Cârța Monastery

The exact founding date of the Cârța Monastery (Latin: monasterium beatae Mariae virginis in Candelis de Kerch) is unknown.

A document from Konstanz, dated 17 April 1418, issued by Sigismund, King of Hungary states vaguely that the monastery was founded, built, and awarded rights and privileges by his predecessors.

The statute of royal establishment is also pointed out in the act disbanding the monastery 27 February 1474, and was made ex auctoritate juris patronatus regii Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary.

The colonising convent was the mother abbey in Igriș (Latin Egris, Hungarian Egres), in the Banat plain, today located in Timiș County, Romania.

The foundations of this chapel of small dimension (around 8–10 metres) and massive walls, were rediscovered in the spring of 1927, by the Transylvanian Saxon art historian and archeologist Victor Roth.

A document issued on 29 January 1322 by the king Charles I of Hungary states that ten villages were in the possession of the Cistercian monastery of Cârța: Cârța (Kerch), Criț (Cruz), Meșendorf (Messendorf), Cloașterf (villa Nicholai), Apoș (villa Abbatis), Cisnădioara (monte sancti Michaelis), Feldioara (Feldwar), Colun (Colonia), Glâmboaca (Honrabah) and Cârța Românească (Kercz Olachorum) which correspond to the area between present day cities of Sibiu and Brașov and the Târnava Mare River valley.