The Apafi Family and the Church of Mãlâncrav (Sibiu District) in Transylvania

The public defence

of the Ph.D.dissertation in Medieval Studies

by

Anca Gogâltan

on

Patronage and Artistic Production in Transylvania:

The Apafis and the Church in Mălâncrav (14th – 15th centuries)

will be held on

Thursday, 19 December 2002, at 15:40

in the

Popper Room, Monument Building

CEU Budapest (V. Nádor u. 9.)

Examination Committee:

Chair: / István György Tóth (CEU, Dept. of History)
Members: / Gerhard Jaritz (CEU, Dept. of Medieval Studies)
András Kovács (University Babes-Bolyai, Cluj)
Zsuzsa Urbach (Pázmány Péter Catholic University)
Béla Zsolt Szakács (CEU, Dept. of Medieval Studies)

External reader:

Wolfgang Schmid (Universität Trier)

The dissertation can be inspected in the

ELTE-CEU Medieval Library

Patronage and Artistic Production in Transylvania: The Apafis and the church in Mălâncrav (14th – 15th centuries)

Summary

On the 28th of March 1424, the chancelary of Pope Martin V registered the supplicatio of a certain Nicolas Aba, militis, fundatoris capellae Sanguinis Christi. According to the document, this building was raised on the border of the territory conquered by the Turks, at a place called Malenkrach, in the diocesis of Transylvania. The above-mentioned person requested the granting of indulgences from the Pope for those who visited his chapel during its dedication feast and on the feast of Corpus Christi.

In spite of the fact that it is so short, the indulgence request contains a number of pieces of valuable information. The document directs our attention to a specific place in Transylvania, Malenkrach, where it is said that sometime before 1424, a ‘chapel’ was built.

Mălâncrav is a small Saxon village situated in a picturesque hill area between Sighisoara and Medias, near the Târnava Mare river. During the Middle Ages and even later, until the 18th century, this village was part of a larger estate belonging to a Hungarian family of nobles called Apafi. The oldest form of the family name, used during the 14th and the first half of the 15th century, was Apa. Therefore, it is more than probable that the founder Nicolas Aba, mentioned in the supplication of 1424, referred in fact to Nicolas Apa, one of the more important members of this family.

Situated on a hill in the western part of the settlement, the medieval church dominates the entire village of Mălâncrav. Surrounded by a fortified wall, the building is a basilica with one nave, and two side aisles. Its two bay-long choir, ending in a polygon, is the only structure supported by buttresses. On the northern wall of the choir there is a sacristy and a spiral staircase tower placed in the angle between the eastern wall of the sacristy and the northern wall of the apse.

From an architectural point of view, this church is but one example of a series of Saxon basilicas situated in the region of the Târnava Mare river. Their common feature is a central western tower incorporated into the body of the building. During the Middle Ages, the main access to the church was through the western tower. As a consequence of a landslide in that area, the entrance was blocked during modern times so that access is now through the side doors.

The nave is divided from the side aisles by three pairs of rectangular pillars that support a row of pointed arches. On the western side of the nave there is a wooden gallery where the organ is located. The whole northern wall of the nave is covered by frescoes.

The sanctuary is lit by high, two-partite pointed windows decorated with traceries. There is an additional circular window in the middle of the southern wall of the western bay in the sanctuary. Three of these windows are ornamented with quite simple quatrefoil and fivefoil patterns whereas the eastern one has a more complex quatrefoil.

The sanctuary is covered by cross-ribbed vaults which contain two key stones. The western one is decorated with a mask surrounded by grapeleaves while the other, towards the east, makes reference to the local patron family, the Apafis. This contains a helmet having as a crest ornament a grapeleaf with grape bunches on each side. The margin of the key stone has an inscription around it which includes the name of the patron family Apafi + AN o AVTV o APPA o.

The ribs situated at the meeting point between the two bays, have niches for statues. Above them, one may see Gothic stone baldachins that are triangular in cross-section.

The whole sanctuary including the vaults together with the ribs, is covered with medieval frescoes.

The architectural history of the church is little known. As is the case with the great majority of medieval monuments in Transylvania, there is no direct written data referring to the period when the building was constructed and its development in earlier times.

The first indirect indication concerning the existence of churches in Mălâncrav, Criş, Beşa and Nou Săsesc, (all properties belonging to the Apafi family at that time), dates from 1309. The second information suggesting such a possibility comes from 1320 but is quite laconic as it refers only to a certain „ecclesia de Albkarak“. What that earlier structure actually looked like, and its relation to the existing medieval church, cannot be known without archaeological research.

The form in which we see the church today is the result of restoration work. According to the documentation preserved in the OMVH (Országos Műemlékvédelmi Hivatal) in Budapest, the major restoration work was carried out around the years 1913-16, under the direction of the architect István Möller for the Hungarian Committee for the Protection of Historical Monuments in Budapest.

The positive aspect of these restorations is that, as much as the situation permitted, the original elements have been preserved or replaced with copies of the originals. The negative aspect of Möller‘s restorations is the fact that, in order to obtain a ‘harmonic’ Gothic monument, he entirely rebuilt the side aisles and for this reason, the construction phases are not clearly visible.

Dating the church’s architecture and the phases of construction represent difficult problems. Besides the modifications caused by the restoration works, another obstacle is imposed by the simplicity of the architectural details. The most important impediment however, is the absence of archaeological data. The architectural details indicate that the construction began with the nave, side aisles and tower and then continued with the Gothic sanctuary sometimes in the second half of the 14th century. The newly raised sanctuary was painted with frescoes at the end of the 14th century or around 1400.

The fresco-cycle decorating the sanctuary offers is quite significant among the Transylvanian corpus of medieval mural paintings since the decorative program is preserved almost entirely.

