Medgyes

The fortified
church

The Forkesch
tower

Steingassenturm

MEDGYES Archeological excavations revealed that the area of Medgyes (Medias, Rumania today) was populated already during the era of the Dacians and later the Roman Empire. After Saxons were settled by Hungarian king Géza II (1141-1162) in Transylvania, Medgyes received its first Saxon settlers in 1267. They came from the regions of the rivers Rhine and Mosel, where floods caused havoc in those years and devastating a famine erupted.
In 1495, the finest Hungarian king Matthias (1458-1490), the renaissance king, gave Medgyes the privilege of the free royal town and built a three-layer circular wall system around the town, as a defense against the increasing Ottoman (Turkish) attacks on Hungary. Since the 15th century, Medgyes is one of the autonomic cultural and ethnic centers of the Saxons in Transylvania.
In 1576, István Báthori, the Hungarian governor of Transylvania was in Medgyes, when he received the envoys from Cracow, Poland, bringing him the documents that was elected to be the king of Poland. Also, the Hungarian nobles of Transylvania voted Sigismund Báthori (1588), and István Bocskai (1605) as governors of Transylvania in Medgyes. On May 17, 1545, the Saxon population of Medgyes officially joined the Augustine denomination.
The fortified church is now Evangelical, but once was a catholic one named after Saint Mary. The gothic cathedral was built between 1449 and 1482, using the foundations and parts of walls of an older romanesque church. Its 74-meter-high tower was built around 1550. The church was modified several times, rebuilt in 1832. The outside surface of the foldable wooden altar of the church, built in the 15th century, depicts scenes with Jesus on the Calvary. Next to the church stands the bell tower with its wooden circular balcony. It was built in the 17th century, renovated in 1796.
From the enormous defensive wall system, which was built around Medgyes by king Matthias, only the Forkesch tower, built between 1494-1534, and the Steingassenturm still stand. Latter was built in the first part of the 16th century, and after 1705, it was rebuilt in baroque style.