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Weapons and Military Equipment Found in the German Settlement Area
created great opportunities for widely proceeding to the extensive work of landscape
transformations 9 , and last, but not least, to the expansion of wood buildings 10 .
Regarding the work of artisan workshops, written documents do not record direct
information 11 for the period in question, but this absence does not imply the lack of
activity. In fact, the numerous archaeological discoveries, as well as a few vague
document clues prove the existence of craftsmen 12 . Most available archaeological
9 As commonly known, Western Europe experienced a period of intense technological activity between
the 11 th to the 13 th centuries, characterized by the application and generalization of new methods and
techniques in agriculture, crafts and mining. By introducing and then spreading more efficient harness
mechanisms for traction animals, the plough on wheels with a mobile beam or by the improvement of
grubbing and fallowing tools, land work had become easier, and deforestation was faster (J. Gimpel
1983, p. 51-81; W. Rösener 2003, p. 56-77). Written and archaeological evidences indicate that modern
forms of agriculture gradually spread throughout the whole of Europe, through the ample medieval
colonization process, which had started on a large scale in the 11 th century and ended with the crisis of
the 14 th century. Arpadian Hungary also entered this process of modernization of agriculture and
mining and, implicitly, all of the above mentioned innovations similarly spread through Transylvania
during the 12 th – 13 th centuries along with the German colonization process. The German settlers were
especially brought to the low populated areas with the purpose of deforesting and draining the land in
order to prepare it for habitation and agriculture, viticulture and fruit growing. From the perspective of
the spread of various agriculture and cutting tools, in Transylvania archaeology has encountered few
eloquent evidences of the agriculture and craft work modernization process. We refer here to the iron
tools hoard from Şelimbăr (see note 66 below) and the one from Bratei-Nisipărie with peasant
household tools (see note 23 below). These are the only hoards from the 13 th century discovered in the
German settlement area from the south of Transylvania. Both hoards include, among other pieces,
agriculture and cutting tools: fragments of a plough share and axes for cutting of the hatchet type with
rounded neck and sleeve. In specialized literature we have already encountered mentions of axes,
particularly used for cutting down trees and splitting logs, hatchets and other tools with various
functions discovered both inside and outside the settlement area (see a part in Emandi 1981); however,
they had an adequate description or a graphic representation. Furthermore, the chronological framing
was also generalized (the 13 th – 14 th centuries or even the 13 th – 17 th centuries). Indeed, it is very
difficult to reach an exact chronological framing when the piece was removed from the archaeological
context or separated from other artefacts of the same discovery, especially in the case of tools (for ex.
hatchets, axes, sickles) whose shapes are widely spread and are more persistent in time, lasting for
several of centuries.
10 A. Leroi-Gourhan 1971, p. 57-58.
11 A few documents refer indirectly to some activities practiced within the Saxon community, the earliest
document dating from 1206, records that the hospites from the villages Cricău, Ighiu and Romos did
not have to pay wine, pigs and cattle taxes (Ub. I, no. 17; DIR. C, veacul XI, XII şi XIII, vol. I, no. 53;
EO I, no. 32), or the document from 1291, which announced that four carpenters from Cricău, Câlnic,
Gârbova were hired for the carpentry restoration of the roof of the cathedral St. Michael in Alba Iulia
(Ub. I, no. 247; DIR. C, veacul XIII, vol. II, no. 407; EO I, no. 480). For a detailed description of the
statute, privileges and obligations of the inhabitants of Cricău and Ighiu, see T. Sălăgean 2006, p. 51-
61.
12 In 1206, King Andrew II calls the inhabitants from the surroundings of Alba Iulia – from the villages
Cricău, Ighiu and Romos as Saxons and primi hospites regni (Ub. I, no. 17, p. 9-10; DIR. C, veacul XI,
XII şi XIII, vol. I, no. 53; EO I, no. 32). It is interesting to follow the initial role that Germans were
supposed to have in this area. It seems that they were not exclusively supposed to control the most
important places of loading and trading salt from Transylvania transported on Mureş towards the west.
There are clues indicating that they were the ones to initiate gold ore mining in the Apuseni Mountains
– K. Gündisch 1996, p. 124.
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