The iconographic program contains narrative scenes (depicting the Childhood of Christ, his Passion and Resurrection), devotional images (such as the Man of Sorrows) and a large number of representations of saints.

Four significant moments in the story of Christ’s infancy is depicted on the vaults: the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi and the Presentation in the Temple. The narrative continues with the Passion of Christ represented in several scenes appearing on the northern wall: the Washing of the Feet, the Last Supper, the Arrest, the trial in front of Annas and Caiaphas, the Crowning with Thorns, the Flagellation, the Carrying of the Cross, Judas’s repentance and death and, the Crucifixion. The frescoes of the third register on the northern wall were not preserved. The story sequence continues with the Resurrection (appearing in the second bay), a representation of Christ as the Man of Sorrows, Noli me tangere and the Asscension of Christ.

A few of the images are dedicated to the Virgin Mary (on the southern wall and the eastern side of the triumphal arch): the Holy Kinship, the Coronation and the Virgin of the Mantle.

Besides these representations, there are a large number of iconic images of saints: ten representations of female saints with their attributes appear on the vaults and near them the depictions of the four Church Fathers shown together and the symbols of the Evangelists. Nine male and nine female saints are painted in the space between the windows and in the window splays. The southern wall concentrates a number of individual saints such as Saint George, Saint Michael, Saint Lawrence, Saint Francis, the Holy Kings of Hungary, Saints Cosmas and Damian, Saint Christopher etc.

The lower register of the sanctuary was decorated with a row of illusionistic architectural structures with niches in which several bust characters appear. Only traces of these paintings may be seen of this register on the northern and southern walls The frescoes on the northeastern, eastern, southeastern and southern walls were entirely preserved in their original state. Under the illusionistic architecture, the walls were painted in alternating planes of colour that may be still observed on the southern wall.

The sanctuary frescoes were painted in the International Gothic style before the date of 1405 mentioned by the graffito on the southeastern wall in the sanctuary. The origin or the artistic background of the master who created these paintings is difficult to establish. Generally, the opinions of scholars oscillate between two main provenances: Tyrol and Bohemia. However, Styrian art, especially the frescoes appearing in the Minorite church in Bruck an der Mur (Austria, end of the 14th century) seems to provide a closer analogy to the frescoes in the sanctuary in Mălâncrav then the Bohemian or the Slovakian art of the time.

The decorative program of the sanctuary of the church in Mălâncrav offers the impression of a disrupted narrative. From a visual and spatial point of view, the main focus of this iconographic program is on two representations of the Vir Dolorum, the visual manifestation of the cult of the Holy Blood and Body of Christ. Both images are very much highlighted; one appears in a prominant place on the eastern axis of the sanctuary, in the centre of a very interesting composition. The other image sits above the tabernacle and symbolically illlustrates its function. The narrative cycles appearing on the northern and northeastern walls of the sanctuary surround and also enhance in a meaningful way the importance of the image of the Eucharistic Vir Dolorum and of the whole composition formed by the tabernacle and the Crucifixion relief above it.

The recurrent representation of the Vir Dolorum in the iconographic program of the sanctuary in Mălâncrav is not fortuitous. It carries what is probably the most important message in the frescoes and it recalls the indulgence request of Nicholas Apa from 1424 about the veneration of the Holy Blood in Mălâncrav.

There are a number of indications that support the hypothesis that the Holy Blood chapel of Malâncrav was identical to the sanctuary of the local church. The most important argument is offered by the emphasis laid on the representations of Vir Dolorum or Man of Sorrows, the primary visual manifestation of Christ of the Eucharist in late medieval art. The presence of pilgrims’ graffiti near the Vir Dolorum in the eastern axis of the sanctuary also has a major relevance to the argument claiming the identification of the sanctuary of the church with the Holy Blood chapel mentioned in the document from 1424.

Beside their elegant style, which show the donor’s wish to be trendy, the wall paintings in the sanctuary include a variety of themes and motives. Many of the themes were promoted by nobles gravitating to the royal court in Buda and by the royal family itself. One such example is the preference shown for knightly saints such as George and Michael who appear in a prominent place on the murals in the sanctuary. The presence of the ’Holy Kings of Hungary’, signifying the connections of the family with the royal court, reflect the donor’s interference in the decorative program.

The formal analysis of the frescoes in the sanctuary suggested that they were primarily designed to function as a round system of meanings, enclosed by the architectural structure of the sanctuary, and directed to a viewer situated inside this space. Moreover, the interpretation of the depicted themes indicated the importance ascribed by the patron to his artistic donation. The choice of a specific style of painting as well as the influence of the ideological messages contained in the program were thus suggested. This opens the way for speculation as to whether the donor (and his family) were physically present within the space of the sanctuary during the religious services. This would explain the fact that important images such as the Virgin of the Protective Mantle may be seen only from this location.

The interest in embelishing the family church in Mălâncrav did not cease with the death of Nicholas Apafi. The late medieval winged altarpiece (dated to the second half of the 15th century), still preserved in the church, is also a family donation as indicated by the Apafi coat of arms painted on the left side of the predella. The altarpiece is dedicated to the Virgin Mary but it also contains a representation of Christ as Man of Sorrows

A detail of major importance for the study of the patronage in the church in Mălâncrav is the fact that the donors are represented on both lower corners of the central panel as a man and a woman kneeling in adoration. The presence of the patron saints is very important for the dating as well as for the identification of the two donors. In this case, the presence of the Archangel Michael, the patron saint behind the young man on the left, indicates that the male donor is in fact Michael Apafi, Nicholas’s grandson. The identification of the female donor is suggested by her saintly patronroness, Claire of Assisi. Consequently, the woman donor must be Claire Apafi, Michael Apafi‘s wife