Date despre stema regală a Bistriţei

  • Subiect: Bistriţa is one of the most important mediaeval towns in Transylvania, one that acquired an important position in the economic development of the region between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries. The Royal House of Anjou supported the urban development of the settlement by granting it several urban privileges in 1330 and 1353. What is more, in 1366-67, King Louis d’Anjou offered this community the status of a free royal town and the right to use his family’s coat-of- arms as a symbol. The royal coat-of-arms, consisting of a split escutcheon, decorated with a royal helmet, crowned with an ostrich having a horseshoe in its beak, had been used since 1367 as the official seal of the town. These old symbols were afterwards integrated in the modern coat-of-arms of the town, in the nineteenth century. The symbols were used until the end of the inter-war period, only to be eliminated during the communist age and then they were gradually forgotten. After the fall of the communist regime, the old symbols of the town were again included in its coat-of–arms, together with symbols such as the statue of the Romanian poet Andrei Mureşanu and a castle’s gate. The presence of the ostrich with the horseshoe in its beak in the royal coat-of-arms and subsequently in the symbol of Bistriţa was historically founded by the legends surrounding this bird, which was seen at the time so powerful that it could swallow and devour anything, including iron. Other coat-of-arms, similar to the one in Bistriţa are to be found in several Western towns, strongly connected to the Royal House of Anjou. We could mention The Aachen Cathedral Treasury, the Vienna Illuminated Chronicles, coat-of-arms in Bratislava, Padova, Zara, Gyor, Budapest and so on. The coins issued in the fourteenth century by the Royal House of Anjou with the royal coat-of-arms offered to the town of Bistriţa represent a new discussion point in the monetary history of the region. The present article illustrates the history of Bistriţa’s coat-of-arms and discusses some of its similarities with the Anjou kings’ armorial insignia which are linked to the coat-of-arms of the mediaeval town of Bistriţa.
  • Limba de redactare: română, engleză
  • Vezi publicația: Revista Bistriţei: RB
  • Editura: Accent
  • Loc publicare: Cluj-Napoca
  • Anul publicaţiei: 2015
  • Referinţă bibliografică pentru nr. revistă: XXIX; anul 2015
  • Paginaţia: 148-170
  • Navigare în nr. revistă:  |<  <  14 / 26   >  >|