Prestige at Work

Goldsmiths have always raised interest among the§scholars, most of all because their intermediary§status between those who worked and those who§authored. In early modern Transylvania, the§goldsmith craftsmen of Cluj/Kolozsvár gradually§became members of the high elite of the town. The§reasons behind this varied. After the catastrophe of§Mohács (1526), when the medieval Hungarian Kingdom§fell to the Turks, the role of the town changed§considerably within the new born Principality of§Transylvania. Within the new geo-political reality,§the newly granted privileges yielded advantages that§fostered the development of crafts and trade.§Furthermore, the proximity to the gold and silver§mines and the mint promoted even more to the rise of§the goldsmiths. Thus, in a relatively short time the§goldsmiths of Cluj/Kolozsvár became more than§artisans. Many of them were involved in long distance§or local trade, invested in estates or became high§the leaders of the town. Although it is hard to§delineate a craft segregation within the townscape,§it can be asserted that the goldsmith houses were§gathered close to the town center, and their§constituency grew around the town hall and mint.