Transylvanian Saxons in the context of "Biserica Neagră"

Transylvanian Saxon is the native German dialect of the Transylvanian Saxons, an ethnic German minority group from Transylvania in central Romania, and is also one of the three oldest ethnic German and German-speaking groups of the German diaspora in Central and Eastern Europe, along with the Baltic Germans and Zipser Germans. In addition, the Transylvanian Saxons are the eldest ethnic German group of all constituent others forming the broader community of the Germans of Romania.

The dialect is known by the endonym Siweberjesch Såksesch or just Såksesch; in German as Siebenbürgisch-Sächsisch, Siebenbürgisch-sächsischer Dialekt/Mundart, or Die siebenbürgisch-sächsische Sprache (obsolete German spelling: Siebenbürgisch Teutsch); in Transylvanian Landler dialect as Soksisch; in Hungarian as erdélyi szász nyelv; and in Romanian as limba săsească, săsește, or dialectul săsesc.

The "Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania" UNESCO World Heritage Site consists of seven villages (six Saxon and one Székely) chosen from among over 150 such structures surviving in the Transylvania region of Romania. They are dominated by fortified churches and characterized by a specific settlement pattern that has been preserved since the Late Middle Ages.

Transylvania has one of the highest concentrations of fortified churches that survive from the 13th to 16th centuries. Of the original 300, more than 150 well preserved fortified churches are surviving until today, displaying a great variety of architectural styles. Seven from among them, representing various types, have been selected by the World Heritage Committee and listed as a World Heritage Site.

The Historic Centre of Sighișoara (Sighișoara Citadel) is the old historic center of the town of Sighișoara (German: Schäßburg, Hungarian: Segesvár), Romania, built in the 12th century by Saxon settlers. It is an inhabited medieval citadel that, in 1999, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its 850-year-old testament to the history and culture of the Transylvanian Saxons.

Birthplace of Vlad III the Impaler (in Romanian Vlad Țepeș), Sighișoara hosts, every year, a medieval festival where arts and crafts blend with rock music and stage plays. The city marks the upper boundary of the Land of Sachsen. Like its bigger brothers, Sibiu (Hermannstadt) and Braşov (Kronstadt), Sighișoara exhibits Medieval German architectural and cultural heritage that was preserved even during the Communist period.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania was a Latin-rite bishopric west of the Siret River (in present-day Romania) from 1228 to 1241. The lands incorporated into the diocese had been dominated by the nomadic Cumans since about 1100. Catholic missions began after Andrew II of Hungary granted Burzenland to the Teutonic Knights in 1211. After Andrew expelled the Knights from the territory in 1225, Dominican friars continued the Cuman mission. Robert, Archbishop of Esztergom baptized Boricius, an influential Cuman chieftain, two years later.

Robert ordained a Hungarian Dominican friar, Theodoric, as the first bishop of Cumania in early 1228. Pope Gregory IX confirmed Theodoric's consecration on 21 March of that year, and the diocese was subordinate to the Holy See in 1229. The episcopal see was on the Milcov River, but its exact location is unknown. The diocese included Burzenland and lands east of the Carpathian Mountains. Vlachs (Romanians) who belonged to the Orthodox Church were a significant part of the diocese's population. They did not follow the Catholic bishop, and persuaded many Catholic Hungarians and Saxons to accept their Orthodox bishops.

The Middle Ages in Romania began shortly after the withdrawal of the Roman legions from the former Roman province of Dacia in the late 3rd century and with the start of the Early Middle Ages and the Migration Period that followed afterwards respectively. It subsequently came to an end with the reign of Domn Michael the Brave (1593–1601) who managed, for a short time between 1599 and 1600, to rule Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania together, the three principalities whose territories were to be united some three centuries later to form modern and contemporary Romania.

Over most of this period, Banat, Crișana, Maramureș, and Transylvania – now regions in Romania to the west of the Carpathian Mountains – were part of the Kingdom of Hungary. They were divided into several types of administrative units, such as "counties" and "seats". The heads of the Transylvanian counties or "counts" were subordinated to a special royal official called voivode, but the province was seldom treated as a single unit, since the Székely and Saxon seats were administered separately. In the kingdom, Romanian peasants, being Orthodox, were exempt from the tithe, an ecclesiastical tax payable by all Roman Catholic commoners. However, Romanian noblemen slowly lost the ability to participate in political life, as the 14th-century monarchs pursued a zealous pro-Catholic policy. Their position became even worse after 1437 when the so-called "Union of Three Nations", an alliance of the Hungarian noblemen, the Székelys, and the Saxons, was formed in order to crush the Bobâlna peasant uprising.

