The first ancestors of the Transylvanian 'Saxons' originally stemmed from Flanders, Hainaut, Brabant, Liège, Zeeland, Moselle, Lorraine, and Luxembourg, then situated in the north-western territories of the Holy Roman Empire around the 1140s and 1150s.

The legal foundation of their settlement in southern, southeastern, and northeastern Transylvania was officially stipulated within the Diploma Andreanum (German: Der Goldener Freibrief der Siebenbürger Sachsen, The Golden Charter of the Transylvanian Saxons, Romanian: Bula de aur a sașilor transilvăneni) issued by King Andrew II of Hungary which allocated them the royal land (Romanian: Pământul crăiesc or Pământul regal) under local autonomy known as Königsboden or Fundus Regius in Latin.

[12] The ancestors of the modern Transylvanian Saxons originally came from the contemporary Low Countries (more specifically the regions of Flanders, Hainaut, Brabant, Liège, or Zeeland) as well as the Moselle and Lorraine river valleys, and Luxembourg as well, then situated in the north-western territories of the Holy Roman Empire around the 1140s.

For centuries, the main tasks of the Transylvanian Saxons during the High Middle Ages were to protect the easternmost frontiers of the former Kingdom of Hungary against certain invading migratory Asiatic peoples, to bring more agriculture to the region, to instil Central European culture, enhance trade, and boost urbanisation and overall economic development.

[20][21] Gradually, the type of medieval German once spoken by these settlers, craftsmen, guardsmen, miners, and various other workers became locally known as Såksesch (i.e. Transylvanian Saxon; in its longest form Siweberjesch-Såksesch) and remains, still to this day, very closely related to Luxembourgish with which it shares many lexical similarities.

Nonetheless, a sizable Transylvanian Saxon population also resides today in North America, most notably in the United States (specifically in Idaho, Ohio, and Colorado as well as in Canada, southern Ontario more precisely).

Additionally, the surrounding areas of the present-day town of Sibiu/Hermannstadt (former European Capital of Culture in 2007 alongside Luxembourg City) were formed of marshlands in the High Middle Ages.

Although the primary reason for Géza II's invitation was border defence, similar to employing the Szeklers against foreign invaders in the east of Transylvania, Germans were also sought for their mining expertise as well as the ability to develop the region's economy.

Most colonists to this area came from Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Lëtzebuerg) and the Moselle River region (see for instance Medardus de Nympz, former knight and founder of the fortified village of Niemesch/Nemșa in Moșna).

To guard the mountain passes of the Carpathians (German: Karpaten) against the Cumans, the knights constructed numerous castles and towns, including the major city of Kronstadt (Romanian: Brașov).

Alarmed by the knights' rapidly expanding power, in 1225 King Andrew II expelled the Teutonic Order from Transylvania permanently, which henceforth relocated to Prussia in 1226, although the colonists remained in Burzenland.

Additionally, it is equally important to mention the fact that the family name 'Sas' or 'Sasu' in Romanian and 'Szász' respectively in Hungarian could denote both an ethnic lineage as well as a social liaison to the Saxon title awarded in Transylvania during the High Middle Ages.

Hence, taking in consideration the aforementioned regarding the Saxon title in high medieval Transylvania, the Transylvanian Saxons' ethnic consciousness subsequently solidified after the first waves of settlers from Western Europe arrived in the region and was further reinforced or revitalised with new waves of settlers from central and southern present-day Germany during the Modern Age, more specifically during the 19th century.

Furthermore, Transylvanian Saxon intellectual Stephan Ludwig Roth also pleaded for a strengthening of the German element in Transylvania during the 19th century by means of subsequent waves of settlers stemming from contemporary Germany while at the same time firstly supporting the rights of the ethnic Romanians.

Consequently, they had to pay yearly tax to the king and provide military contributions to the royal army in case of danger of attack from abroad.

In its early years, it included the territories of Hermannstadt, Leschkirch (Nocrich), and Groß-Schenk (Cincu), the areas that were colonized the earliest by ethnic Germans in the region.

Under the influence of Johannes Honterus, the great majority of the Transylvanian Saxons embraced the new creed of Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation.

[30] Almost all became Lutheran Protestants, with very few Calvinists, while other minor segments of the Transylvanian Saxon society remained staunchly Catholic (of Latin Church, more specifically) or were converted to Catholicism later on.

The Transylvanian Saxons also colonized areas outside the Carpathian arch, and, implicitly, outside their then newly native lands across Transylvania starting in the mid and mid-late 12th century.

[45][46] However, throughout the passing of time, demographically, their numbers gradually dwindled and had been subsequently assimilated in the local medieval Wallachian and Moldavian cultures by the overwhelming Romanian ethnic majority.

Stephan Ludwig Roth, an Evangelical Lutheran pastor and intellectual who led the German support for Romanian political rights, eventually opposed the unification of Transylvania with Hungary and was executed by the Hungarian military tribunal during the revolution.

Although the Hungarian control over Transylvania was defeated by Austrian and Imperial Russian forces in 1849, the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (German: Ausgleich) between Austria and Hungary in 1867 did not represent a positive transformation for the political rights of the Transylvanian Saxons.

Subsequently, taking into account the rise of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, many Transylvanian Saxons became staunch supporters of national socialism, with the Evangelical Lutheran Church losing, eventually, very much of its influence in the community as time passed by, shortly before and during the outbreak of World War II.

In February 1942 and May 1943, Germany concluded agreements with Hungary and Romania respectively, following which the Germans who were fit for military service, although they were either Hungarian citizens (in northern Transylvania, entered the composition of the Hungarian state through the Second Vienna Award) or Romanian citizens (in southern Transylvania, remaining part of Romania), could be incorporated into the regular German military units, into the Waffen-SS and into war-producing enterprises or into the Organisation Todt.

As a result of these agreements, approximately 95% of the members of the German ethnic group who were fit for military service (Transylvanian Saxons and Banat Swabians) voluntarily enrolled into the Waffen-SS units (approximately 63,000 people), with several thousand serving in the special units of the SS Security Service (SD-Sonderkommandos), of which at least 2,000 ethnic Germans were enrolled in the concentration camps (KZ-Wachkompanien), of which at least 55% served in extermination camps, predominantly in Auschwitz and Lublin.

However, more than 70,000 Germans from Romania were arrested by the Soviet Army and sent to labour camps in contemporary Ukraine (more specifically in Donbas) for alleged cooperation with Nazi Germany.

At the same time, especially after Romania's accession to NATO and the EU, many Transylvanian Saxons are returning from Germany, reclaiming property lost to the former communist regime and/or starting up small and medium-sized enterprises.

The traditional cuisine of the Transylvanian Saxons is very similar to that of the Romanians and the Hungarians living in Transylvania as well as to those of the Germans, Austrians, or Alemannic Swiss (i.e. from German-speaking Switzerland).

[55] Another notable example of a traditional Transylvanian Saxon dish is kipferl (Romanian: cornulețe) which can be filled with vanilla, many types of fruit jams, but also with meat.

The lyricist was Maximilian Leopold Moltke and the composer was Transylvanian Saxon Johann Lukas Hedwig from Hălchiu (German: Heldsdorf).