CATOLICII SAȘI, BISERICA „SFÂNTA MARIA” ȘI ORDINUL MENDICANT AL DOMINICANILOR DIN TÂRGOVIȘTE (SEC. XIV-XVII)
THE SAXON CATHOLICS, THE CHURCH OF ST. MARY, AND THE MENDICANT ORDER OF THE DOMINICANS IN TÂRGOVIȘTE (14TH-17TH CENTURIES)

Author(s): Iulia Ghercă
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Ethnohistory, Local History / Microhistory, Social history, 13th to 14th Centuries, 16th Century, 17th Century
Published by: Editura Cetatea de Scaun
Keywords: Catholicism; German settlers; medieval history; Wallachia; Târgoviște;
Summary/Abstract: Targoviște, the residence of the Wallachian Voivodes for around three centuries, is the only city in Wallachia where three Catholic sites of worship functioned during the Middle Ages. These are the "Saint Mary" Parish Church of the Saxons, the "Saint Nicholas" Dominican convent and the "Saint Francis of Assisi" monastery. The article details the histories of two of these settlements, the Dominican monastery dedicated to "Saint Nicholas" and the Parish Church of the Saxons "Saint Mary", both of which were first documented in the fifteenth century, but had older origins. Both worship communities are a result of the presence of German settlers in the region. If the Church of the Saxons benefitted from the descriptions of foreign travelers beginning in 1581 and was later the subject of archeological investigations in the twentieth century, the Dominican monastery "Saint Nicholas" only lately surfaced in the specialized literature of our country. Not even its location is known at this time. From at least 1417 and continuing until the end of the sixteenth century, the Saxon Church was in existence. In the chronicles of subsequent centuries, it is described as being in ruins. It remained as an archaeological site until 2005, when it was demolished by the erection of an unlawful construction in an area designated by the Historical Monuments Commission as non-aedificandi. The Dominican Convent would have been operational until 1500. Thus, both the Saxon Church and the Dominican convent are currently deemed extinct. The existence in Targoviste of churches with architecture specific to the Catholic cult, whose origins cannot be reconstructed from documents, but whose fourteenth- and fifteenth- century dating is supported by archaeological excavations, allows for the development of new hypotheses regarding the displacement of Gothic elements from Catholic to Orthodox churches.

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