It is believed that there has been an earlier rural settlement in this area,
with Romanian and Pecheneg population, situated east of today's city. But the
city itself was built by German settlers - later referred as Transylvanian
Saxons, but actually originating from the region of Rhine and Moselle - on the
territory of the Hungarian Kingdom in the second half of the 12th century and
became an important city in medieval Transylvania. Its city walls were
reinforced after the Tatar (Mongol) invasions from 1241–1242, but the city was
occupied in 1438 by the Ottoman Empire. Transylvania's voivode John I Zápolya
died
