Formule de jurământ în limba română din Transilvania (sec. XVII-XVIII)
Romanian Oath Formulas from Transylvania in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Summary/Abstract: The present article aims to disseminate the written texts of the first oaths taken in Romanian in the Transylvania. The sworn declarations required by officials over the Middle Ages and the pre-modern period are analysed from a historical perspective. Emphasis is placed on oaths taken by interviewed persons and witnesses. Also, starting from the idea that the oaths were sworn into the spoken language and with similar contents in the three languages of the province, two cases of oaths taken in German, Hungarian and Romanian are now presented to the wider public, all preserved in Sibiu’s town archives. The texts differ according to the religion of the witness. Other written oaths form the Chioar area and from the Transylvanian plain are published now, concluding that a standard form was used stereotypically for the spoken languages. The Romanian language, in which these oaths were written, has been strongly influenced by Hungarian and German, with archaisms and regionalisms. These particularities suggest a certain inhomogeneity and difficulty in putting the spoken words in writing by the scribe. An attempt was also made to establish the name of the author(s) of these documents.

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