Transylvanian is known by many names the Hungarians call it Erdely, the Rumanian Ardeal, in German it is called Siebenbürgen. Why do we say Transylvania? It has a lot to do with Arminius Vambery telling Bram Stoker a story that became the basis of the book Dracula.

Transylvania was a Ottoman vassal state until 1688 when the major power blocks in Transylvania or the three estates - the Hungarian nobility, the burghers (Saxon/German), and the Szeklers (Hungarian Magyars) renounced the sovereignty of the Suleyman III (1687-91) and threw their allegiance to Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation). The fighting continued intermittently all through the reign Ahmed II (1691-95) and into the reign of Mustafa II (1695-1703) until The Peace of Carlovitz in 1699 when Sultan Mustafa II renounced suzerainty.

N.B. One point that I find interesting is that the Moslem Sultan did not release Moslem land which is more sensitive to them. Transylvania was an independent state that paid tribute as opposed to a land incorporated into the empire.

Transylvania maintained a great degree of independence in part due to the large Protestant population.

The capital of Transylvania is Cluj Napoca formerly Cluj, Kolozsvar, Klausenburg, and in Roman times Napoca.

The James A. Lucas 17th century Transylvanian rug

One of the nice parts of my time at State Department was that I had access to people with expertise in almost anywhere. When I questioned our Transylvanian born "Area Expert" and he told me there are still Turks in Transylvania who weave rugs. Not as nice as these but who is to say they did not weave rugs like these in Ottoman time.

Detail Jan Verkolje's Woman Nursing An Infant

That is not the same as saying that all of the the Transylvanian rugs where woven in Transylvania. They were not. We can tell from European paintings that rugs of this type were available in large numbers in countries that traded with the Ottoman Empire. Further the indications are that these rugs were woven in what is now Turkey and no indications of an export trade of rugs from the Transylvania area.

We also know that the rugs in Lutheran Evangelical churches in Transylvania were donated by members of the congregations. The members were overwhelmingly Saxons from what is now present day Germany. No one seriously suggest that these rugs were woven by Saxons so we must assume that these rugs were objects of commerce prior to ascension into the collection of the congregations. It is plausible to assume that these rugs enter Transylvania in the same fashion that there counterparts entered Holland and Belgium, as objects of commerce from present day Turkey.

So it is likely that some rugs may have been woven by ethnic Turks in Transylvania it is not likely that most or even many of them were woven there.

Supplementary Reserve Transylvanian Rugs

From the Catalog of The James A. Lucas 17th century Transylvanian rug

More than eighty "Transylvanian" rugs are depicted in Flemish and Dutch paintings from between 1620 and 1680. A similar rug with a red ground star and cartouches border and a red and charcoal trefoil outer border is portrayed by Jan Verkolje the Elder (1650-1693) in Woman Nursing a Child (1675), now in the Musee du Louvre, Paris. This border is associated with the first period of Transylvanian production of the early 17th century.