See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/303919745

Oraşul din spaţiul românesc între Orient şi Occident.

Tranziţia de la medievalitate la modernitate [The Town
in the Romanian Area betwee....

Book · September 2007

CITATIONS READS
0 286

1 author:

Laurentiu Radvan
Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza
60 PUBLICATIONS 40 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Laurentiu Radvan on 12 June 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 ABSTRACTS

New data on the founders of the Jitianu monastery (Dolj county) and an
act of donation for the monastery of St Paul on Mount Athos

Petronel Zahariuc

The Jitianu monastery, with St Dimitri as its patron, is one of the major
houses of worship around Craiova. Alongside the Bucovăţ monastery,
located north of the previously mentioned town, the Jitianu monastery
was the main refuge for town dwellers over several centuries. The root of
the monastery’s name is based on the Slavic jitie („life,” „living”)
pointing at how the „obştejitie monastery” phrase was derived, meaning
„life amidst the community”. Based on this term, Petronel Zahariuc
follows two directions to explain the origin of this place of worship: one
leads to a possibly older church existing on the site, and another, to the
Jitian name, borne by several boyars in Wallachia between the 15th and
the 16th centuries. The oldest known record on the Jitianu monastery was
kept in the archive of the St Paul monastery on Mount Athos in a
document dated March 12, 1593. The author demonstrates that the 1557
property act, issued by Pătraşcu the Kind, which was deemed to be the
oldest mention of the church, is actually the summary of confirmation act
by the prince for half of the village of Iamnic, which will later come
under the possession of the Jitianu monastery. The scrivener for the
document transcribed it in brief and placed the summary before the text,
which was later a source of confusion among researchers. In the
348 Abstracts

appendix, the author replicates the text of a document in the archives at

Mount Athos, in which Radu de la Afumaţi ruled that the monastery of St
Paul was to receive a certain amount of money every year (March 3,
1528).

A founder and a foundation: Ion Golăi and the Golia monastery

Gerd Franck

The study focuses on the life and achievements of a grand boyar in

Moldavia, Ion Golăi, and the beginnings of one of his foundations, the
Golia monastery in Iaşi. The author aims to reveal the origins of Ion
Golăi’s family and the way its members were involved in the political and
economical scene of Moldavia. Ion Golăi is part of a generation of boyars
which stood out by the taste displayed for the urban environment, instead
of the rural area, where they had taken up residence until that time. The
above-mentioned boyar held various offices at the ruler’s court: he was a
seneschal (stolnic), staroste and grand logothete (mare logofăt), an office
by which he managed the chancellery. Material and financial resources
available allowed him to purchase numerous estates and domains. His
property included 30 villages and village parts, with houses and building
land in Iaşi and Cotnari, spreading across 12 counties; among others, he
also had breweries in Iaşi. The fortune amassed allowed him to build a
church on the outskirts of the town of Iaşi (the future Golia monastery,
rebuilt by Vasile Lupu), which has family would later dedicate to
Vatopede monastery, at Mount Athos. For reasons unknown, Ion Golăi
was executed by order of prince Iancu Sasu, in 1581 or 1582.
Abstracts 349

Several considerations on the status of widows

in Cluj in the Premodern Period

Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi

This study is focused on the status of widowed women in premodern Cluj.

This paper has chosen the Treaty on Succession (Tratatul asupra
succesiunii) of 1603 as its reference, among all the statutes created in
Cluj, since it frequently approaches the legal and social status of women
and hence of widows. Widowhood is one of three possible social
alternatives opening up to a woman throughout her life. Following her
birth, her family life would be spent in her father’s legal custody, while
marriage would grant her a household and a transfer in her husband’s
custody. Marriages would be concluded at an early age, with any man or
woman facing the prospect of becoming a widower/widow more than
once in a lifetime, since mortality rates were significantly high. Recurring
wars and frequent epidemic outbreaks translated into a reduced life
expectancy. This is how marriages would often meet untimely ends, with
the spouses becoming widows or widowers as often as this happened. If a
certain woman were to become a widow, the community would expect
her to celebrate and honor her husband’s memory, to manage or to pass
on the inheritance and to settle custody over the infants; if the husband
had died in exceptional circumstances, it was her duty to shed light on his
demise. Any new marriage was to be declared to the authorities without
delay. Widows would often carry forth the trade of their late husband,
regardless of whether he had been a merchant or a craftsman. This did not
apply to all widows, however, since they often found it easier to remarry
and enter the safety of a new home rather than have the burden of an
entire business all to themselves. This study deals with how guilds would
welcome (or not) the wives taking over their husbands’ trade. The basic
rule was for the guild to protect the widows, who were allowed to
continue the trade of their deceased husbands for one year, during which
they could have a journeyman and an apprentice at their side. This was
only possible if the woman remained a widow (in this case, remarriages
350 Abstracts

were not accepted) and if she bore the name of her husband from then on.
This attitude may be observed in almost all of the guild statutes, such as
those of the boot makers, belt makers, felt mongers, goldsmiths and
blacksmiths.

