Fragment from the history of Sibiu: In 1438, the Turks besieged the city but failed to conquer it. On the other hand, the entire surrounding area was devastated.
As a result of the Turkish threat, three rings of walls with 39 towers and several large gates were built in the city. Thus it became the largest fortified city in the Kingdom of Hungary. Sibiu withstood repeated sieges by the Turks, who never succeeded in conquering the city.
In 1442, the Turks were defeated at the city gates, and the mayor Thomas Trautenberger became a legend. Therefore, in 1445, Pope Eugene IV designated Sibiu as a wall and a shield. Sibiu as a wall and shield of Christianity.
However, armies passing through and setting up camp in front of the city devastated again and again the entire surrounding countryside. Only once, the Hungarian prince of Transylvania, Gabriel Bathory, managed to occupy the town in a simulation, plunder it and drive all the German inhabitants from its solid walls – a bitter lesson that led to even greater vigilance and distrust on the part of the Germans from then on.
Around 1500, Sibiu already had around 6000 inhabitants. During the Reformation, the writings of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon reached the city from 1523. In 1543, the Protestant confession of faith was introduced, as the estates were left free to decide for themselves what they believed. On March 31, 1556, the entire lower town and part of the upper town burned in a fire. Some 550 buildings were destroyed.
Sibiu was the political center of the Transylvanian Saxons and the seat of the Universitas Saxonum, a kind of Transylvanian parliament, which dealt with Transylvanian Saxon affairs until 1878 and was a symbol of the unity and political independence of the Transylvanian Saxons.
Text source: Wikipedia
Image: Alex Blajan