During the 12th century, German craftsmen
and merchants known as the Transylvanian Saxons were invited to Transylvania by
the King of Hungary to settle and defend the frontier of his realm. The chronicler
Krauss lists a Saxon settlement in present-day Sighiṣoara by 1191. A document
of 1280 records a town built on the site of a Roman fort as Castrum Sex or
"six-sided camp", referring to the fort's shape of an irregular
hexagon. Other names recorded include Schaäsburg (1282), Schespurg (1298) and Segusvar
(1300). By 1337 Sighişoara had become a royal center for the kings, who awarded
the