Country roads and town roads in Wallachia

between the 17th and the 18th century

Laurenţiu Rădvan

This paper focuses on the issue of roads in Wallachia, regardless of

whether they linked towns or were internal to them. Roads throughout the
country borrowed their name from the river whose valley they shared or
of the town and the region which was their final point. Not all roads had
the same status. There was a hierarchy of land routes, a hierarchy known
to rulers, as well as to boyars, merchants or commoners. The “main road”
was the one connecting one town to the other and which led into
neighboring countries (in the mountains, they would often narrow into a
path). It had a public road status, in the medieval sense of the term, which
meant that it was under the authority of the prince, who supervised it and
granted free access. Local roads were the next to follow in this hierarchy,
since they linked villages and are often indicated at the border of estates.
The relatively dense road network in Wallachia did not boast excellent
conditions, since its maintenance was not permanent. Except for the
ancient Roman road on the Olt valley, built from stone, all roads, large or
minor, were made of earth. These roads were permanently affected by
weather conditions. This situation may also be explained by the way the
medieval state was organized, since its roads were not a priority, but was
also due to the fact that the technology of the time was not so advanced as
to allow roads to be built out of stone. The ruling house valued roads only
inasmuch as they represented a source of income. The study identifies in
detail the main routes followed by the major roads of the country, with
significant junctions at Bucharest and Craiova.
Abstracts 351

Town roads were referred to as “uliţă” in the Romanian area, a word

derived from Old Slavonic. In the beginning, roads did not have a specific
name, since they were located by landmarks nearby: churches, the
marketplace or the residence of the prince. From the 17th century on,
major streets are named according to their orientation or to features
specific to the neighborhood. Whereas minor streets were made of earth,
with their condition subject to all changes in weather, major streets were
covered with wood planks, hence their second name, that of “poduri” -
“bridges” (planked streets). Documents reveal that two town officials
would handle administrative issues of the day, with planked streets being
under their jurisdiction: the great aga (marele agă) and the great spatar
(marele spătar); one supervised the town center, the other, the purlieus.
The two relied on a company of bridge workers, recruited from certain
villages, to repair planked streets. Maintenance costs were covered by
taxing goods entering the town.

The administration and the elite of the town of Satu Mare

in the former half of the 18th century

Judit Pál

This study looks at how the administration of Satu Mare was organized,
to what extent the urban select few were involved, but also at how town
autonomy gradually caved in under Habsburg authority. At the end of the
17th century and the beginning of the next, the appointment of a
commissary by the Hungarian Aulic Chancellery was aimed at sapping
the Protestant ascendancy over the town and increasing that of the
Catholics. Several elections were cancelled for various reasons, since
Protestants would elect judges (juzi) from their own ranks. Years later, a
revolt led by Francisc Rákóczi II caused extensive damage in the area (in
1703, the town was put to fire and sword). Satu Mare then requested the
privileges of a royal free town, based on several arguments: older
privileges of the two twin communities here (Satu Mare and Mintiu),
granted by the kings of Hungary and the princes of Transylvania, the
352 Abstracts

support given to the Habsburg army, the town's destruction during the
revolt, benefits to the treasury etc. One diploma was obtained in 1712,
followed by the Diet’s sanctioning in 1715 a law which provided that the
two communities should be granted the rank of free royal town (now
officially merged). The town administration is headed by the inner
council or the Senate (magistratus, senatus), made up of 12 members, and
the outer council (electa communitas); before the unification, it counted
70 members in Satu Mare and 50 in Mintiu. The head of the council was
the “tribune” (tribunus plebis, also fürmender in sources, based on the
German Vormund), who acted as a mediator between the two councils,
and often between the towns of Satu Mare and Mintiu as well. The
number of members in the outer council was set to reach 60 persons. In
1758, membership in the outer council was brought down to 40, since the
central authority probably sought to decrease Protestant presence. The
study addresses the responsibilities of the two councils and the often tense
relationships between the two formerly twin communities.

