The fortified church from Alţâna

There are many legends trying to explain the name of this settlement.

One is saying that the name comes from the burgh of “Alozna” on the Lower Rhine, the birthplace of the colonists who settled in these lands. Other sources state that it might have been given by its founder, Alzo.

Nevertheless, most legends say that the settlement was built in the 13^th century by a group of 10 colonists. Once they got here, they tried to come up with a name for their village. And because they could not reach an agreement, it was finally called “Allezehn”, meaning “All ten”.

As customary to the newcomers to these lands, next to their houses on a small hill they also built a Romanesque basilica. In 1493 the Turks destroyed it almost entirely. The threat of new invasions made the colonists rebuild the church and turn it into a hall church with fortifications.

The new fortress was equipped with a double precinct, rectangular bastions and high defence towers. Under the guard route surrounding the fortress, on the inside, they built the pantries to keep the cereals.

The church interior houses some very valuable items: the 1404 font, a bell mounted in the church tower before the Lutheran Reform or the 1780 organ.

Alţâna, Saxon Seat

In certain periods of the Middle Ages, Alţâna used to be one of the Saxon Seats. In the territory called Fundus Regius, Alţâna was a free community. The fact that it was a part of the Nocrich Seat is proven by the participation in 1349 of the Graf Syffridus of Alzen to the Assembly of the Seven Seats from the Province of Sibiu. The powerful, vainglorious grafs from Alţâna wanted to move the Nocrich Seat to Alţâna, their fiefdom. This explains why the documents of those days place this Seat sometimes at Nocrich and sometimes at Alţâna. A 1361 document already speaks of the Alţâna Seat and then another one, from 1374, writes that the Seat was at Nocrich and the grafs from Alţâna strived to get the position of royal judge for this Seat and to make Alţâna the centre of this administrative district. If it had such a title, a settlement could benefit from certain exemptions from taxes and other obligations and thus acquire more money (used to erect impressive places of worship, for instance).