Naming Villages and Other Crimes

~ The Curious Case of Transylvania’s Sâmbătas and Suspicions ~

It was said - though by whom, no one precisely recalled - that Transylvania had more village disputes per square kilometre than vineyards per Saxon capita. And while some of those disputes were over noble matters (like whether the Archangel Michael would approve of using sheep’s milk in communion bread), others were of a more bureaucratic nature: namely, what in the name of Saint Ladislaus one ought to call a village.

Take Sâmbăta (en. Saturday), for instance. No, not that Sâmbăta. The other one. Or the other other one. If you were a travelling merchant in the mid-15th century and someone asked, "Are you heading through Sâmbăta?" your first instinct would be to feign a nosebleed and disappear into the woods at a suspiciously athletic trot. You see, there was Sâmbăta in Bihor, the modest one with no ambition beyond a decent Saturday market and a goat that could hum Gregorian chants - much to the envy of Tuesday, which never recovered its sense of purpose. Then, as your ox-cart trundled southeast through the Carpathians, you'd reach the tangled web of Sâmbăta de Sus and Sâmbăta de Jos - Upper and Lower Sâmbăta, respectively - divided not by geography but by the theological schism over whether Saint Andrew had ever worn sandals.

But why, you might ask, would so many places carry the same name, like confused siblings in a particularly large family with only one hand-me-down tunic between them? Some say it was the monks who started it. Others blame travelling notaries, whose handwriting resembled the tracks of startled hens. But deep within the walls of a citadel, a dusty scroll tells the story of a naming tradition gone rogue.

Legend tells of a monk named Brother Kaspar from a monastery near what is now Sâmbăta de Sus. After a particularly heated dispute over lentil tithes - during which one of the novices stormed out, claiming the prior was hoarding lentils and frying the accounts - he descended to the lower village in search of compromise (and better ale). There, he was met by the elders of Sâmbăta de Jos, who were midway through renaming their town to simply "Sâmbăta" to confuse papal envoys. The elders were already embroiled in debate:

"We should call it Greater Sâmbăta," proposed Elder Horia. "It sounds important."

"Or Sâmbăta Imperial," mused Elder Gheorghe, swirling his wine. "Has a certain grandeur."

"What if we just call it 'Sâmbăta Proper' and let the others fight it out?" suggested Elder Ilie, whose sense of irony was not universally appreciated.

Brother Kaspar cleared his throat. "Brethren, may I offer a thought—"

"You from the upper hillock!" Elder Toma cut in. "You cannot be the Sâmbăta," he scoffed. "You are above us, yes - but in spirit, you dwell in clouds."

"I didn’t come here to… but… " Kaspar replied, slamming his staff with just enough drama, "by God!, it is only we who possess the illuminated manuscripts and two entire chickens that read Latin."

"…And we," countered Toma, now wiping plum brandy from his moustache, "have the trout stream and four children who can yodel."

The debate ended when a Saxon cartographer, who had been quietly listening from a darkened corner of the hall, finally stood up. Without a word, he unrolled a map - half-nibbled at the edges by a goat that had taken a peculiar interest in parchment - and pointed to two marked spots that read: "Sâmbăta de Sus" and "Sâmbăta de Jos." The elders nodded solemnly. The goat bleated with authority.

From there, the tradition of creatively naming villages spiralled. Nearby Veneția de Sus and Veneția de Jos were not, as the name suggests, the result of Italian settlers seeking higher ground, nor born of any shared fondness for gondolas. Rather, their names arose from a papal clerical mishap, a disoriented Venetian merchant, and a herd of buffalo with the quiet self-assurance of retired generals.

It began, predictably, with paperwork. Somewhere in the less-ventilated corner of a diocesan office — possibly Alba Iulia, possibly a converted wine cellar — a junior scribe was instructed to transcribe a short Latin note granting venia (permission) to rebuild a chapel roof. What emerged was Veneția, complete with a flourish, a questionable accent, and the ecclesiastical seal of someone who clearly wasn’t paying attention. Historians remain divided on whether the scribe was inebriated, overly fond of tinctures, or merely the victim of poor schooling and excellent plum brandy. Regardless, the error was dispatched, and the village — finding itself unexpectedly renamed after a city of canals — simply nodded and made the best of it.

