14th and 17

th centuries long periods of decline and devastation, along with very short and

insignificant periods of recovery and progress.

In the 18th

and 19th

centuries, under the Habsburg and Austro-Hungarian occupation,

the settlement was under a new form of development, being rebuilt from the foundation, as

the former medieval centre was remodelled and re-dimensioned, on which occasion the relics

of the 13th

century reappear in several points of the small town. (Remains of the catacombs

aligned on the Eastern and Western fronts of the square, but also remains of a potential

consolidated tunnel that connected the above-mentioned subterranean alignments and that

crossed the highly circulated main street.)

The 13th

century remains therefore a period of maximum development for Rodna, of

economic and urban boom, and the relics of the former Oppidum Rodnensis, along with the

writings and elements of oral tradition convinced us to reconstitute this genuine ―Atlantis‖

sunk in the whirling waters of history.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Boca, P. (1985), Rodna la 750 de ani de la prima atestare documentară, Cercul Cultural

„Plaiuri Năsăudene și Bistrițene‖, Bistrița, pp. 41-54

Boca, P. (1992), Povești Grănicerești, unpublished manuscript, personal communication from

August 12, 1992

Csallner, E. (1941), Denkwürdigkeiten aus dem Nösnergau, pp. 99-100

Gündisch, K. (1993), Das Patriziat siebenbürgischer Städte im Mittelalter, Köln, p. 128

Marţian, I. (1924), Contribuții la istoricul Rodnei, in: Arhiva Someșană, nr. 1, Năsăud,pp. 16,

17-19

Marţian, I. (1925), Castrul Rodna, in: Arhiva Someșană, nr. 4, Năsăud, p. 48

Mureşianu, M. (2000), Districtul Grăniceresc Năsăudean. Studiu de Geografie Istorică, edit.

Presa Universitară Clujeană, Cluj-Napoca, p. 67

Mureşianu, M., Bălai, E., Mureşianu, S., Bălai, Rodica (1996), Rodna, pagini de monografie.

Ipostaze istorice, geografice, lingvistice și culturale, edit. Ando Tours, Timișoara, pp. 16, 20

Niedermeier, P. (2004), Städtebau im Mittelalter. Siebenbürgen, Banat und

Kreischgebiet(1348-1541), Böhlau Verlag, Köln, p. 258

Pop, I. A., Bolovan, I. (2009), Istoria ilustrată a României, Litera Internațional, București,

Chișinău, Cluj-Napoca, pp. 129-130

Salontai, M. S. (2010), Ruina de la Rodna, Bistriţa Magazine, XXIV/2010, pp. 298, 297-320

Şotropa, V. (1940), Tătarii în Valea Rodnei, in: Arhiva Someșană, nr. 28, Năsăud, pp. 26-46

Şotropa, V. (1925), Regimentul Grăniceresc Năsăudean, in: Arhiva Someșană, nr. 2, Năsăud,

pp. 10-11

Vătăşianu, V., Protase, D., Rusu, M. (1957), Raport 1955, in ―Materiale şi cercetări

arheologice, vol. IV, Bucureşti, pp. 207-214

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