Cistercian Abbeys in Transylvania

The Cistercian monks belonging to this well-known Catholic order founded in 1098 in the French town of Citeux or Cistercium in Latin, also travelled to Transylvania in the Middle Ages, establishing their easternmost abbey in Carta, near Sibiu.

Christine Leșcu, 26.09.2015, 14:06

The Cistercian monks belonging to this well-known Catholic order founded in 1098 in the French town of Citeux or Cistercium in Latin, also travelled to Transylvania in the Middle Ages, establishing their easternmost abbey in Carta, near Sibiu.

The monastery in Carta was not, however, the first Cistercian structure on what is today Romanian territory. The first was built in 1179 in Igris, near Timisoara, in the west, under the patronage of the then Hungarian king and his French wife. The monastery was a daughter-house of the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny and hosted the earliest known library in Romania. Its dependency in Carta, which was directly subordinated to royal Hungarian authority, was built several decades later.

Art historian Corina Popa tells us more about the characteristics of the Cistercian monastery in Carta: “The monastery was built in a particular location, close to Fagaras Country, which already had a majority ethnic Romanian population, but which was also home to many Saxon settlements. The monastery lies on the border between the two groups. Its property, granted to it by the Hungarian king, contains Saxon villages such as Crit, Mesendorf, Cloasterf and even Cisnadioara. The Romanian village of Carta lies very close to the monastery. The name Carta may come from Kerz, the German word for candle, as the monastery was dedicated to St Mary with Candles. The German name of the village is also Kerz, that is candle.

The precise year when the building of the Carta monastery began is not known, says Corina Popa: “Following archaeological excavations, it was established that an oratory, either a small chapel or a temporary church, was used until the monastery was built, in 1205 or 1206. The exact date is not known, because no documents have survived. We can, however, make an assumption based on the dates of various donations. The building of the monastery is probably linked to the year 1223, when a monk gave the monastery a part of the village of Cisnadioara and its church, which translated into additional income for the monastery and the possibility to continue building works. It is possible that the monastery was finished around 1240. Unfortunately, the Tartar raids into Transylvania in 1241 and 1242 destroyed many religious sites and villages. Carta monastery was depopulated after 1241, but is repopulated in 1260 when it was also extensively rebuilt in the version we see today.

Of the old abbey, only a section of the wall has survived, as well as one of its towers and the sanctuary. Based on these remains, experts have been able to reconstruct the original shape of the Cistercian monastery, whose spirit can be summed up by the motto “pray and work.

Corina Popa explains: Following archaeological excavations and historical and archive research, experts managed to form a clear picture of what the monastery site looked like originally. The church used to stand to the north, while the body of the monastery, with the auditorium on the ground floor and the dormitory on the first floor, was located to the east. The dormitory had direct access to the church for the monks to be able to go straight to mass. The refectory and the administrative wing were located to the south. This was a rather large monastery and after it was dismantled, its church, or rather its choir, became the community parish church of the Saxon village of Carta. The monastery church was too big for this small Saxon community, so people only used its eastern part and completely neglected the rest of the building. Characteristically for a Cistercian church, its transept, the section lying across the main body of the building, had a rectangular chapel to the east, which reflected the way these monks lived, keeping silence, praying and working. They could therefore retreat to these chapels and pray in tranquillity. The cloister, a covered walk around the four sides of the interior courtyard, was also used by the monks to say their prayers in an atmosphere of peace and quiet.

With the exception of Carta, nothing else has survived of the Cistercian structures built on Romanian territory. The church in Igris is forever lost, having most likely been destroyed in the Middle Ages, during the Tartar raids.