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| Herman Fortified Church outside wall |
Today we had one of the best guides we’ve had anywhere in the world. Carman lives in Brasov, Romania, with her husband and 2 children, boys 8 years old and 11 months old. The last 2 years have been very difficult for anyone in the tourism industry, but, as she said, it gave her the time to have a second child at age 40, and to spend her baby’s first year with him. She has no child care, so for her to spend the day with us, her husband, an engineer, took a sick day to care for their baby. Carman’s mother is one of the millions of Romanians who moved abroad once Romania joined the EU, to Spain with Carman’s sister, where she has lived for the last 18 years. Carman’s mother does not plan to return to Romania, so Carman’s most obvious child caretaker lives 2000 miles away.
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| Herman interior walls and family rooms |
Usually, when a guide takes you to see a church or monument,
she or he will tell you about the most important saint or the stories in
frescoes of Mary and the apostles and Jesus.
After a while, it all becomes too much of the same. Carman, on the other hand, told us about the
lives of the people, about their culture, about the structure of their days and
families and communities. She told us
how their dress reflected their status and values and sense of community and
how they used the church in their daily lives.
She told us how the church bells set the timing of all their activities,
from getting up to going to work to going to sleep at night.
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| family room for times of danger |
We spent 2 hours at the Herman Fortified Church, one of the may Saxon fortified churches, this one near Brasov in central Romania. As with most Medieval churches in Romania, this one was first Roman Catholic. After the Reformation, it became Lutheran, with a much simplified service and a minister who was considered a messenger of God, but also one of the people, not someone superior in morals and stature. At this point, the pulpit was moved to the center of the church so the minister would be speaking to the people in their midst, not in front of the altar.
Lutheran services lasted exactly 1 hour, reflecting the efficiency demanded of a successful community. Men and women and children all sat in different parts of the church. Pews for the women had no backs, not because the women were supposed to be uncomfortable, but because they wore large costumes with carefully embroidered ribbons flowing from their hats, all of which had to be accommodated as they sat in the pews. If their pews had had backs on them, they would have crushed their carefully prepared dresses and hidden their meticulously embroidered ribbons. Men sat on the sides of the church (with backs on their pews, which I certainly would have preferred) next to knobs where they could hang their hats.
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| Once Catholic, later Lutheran church |
Confirmation was a critical ceremony in the lives of the
community, occurring after a year’s thorough preparation, when a young person
reached the age of 15. The entire
community gathered in the church 2 Sundays before Palm Sunday to hear the
minister quiz the kids on the Bible and church teachings. It was so shameful for a child to fail the test, which apparently was exceedingly rare, that the family might
feel it had to leave the town. On Palm
Sunday, the young confirmants all wore adult clothes for the ceremony of
confirmation, having now passed into adulthood, prepared to take on the roles
and responsibilities of adults, including what was most important, marriage and
children.
Community was essential.
There weren’t many rebels who would break with the innumerable rules of
the community and the church because being part of the community was essential
to one’s identity and security. Everyone
was expected to help fellow community members when help was needed and to do
their duty to maintain the church, roads, and other common spaces.
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| Orthodox chapel inside fortifications |
When some community need was identified, the “fathers” of the neighborhood, 2 men (who had to be married), wrote the demands for service on a piece of paper affixed to a plaque. This was delivered from neighbor to neighbor until everyone had been notified of the work that needed to be done and the exact time and place of that work. The “fathers” recorded who showed up on time and who didn’t, who worked and who didn’t, all part of the community’s way of holding itself together.
Church was the center of life. The church building was always in the center
of the village. Everyone helped to
maintain and support it and the minister or priest. All important events in life occurred through
the church, from baptism to confirmation to marriage to death and everything in
between. The church was key to holding
the community together. But,
interestingly, there was room for some dissent.
When the Reformation changed most Catholic churches to Protestant, there
were still small chapels set aside for Catholics and Orthodox believers who
refused to make the radical change to Protestantism. 
men defended the village from corridors between the
interior (shown here) and exterior walls
The fortified churches were the places of refuge during
attacks from both Tatars to the North and Turks to the east. Many of the fortifications had rooms for each
family in the village. The rules were
clear, who had what room, what to do in case of attack, who was responsible for
what. Richer families had larger rooms
where they stored food, which they could afford, for sieges. Poorer families had the smaller rooms because
they couldn’t afford to provide supplies.
During a siege, usually lasting about a week every 7 or 8 years,
everyone shared in the available supplies, no matter who provided them.
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| Bran Castle |
Bran Castle, supposedly Dracula’s castle, is a mighty, but not terribly interesting, structure atop a cliff outside of Brasov. Most recently, the queens of Romania used it as a summer retreat, into the 20th century. Today, it belongs to the children of the last queen, but is a public museum.
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