On gate overseers and their responsibilities in 18th century Iaşi

Mihai-Cristian Amăriuţei

The study focuses on a local administrative office and its responsibilities

in the town of Iaşi, in the 18th century. In Iaşi, Moldavia’s capital, town
rule, made up of the şoltuz and the pârgari, is largely restricted in the
latter half of the 17th century and even more notably in the following
century due to the fast-paced gain in authority of the new institution
presided by the gate overseer (vornic de poartă). The latter was appointed
by the prince and was called upon to settle town issues: sales-purchases,
the laying of cadastral boundaries, research on the condition of certain
premises or on places in the town core and on its boundary, pricing the
estates and sometimes even settling disputes between town inhabitants.
The name of the officials is derived from their initial task, that of sorting
through disputes in front of the Court Gate and presiding over the lesser
Abstracts 353

ones of the ordinary town dweller. Their numbers varied over time: from
12 in the 17th century to only four mentioned at the beginning of the next
century. Of all the above-mentioned responsibilities, one stands out: the
authority of the gate overseer to lay boundaries. Witness (neighbor)
testimonies, oaths and consideration of documents with a probative force
were all taken into account when overseers would measure and parcel out
tracts of land by laying landmarks such as stones or posts. Overseers were
also the ones who priced specific goods, usually buildings or tracts of
land/real estates, especially when auctioned. The study also considers the
income of these officials and concludes by presenting a table with the
name of all the gate overseers indicated by historical evidence in Iaşi, in
the 18th century.

The belfry of the St Spiridon church in Iaşi,

a monument between two worlds

Sorin Iftimi

This paper is dedicated to a major monument in the town of Iaşi, the St

Spiridon church belfry. Throughout the centuries, the urban setting of Iaşi
was less Oriental in its aspect than that of Bucharest; however, the town
was not markedly Occidental in its external features. A certain
architecture with a local fragrance, born out of a pragmatist and
minimalist approach rather than derived from artistic trends had the upper
hand until modern times. Classicism appeared in the Moldavian
architecture in the last quarter of the 18th century, when “a true
architectural revolution” occurred, in the sense that buildings displayed
Western features. Architects and craftsmen came to Iaşi, bringing along
models adequate to the tastes and the comfort of modern times. Specific
features are attributed to the Russian connection via which Classicism
was adopted in many buildings, with repeated periods of Russian
administration east of the Carpathians, occasioned by various anti-
Ottoman campaigns. In this light, the architecture of the St Spiridon
Church of Iaşi stands out. The first church was built around 1752 and was
354 Abstracts

heavily affected by the 1802 earthquake, being rebuilt in 1804. The

belfry, flanked from 1765 on by twin water fountains (cişmele), and
provided after 1830 with a Parisian clock underwent several stages in its
evolution, with restorations dated 1786, 1807, 1843 and 1862. Up to now,
it was commonly believed that the belfry had been erected in 1786, but
the author demonstrates that, in its initial stage, it was built around 1757,
at the same time as the enclosing wall erected by prince Constantin
Racoviţă.

Traditionalism and modernity in Romanian music and society

(1750-1830)

Claudiu Neagoe

The present study seeks to show how the Western penchant in Romanian
society became ever more obvious at the end of the 18th century and in the
first few decades of the 19th. The subject is extensive, prompting the study
to focus on issues which have to do, on the one hand, with the
traditionalist vein in Romanian society and, on the other, on the music of
the day (a specific aspect), as a channel for the Western influence to be
adopted. The urban environment is the one where this phenomenon found
its most profound resonance; this is why research highlights how the
urban universe defined itself from the latter half of the 18th century, the
so-called century of the Phanar, until local rulers rose to power again
(1821). In the 18th century, Romanian society was, for the most part,
“orientalized”. Boyars, as well as other social classes, looked to Ottoman
customs in both mien and attire, mores, attitudes and behavior, art,
architecture or music. A mixture of Oriental, as well as Western
influences makes its way into music. From mid-18th century on, fiddlers
in Wallachia and Moldavia began to play a new genre of songs in boyar
and royal courts, songs of love and revelry, the melancholy gentle worldly
songs. The military occupations of 1769-1774, 1788-1791, and 1806-
Abstracts 355

1811 would change this state of things. The presence of Austrian and
Russian officers in the two Principalities exerted a slow, but decisive
influence on the musical tastes of the boyars, who, to gain the favors of
the powers that be, were quick to adopt Western customs and music,
without abandoning the local ones. The musical scene became ever more
animated at the beginning of the 19th century, due to various theater
companies or musicians arriving from Germany, Italy or Austria. Boyar
daughters also underwent musical education, learning to play various
instruments.

