It was built by a nobleman whose family later sold it to the local ethnic German Transylvanian Saxon community at a time when the area belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary.

When still used for defensive purposes, the double walls encompassed a residential keep, storerooms and a Roman Catholic chapel that became Lutheran following the Reformation.

The Mongol invasion of 1241 prompted a surge in military construction in Transylvania, with wood and earthen defenses abandoned in favor of stone, assembled in haste and without much initial attention to artistic detail.

[2] Once the Saxon community took ownership, they extended it by building a second fortification wall and a tower in the southern part, using the structure for refuge during Ottoman raids.

[4] At the end of the 15th century, a small hall church-type chapel with an apse was built for the fort[2] on the site of an earlier, ruined sacral building.

[4] In 1999, Câlnic, together with five other places, was added to the already-listed Biertan to form the villages with fortified churches in Transylvania UNESCO World Heritage Site.