Matters might have rested there were it not for Alvise della Strozzatura, a Venetian spice merchant of medium repute and limited navigational instinct, who found himself in the region in the spring of 1472. Having misread a Saxon road sign rendered in High German / Low Patience, Alvise wandered into a hamlet surrounded not by water, but by mud, hills, and buffalo who looked as though they disapproved of Venice on principle. Introducing himself to Father Gavrilă, the local priest — a man whose sermons routinely curdled milk — Alvise suggested renaming the village La Serenissima de Ardeal, citing its “excellent breeze” and “agreeable aroma of damp livestock.”

Father Gavrilă, without so much as lifting his eyes from a worn psalter, replied:

“You may have palaces built on water. But we have buffalo that remember insults from 1431!*”

Alvise, mortally wounded in pride if not in body, vowed that upon his return to Venice (if he ever located it), he would draw a map of Transylvania so wildly inaccurate it would scandalise geographers and omit all cheeses by name. Back then, this was considered an act of war in some parts of Mureș, the neighbouring county.

The name Veneția stuck. Possibly out of confusion. Possibly because correcting papal documents was considered more dangerous than plague. Eventually, when another settlement nearby received grain shipments addressed to Veneția as well, the locals took the pragmatic route: they simply added "de Jos" and insisted the other one add "de Sus" for symmetry. Both denied being the first.

And so, life went on, quietly. In Veneția de Jos, the principal dispute was whether the town well ought to be painted yellow or ochre. In Veneția de Sus, the issue was whether the name was aspirational. As one elderly matron - frau Elisabeta - declared while feeding her livestock: “If Venice sinks, perhaps we can trade places.”

By the time Sâmbăta Nouă (New Saturday) emerged in Tulcea - eastern Romania, near the Danube Delta - no one was quite sure what was being renewed. Was it the village, the Saturday, or the patience of the local priest? The founding document simply read: "Să fie alta Sâmbăta, mai nouă, mai aproape de peşte." (Let there be another Sâmbăta, newer, and closer to fish.)

What history records as coincidence may have, in fact, been the result of a very long, meandering joke shared among shepherds, monks, and border guards too bored to care about consistency. They had only one rule: never name a village after what it actually was. Hence, no Luni (Monday), no Marți (Tuesday), and just the endless proliferation of Sâmbătas, as if Transylvania itself were stuck in an ecclesiastical weekend that no amount of cartography could resolve.

It is said that in the early spring of 1531**, a papal emissary named Bartolomeo della Confusione set out from Rome armed with a satchel of indulgences, two barrels of holy water, and a scroll listing villages that needed either blessing or renaming. By the time he crossed into Transylvania, he had already blessed the same buffalo twice and narrowly escaped a duel in Brașov over whether absolution could be granted retroactively for pickled turnip theft. When he arrived at Sâmbăta - he never figured out which one - it was raining, his scroll was soggy, and his translator had eloped with a woman from Făgăraș whose sole dowry was a pig with prophetic tendencies.

Desperate for clarity, Bartolomeo attempted to conduct a census. The villagers, out of either mischief or hospitality, offered him plum brandy until he declared every Sâmbăta "equally blessed" and scribbled a note in the margins: "Henceforth: Sighișoara-ish." No one knew what it meant, but the term stuck—passed down in whispers by travelling cobblers and confused abbots who thought it a place, a state of mind, or perhaps a condition brought on by too much smoked cheese.

To this day, in the darker corners of Transylvanian inns, when a stranger asks directions to Sâmbăta, the barkeep pours a shot, raises an eyebrow, and mutters, "Which one, friend? North, south, old, new, or... Sighișoara-ish?"

And so it was written. Or at least shouted from a cart with a squeaky axle.

*1431 – Year of birth of Vlad III Dracula (also known as Vlad the Impaler). Born in Sighișoara, fond of impalement, unpopular with invaders and furniture-makers alike. Buffalo “remembering insults” suggests that these creatures have endured everything from papal mix-ups to Wallachian warlords and still harbour a quiet, cud-chewing grudge. (n.a.)

**1531 – A year of minor importance in most of Europe, but of great logistical difficulty for Bartolomeo della Confusione, who spent it attempting to bless a region that refused to stand still long enough to be mapped. It is said his final report to Rome consisted of a crude sketch of a buffalo, a wine-stained napkin, and the phrase “they seem content, but deeply uncooperative.” (n.a.)