The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of mainly German ethnicity and overall Germanic origin —mostly Luxembourgish and from the Low Countries initially during the medieval Ostsiedlung process, then also from other parts of present-day Germany— who settled in Transylvania in various waves, starting from the mid and mid-late 12th century until the mid 19th century.
Sânpetru is a commune in Brașov County, Transylvania, Romania, located just north of the county seat, Brașov. It is composed of a single village, Sânpetru.
The Landlers or Transylvanian Landlers are an ethnic German sub-group which has been living on the territory of today's Romania, more specifically in southern Transylvania since the 18th century onwards.
Bad Neustadt an der Saale, officially Bad Neustadt a. d. Saale and often simply called Bad Neustadt, is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany. It is the capital of the Rhön-Grabfeld district in Lower Franconia. It is situated on the rivers Franconian Saale and Brend, near the Rhön Mountains, 30 km north of Schweinfurt, and 47 km southeast of Fulda.
Bad Bocklet is a municipality in the district of Bad Kissingen in Bavaria in Germany. It is a market town and a health spa.
A fortified church is a church that is built to serve a defensive role in times of war. Such churches were specially designed to incorporate military features, such as thick walls, battlements, and embrasures. Others, such as the Ávila Cathedral were incorporated into the town wall. Monastic communities, such as Solovki Monastery, are often surrounded by a wall, and some churches, such as St. Arbogast in Muttenz, Switzerland, have an outer wall as well. Churches with additional external defences such as curtain walls and wall towers are often referred to more specifically as fortress churches or Kirchenburgen.
The Eiersberg is a hill in Bavaria, Germany. It is 349 metres high and located in the province of Lower Franconia, near Mittelstreu. On its slopes are the indications of human settlement from the early Ice Age.
Brendlorenzen is a suburb (Stadtteil) of the town of Bad Neustadt an der Saale in the region of Unterfranken in Bavaria, Germany. The village is stretching along a single main street for more than two kilometers. Its length is due to the growing together of originally two separate villages called Brend and Lorenzen. The latter name is derived from the chapel of the same name, which is dedicated to Saint Lawrence (Lorenzo). Brend comes from the tributary of the same name, in whose valley the place is located. Brendlorenzen has approximately 4500 residents with several new housing development sites spreading onto the surrounding farm land.
A refuge castle or refuge fort is a castle-like defensive location, usually surrounded by ramparts, that is not permanently occupied but acts as a temporary retreat for the local population when threatened by war or attack. In former times such sites were also described as giant castles because their origin was ascribed to giants.
Salzburg Castle stands on the edge of a plateau above the town of Bad Neustadt an der Saale in Lower Franconia in southern Germany. The large Ganerbenburg is still partly occupied today and not all areas are accessible to the public.
Leonrod Castle, also called Lewenrode Castle, is a ruined water castle on a manmade lake in the Bibert valley on the edge of the parish of Leonrod in the market town of Dietenhofen in Ansbach county in the German state of Bavaria.
The Câlnic Fortress is a fortress located in Câlnic, Alba County, in the Transylvania region of Romania. It was built by a nobleman whose family later sold it to the local ethnic German Transylvanian Saxon community at a time when the area belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. When still used for defensive purposes, the double walls encompassed a residential keep, storerooms and a Roman Catholic chapel that became Lutheran following the Reformation. Together with the surrounding village, the fortress forms part of the villages with fortified churches in Transylvania UNESCO World Heritage Site.
An elevated entrance is a type of entrance, common in the design of medieval castles, that is not accessible from ground level, but lies at the level of an upper storey. The elevated entrance is the lowest and frequently the only way of entering a fortified building or residence. In the case of circular towers, a large opening in the main wall at ground level was a potential weakness and experts on castle design have argued that the elevated entrance served a structural as well as defensive purpose.
Gößweinstein Castle, also called Schloss Gößweinstein, is a mediaeval hilltop castle in Gößweinstein in the county of Forchheim in the German state of Bavaria. It towers high above the market town and the River Wiesent and may have been the inspiration for Richard Wagner's grail castle in his opera, Parsifal. The castle is a Bavarian listed building, no. D-4-74-129-10.
The ruins of Bärnfels Castle are the remains of a late mediaeval aristocratic castle on the southern edge of the village of Bärnfels in the municipality of Obertrubach in the Upper Franconian county of Forchheim in Bavaria. The ruins of the spur castle are freely accessible.
Waischenfeld Castle is a ruined rock castle on a rocky plateau a few metres west of the town of Waischenfeld in the province of Upper Franconia in the German state of Bavaria.
Schloss Kunreuth is situated on the northwestern edge of the eponymous village of Kunreuth which is part of the collective municipality of Gosberg in the county of Forchheim, in the province of Upper Franconia in the south German state of Bavaria.
St. Margaret's Church is a Lutheran church, located at 1 Piața Castelului in the historic town center of Mediaș (Mediasch), Sibiu County, in the Transylvania region of Romania.
The Transylvanian Saxon culture refers to the regional culture of the Transylvanian Saxons, an ethnic German group which has been living in Transylvania, present-day central Romania since the mid and mid-late 12th century onwards, thus being one of the oldest groups of the German diaspora still residing in Eastern and Central Europe, alongside the Baltic Germans and the Zipser Germans.
Ostheim Fortress Church is a fortress church located in the Lower Franconian town of Ostheim vor der Rhön in the Rhön-Grabfeld district. The church building of St. Michael there is located within a double ring wall built between 1400 and 1450 with a zwinger in between. The double ring wall has five defense towers and is reinforced with six bastions halfway along the wall. The Protestant church, built in the Renaissance style on the foundations of a predecessor church, dates from 1615 to 1619. Within the fortifications there are 66 vaulted cellars with 72 lofts, which served as protective dwellings in times of war and in which the local inhabitants kept their belongings safe in times of crisis. With a floor area of 75 by 75 meters, it is considered the largest and best-preserved fortress church in Germany. Some of the vaulted cellars are used by the local population as storage cellars.
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