REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

350
Remembrance in Time
Emil Sigerus wrote in 1906 in the preface of a folder with Transylvanian Saxon flax
embroidery patterns: “a collection of old patterns and embroidery on canvas is as a
collection of stories and wise sayings that have been told long time ago, but now
disappeared. What remains are indecipherable letters and their ornamental forms. The
embroidery on canvas reflects the peasant’s behavior, his Sunday clothes, his gestures, his
gait, and many others aspects."
The museum acquired pieces related to the existence of the Saxon guilds - guild chests, seals,
convocation boards, regulations or statutes, guilds that worked in Făgăraş or surroundings.
The development of the crafts as a result of diversification and the specialization of
jobs, of the ample effort to construct the fortifications systems around the towns were the
factors which assured the numerical development of guilds, which from the moment of
their legal recognition were considered entities of public right capable of rights and
responsibilities, exteriorized through symbols, having an independent patrimony from the
one of its members. For example, in our city, since 1598 until 1873 existed 19 guilds.
The guilds’ chests, where were kept guild’s privilege, different documents, money or
seals, from museum’s patrimony, belonged to shoemakers’ guild – 17th century ( with the
privilege from 1598 ), Saxon curriers’ guild 1845, furriers’ guild from Cincu – 1832
which has on the interior an inscription with guild’s counsel, wheelwrights’ guild,
upholsterers’ guild – middle of the 19th century.
The guild’s statutes, which represents a series of articles composed by the members of
the guild, each undertaking to respect the rights of the other one and of all together, for
the good progress of the profession and defending the common interest in a moral
purpose and mutual aid, are found in our museum’s patrimony, even if those are of the
curriers, or spinners, statutes written at the beginning of the 19th century.
Therefore, in the course of their living in Transylvania, the Saxons have created a
society which for the other ethnic groups – Romanians or Hungarians – represented an
example, a model.
This year, our museum organizes, as part of the project called „Together” in which will be
presented the communities near Făgăraş, a temporary exhibition dedicated to Saxon society
and to the values that they have created in the course of their living in Transylvania.
Bibliography
1. Iulius Bieltz, Portul popular al saşilor din Transilvania, Ed. de Stat pentru Literatură
şi artă, 1956.
2. Vasile DrăguŃ, Arta gotică în România, Ed. Meridiane, Bucureşti, 1979.
3. Ligia Fulga coord., Saşi despre ei înşişi, vol.I, Ed. Transilvania Expres, Braşov, 2008.
4. Lorand Madly, De la privilegiu la uniformizare. Saşii transilvăneni şi autorităŃile
austriece în deceniul neoabsolutist 1849-1860, Presa Universitară Clujană, 2008.
5. Gheorghe Mitran, Cositorul transilvănean, Ed. C2 DESIGN, Braşov, 2002.
6. Idem, Arta aurarilor în Transilvania, Braşov, 2003.
7. Gheorghe Mitran, Raluca Moscaliuc, Protejarea patrimoniului cultural mobil,
Braşov, 2011.
8. Thomas Nagler, Românii şi saşii până la 1848, Ed. Thausib, Sibiu, 1997.
9. George Oprescu, Bisericile cetăŃi ale saşilor din Ardeal, Ed.Academiei, Bucureşti, 1957.
10. Karla Roşca, Horst Klusch, Ceramica din Transilvania, Ed. Honterus, Sibiu, 2010.
11. CIBINIUM, 2011, Ed.ASTRA Museum, Sibiu, 2011.
12. Nicolae Sabău, Metamorfoze ale barocului transilvănean.Pictura, Ed. Mega,
Cluj-Napoca, 2005.