The Voivode of Transylvania (German: Vojwode von Siebenbürgen; Hungarian: erdélyi vajda; Latin: voivoda Transsylvaniae; Romanian: voievodul Transilvaniei) was the highest-ranking official in Transylvania within the Kingdom of Hungary from the 12th century to the 16th century. Appointed by the monarchs, the voivodes – themselves also the heads or ispáns of Fehér County – were the superiors of the ispáns of all the other counties in the province.

They had wide-ranging administrative, military and judicial powers, but their jurisdiction never covered the whole province. The Saxon and Székely communities – organized into their own districts or "seats" from the 13th century – were independent of the voivodes. The kings also exempted some Transylvanian towns and villages from their authority over the centuries. Even so, the Voivodeship of Transylvania "was the largest single administrative entity" in the entire kingdom in the 15th century. Voivodes enjoyed income from the royal estates attached to their office, but the right to "grant lands, collect taxes and tolls, or coin money" was reserved for the monarchs. Although Roland Borsa, Ladislaus Kán and some other voivodes rebelled against the sovereign, most remained faithful royal officials.

Mureș County (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈmureʃ], Romanian: Județul Mureș, Hungarian: Maros megye) is a county (județ) of Romania, in the historical region of Transylvania, with the administrative centre in Târgu Mureș. The county was established in 1968, after the administrative reorganization that re-introduced the historical județ (county) system, still used today. This reform eliminated the previous Mureș-Magyar Autonomous Region, which had been created in 1952 within the People's Republic of Romania. Mureș County has a vibrant multicultural fabric that includes Hungarian-speaking Székelys and Transylvanian Saxons, with a rich heritage of fortified churches and towns.

The Transylvanian Diet (German: Siebenbürgischer Landtag; Hungarian: erdélyi országgyűlés; Romanian: Dieta Transilvaniei) was an important legislative, administrative and judicial body of the Principality (from 1765 Grand Principality) of Transylvania between 1570 and 1867. The general assemblies of the Transylvanian noblemen and the joint assemblies of the representatives of the "Three Nations of Transylvania"—the noblemen, Székelys and Saxons—gave rise to its development. After the disintegration of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary in 1541, delegates from the counties of the eastern and northeastern territories of Hungary proper (or Partium) also attained the Transylvanian Diet, transforming it into a legal successor of the medieval Diets of Hungary.

The diet sessions at Vásárhely (now Târgu Mureș) (20 January 1542) and at Torda (now Turda) (2 March 1542) laid the basis for the political and administrative organization of Transylvania. The diet decided on juridical, military and economic matters. It ceased to exist following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, when Transylvania was returned to the control of the Diet of the newly empowered Hungary.

The Danube Swabians (German: Donauschwaben [ˈdoːnaʊʃvaːbm̩] ) were the ethnic German-speaking population which lived in the Kingdom of Hungary in east-central Europe, especially in the Danube River valley, first in the 12th century, and in greater numbers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Most were descended from earlier 18th-century Swabian settlers from Upper Swabia, the Swabian Jura, northern Lake Constance, the upper Danube, the Swabian-Franconian Forest, the Southern Black Forest and the Principality of Fürstenberg, followed by Hessians, Bavarians, Franconians and Lorrainers recruited by Austria to repopulate the area and restore agriculture after the expulsion of the Ottoman Empire. They were able to keep their language and religion and initially developed strongly German communities in the region which retained the German language, customs, and folklore.

The Danube Swabians were given their German name by German ethnographers in the early 20th century. In the 21st century, they are made up of ethnic Germans from many former and present-day countries: Germans of Hungary; Satu Mare Swabians; Germans of Croatia, Bačka, the Banat Swabians; and the Vojvodina Germans of Serbia's Vojvodina and Croatia's Slavonia, especially those in the Osijek region. However, the Carpathian Germans and Transylvanian Saxons are not included within the Danube Swabian group.