Testimonies on stronghold towns on the eastern border of Europe, as

recorded by the French officer Lazowski at the end of the 18th century

Sorin Şipoş

As French interest in areas under Ottoman domination increased, French

officers were dispatched in large numbers to increase the Ottoman army
defense. Special consideration was given to the fortification system under
Ottoman control along the Nistru river, where Russian forces attacked
Romanian territory under the influence of the Porte on numerous
occasions. The study analyzes the memoirs of French officer Joseph Félix
Lazowski, which hold documentary evidence on a significant part of the
European border of the Ottoman Empire. After a brief presentation of
Lazowski’s biography, the author of the study analyzes the testimony of
the officer, present between January 1795 and June 1797 in the Ottoman
Empire. The account describes the Ottoman system of fortifications
bordering the Empire of the Czar, namely the strongholds of Ismail,
Bender, Cetatea Albă (Akkerman) and Chilia, inspected in person by
Lazowski. The four reports drafted on that occasion were either
forwarded to the Directorate, complete with a fifth report, a sort of
synthesis on the political and military status of the Ottoman Empire,
namely Observations sur l’état présent de la Turquie et sur les rapports
politiques de cette Puissance avec la République Française. Lazowski’s
356 Abstracts

mission was to assess the status of the fortifications and to propose the
most adequate solutions to increase their efficiency. Some of the original
ideas to be found in the memoirs include Lazowski’s plea for abandoning
the amiable relationships between France and the Ottoman Empire, which
had not yielded the expected results, and engaging in a military campaign
to conquer Egypt.

High Life Balls in the Romanian Principalities

at the Middle of the XIXth Century

Dan Dumitru Iacob

Balls represented the most important events of Romanian high life in mid-
19th century, eliciting the admiration of contemporaries through frequency
of occurrence and splendor, exclusiveness and massive attendance, as
well as implications and social effects. Being real shows of high life, balls
offered a proper environment for entertainment, socialization and
representation, encouraging erotic games and facilitating matrimonial
politics. In the background, balls also represented a proper circumstance
for manipulation, intrigues and political conspiracies.
The intensity and the complexity of social life sustained by these
luxurious events ascribed to balls a special popularity which had an echo
in collective consciousness, in memoirs, literature and the printed media
of the time. In order to understand the causes of this popularity, the author
tried to outline some specific features of balls, investigating some aspects
such as how the western fashion of balls and society dances was adopted
in the Principalities, how private and public balls were organized, the
variety of these events (official balls, fancy dress balls, masked balls,
dancing parties or balls for children), the carnival and the calendar of
balls, their atmosphere, the advantages of wearing masks and erotic game,
the connection between entertainment and politics, risks and unfortunate
experiences occurring at balls.
Balls offered consistency and brightness for fashionable life in Romanian
towns, especially in the two capitals of the Danubian Principalities, Iasi
Abstracts 357

and Bucharest. They also had an important role in bringing society up to

date. The renewals were extremely visible and speedy in the ballroom,
both in respect to the ambience and the equipments of the dancing hall,
music, dancing style, manners, education, society language etc. Balls
have also contributed to the modernization of urban life. They sped up the
development of social life, they diversified cultural life and stimulated the
economy in Romanian towns, imbuing them with brightness and local
colour.

Urban public works and the modernization of the town of Câmpulung

Muscel (late 19th century – early 20th century)

Carmen Oprescu

Based on groundbreaking information provided by archives, this study

looks at how a new wave in urban planning unfolded in the town of
Câmpulung in late 19th – early 20th century. The qualities of air, natural
environment and mineral waters in Câmpulung and its surroundings
influenced urban works, heavily influenced by the popular desire to entice
as many tourists as possible. The first substantial news on public lighting
in Câmpulung date back to 1855, but it is only much later, in 1896, that
gas lighting is put into service. The first steps to introduce electricity are
taken in 1905, but the network itself is only finished in 1912. The author
also focuses on the various regulations issued by the Town Hall and the
Local Council. These regulations underwent the following stages to
approval: the regulation was put forward, voted by the Council, sent to
Bucharest, and submitted to the consideration of the High Technical
Council for approval, which could send it back with demanding
modifications; comments were discussed and the regulation was then
voted again, being sent to the Minister of the Interior for approval, and
only then issued by King’s High Decree and published in the Official
Gazette. The author also deals with frontage projects. Although measures
for a uniform alignment of stores were taken ever since 1833, the first
frontage project is mentioned for the Rucăreanu Street (1895); the main
358 Abstracts

streets of the town would follow, Negru Vodă and Mircea Vodă. As
regards the laying of asphalt on the roads, records are available ever since
1896, when the reconditioning of the paved streets of Negru Vodă,
Mircea Vodă and Matei Basarab was decided, as well as the partial
construction of asphalt sidewalks on Negru Vodă and Mircea Vodă.
Works on a drinking water network began in the spring of 1911 and
continued until the fall of 1912. Works on river dykes for the Târgului
River complemented them, after the Second World War1.

1
Traducerea rezumatelor a fost efectuată de Valentin Cîrdei.

View publication stats